Bruno Mars – Risk It All

Checking in with The Romantic…

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[5.38]Al Varela: Despite my love for “I Just Might”, I somehow wound up a bit underwhelmed by The Romantic. This is best illustrated by its opening song, which you’d think would be refreshingly different coming from Bruno: a full on Latin love ballad where Bruno croons about risking it all for this special girl, complete with the romantic flutter of a Spanish guitar, groovy bongos and sweeping trumpets. This should be working for me and it’s just not. Part of me thinks that without Bruno’s Vegas charm he becomes a much less engaging vocalist for me (similar gripe I have with “Die With A Smile”), but the song itself is pretty basic and predictable. This could be a Doo-Wops and Hooligans B-side in another life. I can be very forgiving of Bruno making basic, commercial music, but he’s also proven himself enough that I know he can do better.
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Julian Axelrod: So frustrating as both a single and the first song on a new Bruno Mars album — a spot previously reserved for the likes of “Grenade,” “24K Magic” and uhhh “Young Girls.” Technically pristine but limp and hookless, with none of the wink or bombast that make you feel like you’re stepping out of a time machine into the coolest party of yesteryear. Speaking of “Grenade,” when you start your first album with “I will stab myself in the hand if you leave me” your grand romantic gesture can’t be “I will climb a mountain.” Really makes me wish I gave “I Just Might” the [8] it deserved.
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Alfred Soto: Bruno will run through a fire, swim across the sea, and wade through a dozen mariachi band members for you.
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Nortey Dowuona: Me before listening. …damn, he really did not listen. Good singing tho.
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Claire Davidson: I didn’t feel the same antipathy that most of the critical set expressed toward Bruno Mars’s new album, but his choice to open The Romantic with a song as apprehensive as “Risk It All” doesn’t exactly help me make a case for it. The song begins with Mars in a more confessional mode, paired with only a Spanish guitar strum as he wistfully proclaims his loyalty to a partner, the echo of his voice surrounding him like a halo. Yet the track seems so devoted to the concept of incorporating bolero into its rhythms that its instrumental broadening leaves Mars struggling to forge that same sense of intimacy, resulting in a vocal performance so outsized it renders the song’s already grandiose lyrics akin to “Grenade” levels of hyperbole. To his credit, Mars himself sounds great on the track, hitting high notes with the kind of pained devotion that works for the lyrics’ almost resigned brand of fealty. If only one could hear him amidst the trumpets and the conga beat.
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Tim de Reuse: A pretty good mariachi-tinged ballad, but what’s Bruno Mars doing on it? His voice has too much of a harsh synthpop edge on it to fit alongside the acts he’s deliberately referencing. He’s spending more energy outshining the otherwise well-arranged mariachi band than he is wooing me; the net effect is that he sounds more like a celebrity than a lover. On “Uptown Funk” et al., that’s not a problem, but here you could never buy his supposed vulnerability. What are you even risking, man? You sound bored when you hit the high notes!
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Ian Mathers: Very funny for the most solidly MOR star of his generation to call a song that, tbh.
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Will Adams: Risk what?
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