How they managed to cram five writers into the credits is anyone's guess
(but I'll bet they went through a lot of Crayons)
(but I'll bet they went through a lot of Crayons)
Bruno Mars
Just the Way You Are
Ass Kissing
#33 (HiMid)
Peter Hernandez
Philip Lawrence
Ari Levine
Khalil Walton
Khari Cain
The Smeezingtons
Needlz
Just the Way You Are
Ass Kissing
#33 (HiMid)
Peter Hernandez
Philip Lawrence
Ari Levine
Khalil Walton
Khari Cain
The Smeezingtons
Needlz
Artist:
Play:
Style:
Billboard:
Writer(s):
Producer(s):
Play:Style:
Billboard:
Writer(s):
Producer(s):
This whole project
was conceived because I was going to rectify my ignorance of popular
music, not for me to be a hateful dick, but the last song to cross my
desk that wasn't a shriekingly awful piece of cynical fluff was
Ke$ha. In February. And that was cynical commercial fluff, too; it just wasn't
awful.
I never thought I'd
be nostalgic for Ke$ha.
Bruno Mars still
kind of bugs me, and this song is still a Run!, but it has three
things going for it: it's not as bad as “Marry You (Just Say YeahYeah Yeah Yeah Yeah),” it doesn't feature Chris Brown, and it's not
a cover of a Billy Joel song.
I can't even begin
to communicate how glad I am that this isn't Bruno Mars covering a
Billy Joel's 80s hit “Just the Way You Are.” He looks the type, archly glancing from behind his piano with his little hat... I'm sure he's
played "Only the Good Die Young" at a piano bar at least once. But
this is not that. It's only a small reprieve, though, as this is the
next in the seemingly unbreakable string of Run!s that are dominating
this blog.
Oh her eyes, her
eyes
Make the stars look
like they're not shining
Her hair, her hair
Falls perfectly
without her trying
She's so beautiful
and I tell her every day
Make the stars look
like they're not shining
Her hair, her hair
Falls perfectly
without her trying
She's so beautiful
and I tell her every day
The problem I have
with Mars is most likely what makes him popular in the first place:
mawkishly sap in the lyrics over simple pop chords. “Just the Way
You Are” has the kind of childish lack of romance that could have
been recorded by New Kids on the Block. This is what a little kid
thinks of love when their first kiss is still years away. It's
the kind of thing that should be sequestered on the Disney Channel
until it reaches the legal drinking age, but High School Musical
broke the gates open and these songs are allowed to wander around
unchaperoned.
I'm willing to bet
the only reason this song doesn't have the same fan base as The Ready Set is the picture on the poster. I wonder if that hampers its
sales. “Bruno! Great song! Um, Bob from marketing here-- can we
make you look like a fourteen year old boy with a girl's haircut? We
could really sell this to the tweens.”
I'm willing to bet
the only reason this song doesn't have the same fan base as The Ready Set is the picture on the poster. I wonder if that hampers its
sales. “Bruno! Great song! Um, Bob from marketing here-- can we
make you look like a fourteen year old boy with a girl's haircut? We
could really sell this to the tweens.”
Since this is
Bruno's second appearance here, I've got a limited set of songs to
draw from... but since I'd heard the previous song, I somehow felt like I'd
already heard this one: I heard that falsetto coming at 2:38 before
he hit it. It's basically the same part as the “Just say I do”
falsetto bridge in “Marry You.” I was never going to call Bruno
Mars original, but it seems like he's written one song, has a
producer modify it slightly, and is releasing it as a handful of
singles.
