Uptown Funk
Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars
The credits list grew by half a dozen names after the song hit number one - and the reason has nothing to do with Bruno Mars.
Uptown Funk hit No.1 for 14 weeks - then its songwriting credits grew by half a dozen names.
Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars built the track as a love letter to early-'80s Minneapolis funk. The tribute landed so close to its inspiration that members of the Gap Band and the group Collage ended up with writing credit after a settlement.
Which surprised you more: the 14-week reign at No.1, or the expanded credits?
A tribute written too close to the original
Ronson and Mars spent months chasing a sound, not a hit: the swagger of early-80s Minneapolis funk, the horn-and-bass strut the Gap Band made famous. They built the groove first and wrote the song around it, releasing it in November 2014 as the lead single from Ronson's album Uptown Special. The homage worked almost too well.
Not about anything - on purpose
There's no love story or confession here: Uptown Funk is a brag track, a celebration of being too fly for the room. That simplicity is also what got it into trouble. The song doesn't just sound like late-70s and early-80s funk, it echoes specific records from that era closely enough that two acts noticed themselves in it after release.
Did you know?
- Ronson told Rolling Stone the track went through months of rewrites and scrapped versions before the final groove was locked.
- Horns and bass were tracked live and mixed to sound analog, avoiding the clean digital-funk sound common at the time.
- Jeff Bhasker, who co-produced hits for Kanye West and fun., worked alongside Ronson on the final arrangement.
- Spent 14 weeks at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100, one of the longest runs in the chart's history.
- Won Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 2016 Grammy Awards.
- Certified 15x Platinum by the RIAA for U.S. sales and streaming equivalents.
- Topped the UK Official Singles Chart for seven weeks and was certified Platinum by the BPI.
- Featured as a playable track in the video game Just Dance 2016.
