Bruno Mars – I Just Might

A true multi-hyphenate: 2026 Record Store Day ambassador, prolific purveyor of Italian brainrot, and sometime pop star…

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[5.81]

Nortey Dowuona: Bruno Mars had a simple proposition: Be a smug douche in a well-adored fedora, play the guitar pretty well, sing with a strong bright tenor, and make millions and soon billions. Unfortunately, it worked far too well. It made him a burgeoning superstar, but the wrong kind — the kind that people fruitlessly wring their hands about despite not being very wild or coherent — and thus the strategy had to be abandoned. Gone was the fedora, gone was the soft, cocksure charm, gone was the easy listening schtick (which to this day is one of the best things he does), in place of a melange of grab bags for importance and curio status. And this also worked — but again, too well. People pegged that he was slipping into retro ’80s/’90s pop in order to revitalize his inert career, something that others did with a genuine air of sincerity and distance from homage. Mars is now between a rock and a hard place. Even sharing the wealth wasn’t enough. So he hid out wherever would take him in order to survive the shellacking, then return, hoping he would happily be welcomed back. So far, this too seems to be working, but what was abandoned in this chase for our pleasure centers?
[6]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Between chart-topping collabs with Rosé, Lady Gaga, Cardi B, and Sexyy Red, and a whole Silk Sonic album with Anderson .Paak, it’s hard to believe that it’s really been a decade since Bruno Mars released a whole album. Did we get a decade’s worth of growth since 2016? Not quite: “I Just Might” could have been released at nearly any time in his career, which is to say it’s at once timeless and seemingly out of dialogue with 99% of the charts right now. Bruno Mars is gonna Bruno Mars. 
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Al Varela: This feels like Bruno playing down to his own well-worn style: retro-pastiche with glitzy guitars, a funky groove, a blaring brass section, and a music video where Bruno wears a goofy outfit, mugs the camera, and dances his little heart out. Ever since “Die With a Smile” and “APT.”, it’s become clear that Bruno can turn whatever anyone asks of him into a hit with a wink and a smile. He has no reason to improve. And yet every time I hear this song and that glorious hook, the little inflections in Bruno’s voice as he ponders what good a booty is if it can’t find the beat, and even those cheap little “doo doo doo”s, I get wrapped up in his charm all over again. He can’t keep getting away with this.
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Alfred Soto: But I can ignore his chops and his commitment to soul necromancy. 
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Ian Mathers: Fairly standard Bruno Mars stuff: pleasantly competent, vaguely retro, always feels like he’s pastiching someone even when he’s not. About as anonymous as one can be with a recognizable voice. It’s just too bad he pulled the “playing all the instruments” shtick in the video, because it only reminds me there are people who do that but more interestingly.
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Edward Okulicz: Picking on Bruno Mars for pastiche is beside the point, but generally he hides his sources a little better than this. When this isn’t “Move Your Feet.” it’s “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.” Reviewing his singles prematurely puts one at risk of being badly wrong: they’re often underwhelming at first, but as you hear them more and more, perhaps at a wedding, or blaring out of someone’s car, or in a moderately hip clothing store, you realise he makes bangers out of other bangers, Frankenbangers. However, I’ve heard this one plenty, and while I remain strongly in favour of modern pop artists trying to become Leo Sayer, you’ve got to make me want to listen to your song more than Leo Sayer’s.
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Hannah Jocelyn: What does it mean that even post-peak Nicki Minaj used “Move Your Feet” better? I’m also thinking of “The Hustle” and “Walking on Sunshine”, but “I Just Might” can’t even match those one-hit wonders. 
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Katherine St. Asaph: If Bruno Mars is “ChatR&B” (apologies to contribute to the PBR&Bing, but that’s perfect), Katrina and the Waves is clearly in the latent space. And don’t it feel good? I mean, in 30-second doses?
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TA Inskeep: Yes, this is Mars in sleepwalking mode, he so effortlessly apes other genres and eras. And the verses are fairly dull. But then the chorus comes and explodes into KC and the Sunshine Band and, well, I’ve gotta smile.
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Claire Davidson: Sometimes you don’t realize how much you value an artist until they’ve emerged from a prolonged absence. Granted, Bruno Mars has never really been gone from the zeitgeist—in the past two years, he’s lent his voice to the kind of world–dominating hits that feel deliberately engineered to rule the airwaves for years to come—but his last solo release came out nearly a decade ago. Mars has never really been a boundary-pushing artist; he’s a showman first and foremost (hence the duration of his Vegas residency), who’s always found his greatest success in playing the hits of R&B eras past. But that very pliancy makes him sound just as vital over ten years removed from his zenith: he can take an extended hiatus and still sound right at home upon return, even though both pop music and the world at large have irrevocably changed. I was initially underwhelmed by the musical simplicity of “I Just Might”; it builds its central groove with only a buzzy funk guitar, bongos, and some handclaps, before introducing some more extravagant trumpets on the hook. But there are so many earworms packed into this track’s three-and-a-half minute runtime that it feels like a straight showcase of Mars’s songwriting chops, from the repeated phrases on the pre-chorus to the ah-ah-ah backing vocals on the hook. Despite the song’s rampant catchiness, “I Just Might” never feels manipulative in its composition, thanks in large part to Bruno Mars’s abundant personality. He uses his usual hype-man bravado here to show his genuine interest in a dance-floor partner, with dashes of humor that only further highlight his excitement. (“What good is beauty if your booty can’t find the beat? / I don’t wanna know, girl, so please don’t do that to me!”) It’s tremendously refreshing to hear a song from a performer who sounds like he’s grinning from ear to ear as he implores a DJ to find his girl a good beat.
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Leah Isobel: As mercenary and craft-driven as Bruno is, American pop’s ongoing famine of personality and joy makes “I Just Might” feel refreshing. It feels like someone actually cared what this sounded like! How rare.
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Julian Axelrod: It’s never felt less cool to like Bruno Mars, an artist more synonymous with weddings than the Hora or blood diamonds are. But guess what: Songs get played at weddings because people like dancing to them! And we need more songs explicitly shaming people for not dancing! Especially at weddings!
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Scott Mildenhall: Sounds like a pastiche for wedding receptions, but is really a dark pattern for those seeking acquisition by the Brandon Flowers of soul. Sure, he’ll get you dancing with his crunchy-smooth spread, and he will evaluate your performance. But that’s subordinate to his first requirement: that you talk like you walk. Perhaps he means “rhythmically, with your legs.” Perhaps the vision of a Wigan Casino revival makes him forget he said it. More likely, he’s once more tricking people into dancing in the presence of all their friends. So actually it is just a pastiche for wedding receptions.
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Taylor Alatorre: Absent any Anderson .Paak-assisted virtuosity, I’m left to be tickled by the lyrical implications of a failure state whose existence feels more palpable than in most songs of this type. I want to see Bruno clowning on this girl PaRappa the Rapper-style for her downright shameful booty-shaking attempts.
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Andrew Karpan: For Mr. Mars, dancing is work, which explains the Motown worship that runs spiritually deeper than the Michael worship. Such expressions of pure, shiny pop power can feel as resigned and melancholy as a Mitski record and as fascist as eating from a slop bowl. The music is playing, and you, you must move, move correctly, correctly right now. Even dressed in velvet suits the modest and brilliant color of ‘70s techno film, we’re still working for the knife. 
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Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: All of the schtick and flourish of his previous work, none of the hooks or pathos. Regardless, likely to be my mom’s favorite song of the year.
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