BILLIONS CLUB: Bruno Mars (8/373)

BILLIONS CLUB

Bruno Mars (8/373)

61/373 = 16%

   Yesterday a new song- The Business, by Tiesto, was added to the BILLIONS CLUB playlist, so now we are talking 373 songs, not 372.  That's the first new member in two weeks, which suggests that new billion streamers are not commonplace, as one might expect.   In many, many, many ways Bruno Mars is the least interesting artist member of the Billions Club in that his rise represents an utterly conventional music industry pairing a charismatic stage presence with strong writing credentials (he had a publishing deal before he was an artist) and an insider's understanding of the business (his AR contact was Aaron Bay-Schuck, who is now the CEO of Warner Records, largely based on the strength of Mars' performance since 2010.   As such, Mars isn't a streaming era artist, but rather an artist who was on top when streaming came on line.  Four of his eight songs were on the inaugural BILLIONS CLUB playlist in 2021 and each of those tracks was from a different album/project.   Since then Mars has continued to place new tracks in the BILLIONS CLUB, most recently in January of 2023 when the lead single from his Silk Sonic project crossed the threshold.  Mars also has one track from Doo Wops & Hooligans (I can barely type that title out without cringing!) at 966 million, making it a likely ninth BILLIONS CLUB track for him.

   I guess, I could pick apart the production on the different songs and albums but all you really need to know is that every single one of his hits was a combination of talent, production and marketing in which Mars himself played a crucial but not necessarily unreplaceable part.  I sense that Mars, like Bieber, simply occupies a place in the music industry eco-system in a way like more individual distinctive BILLIONS CLUBS members, say, The Weeknd or even Ariana Grande, do not.   What I mean is that you wouldn't ever call Bruno Mars a protean talent, he's more of a savvy operator.  His artistic identity is extremely popular but you would be hard pressed to find a single person who would talk to you about the art of Bruno Mars- I'm just talking about in comparison to other members of the BILLIONS CLUB, not some romantic conception of the artist.