Eamon Blog
Today's Shelf Pull: Bruno Mars, Unorthodox Jukebox
Big gestures, short songs, and a well-placed change of pace.
Bruno Mars keeps Unorthodox Jukebox moving between bold pop hooks, funk and a quieter piano-led centre. Read the full story from Kilmorna in Listowel.
Bruno Mars gives Unorthodox Jukebox a useful kind of restlessness. The songs change their clothes without changing the person wearing them. On vinyl, its ten tracks divide evenly across two sides, making the shifts in mood easy to follow rather than something to untangle.
Released in 2012, this is his second studio album. Pop is the organising principle, with funk, soul and R&B supplying different ways of moving through a song. The melodic line remains the handrail, even when the performance is making a considerable entrance.
That balance is the pleasure here: plenty of display, but a clear route through it. For today's shelf pull in Listowel, the invitation is straightforward. Listen beyond the familiar hooks and notice how much of the record depends on contrast.
Young Girls opens Side A, followed by Locked Out Of Heaven. Together they establish the album's appetite for large hooks and energetic delivery. There is little sense of an overture before the main business. The opening songs are already doing the job.
Gorilla and Treasure bring the funk and R&B elements further into view. Listen for the relationship between the rhythmic pulse and the vocal presence: neither is merely background furniture. The songs want movement, but they also want your attention on the singer.
Treasure lasts just under three minutes, a useful reminder that an expansive personality does not require an expansive running time. Its place after Gorilla changes the proportions of Side A. The record can make a big gesture and still keep an eye on the clock.
Moonshine closes that side, giving its dramatic streak the final word before the turn. Taken together, these five songs make a compact introduction to the album's range. There is variety, certainly, but the hooks keep the sequence from feeling like a demonstration of different styles.
The side break matters as a listening pause, not as a claim about how this edition sounds. Moonshine and When I Was Your Man sit on opposite sides of it. That physical division gives the change in emphasis a small space of its own.
When I Was Your Man opens Side B with piano and a more exposed vocal performance. After the busier gestures of the first side, the reduction is noticeable. There is less competing for attention, and the emotional weight rests more directly on Mars's delivery.
The useful listening question is not simply whether this is the quiet song. It is what the quieter setting asks you to notice. The voice becomes the main event without needing the same scale of accompaniment. Restraint has a practical role in this sequence.
Natalie follows, returning the album to its taste for drama and storytelling. Placing those songs beside one another keeps Side B from settling into a single emotional temperature. The contrast makes the piano ballad feel like part of the album's argument, not an interruption.
Show Me and Money Make Her Smile occupy the next two positions. It is worth giving this stretch the same attention as the opening run. An album with conspicuous hooks can tempt you to listen from landmark to landmark and overlook the road between them.
If I Knew closes the record in two minutes and thirteen seconds, the shortest track here. On paper alone, that is an economical exit. In the sequence, its brevity offers a useful counterweight to all the album's larger gestures: the last word need not be the longest.
What holds Unorthodox Jukebox together is not one fixed mood. It is the recurring emphasis on melody and vocal character. The stylistic changes give those constants different surroundings, rather than demanding a fresh explanation with every song.
There is room here for the listener who wants the immediate hook and for the one who pays attention to sequencing. Neither approach requires homework. A second pass can simply mean noticing the joins instead of waiting for favourites.
For a Listowel shelf pull, that is recommendation enough: a concise pop album with a generous appetite. Let both sides have their say, including the quieter opening of Side B and the brief goodbye at the end.
On the shelf today:
Bruno Mars - Unorthodox Jukebox
LP, 2012
Pop
EUR 25.95
Available from The Kilmorna Collection, Listowel
Buy or reserve: https://www.thekilmornacollection.com/vinyl/bruno-mars-unorthodox-jukebox
Buying vinyl records in Ireland: https://www.thekilmornacollection.com/vinyl-records-ireland
On the shelf today
Bruno Mars - Unorthodox Jukebox
LP / Pop / 2012
EUR25.95 / Available now
Order / Reserve