7 October 2010
Remember when Bruno Mars was a fresh, exciting new act? Hah! Trick question. Yes, unlike the latter-day Martian retro soul schtick, its faddish-for-2010 mix of beats and piano make ‘Just The Way You Are’ sound like it was made by people who acknowledge the existence of pop music made after 1975. Otherwise, though, this corny, self-satisfied love-song-by-numbers schmaltz would have fitted The Osmonds or some other scarily wholesome ’70s light-entertainment vocal group.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, ‘Just The Way You Are’ perpetuates that horrible trope of a man being the gatekeeper of a woman’s self-worth, which exists only in cosmetic form. Plus at the start of the video Bruno just snatches the headphones off the girl’s head, takes the cassette out of her Walkman and pulls out all the tape! (Young people: A cassette is… A Walkman is…) Granted, it’s a cassette of ‘Just The Way You Are’, so you can see it as a wellbeing intervention of sorts. Still, I wish that ruined tape had been the only recording of the song in existence.
