Uptown Funk

Background

In 2012, Ronson produced songs for Bruno Mars' second studio album Unorthodox Jukebox, including the singles "Locked Out of Heaven" and "Gorilla". In June 2014, Ronson told Capital FM that he and Mars planned on working together again: "He's had a [sic] incredible run and it was great to be able to work on that record with him and hopefully we'll be making music for a while. [He puts on an] amazing live show." Ronson and Uptown Special co-producer Jeff Bhasker would set up shop whenever and wherever they found time with Mars, eventually recording in Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Vancouver, Memphis and New York City. Mars wound up playing drums throughout the album, as well as co-writing "Uptown Funk". Part of the track was recorded at Cherry Beach Sound in Toronto.

On 9 October 2014, Mike Mullaney (Music Director/Assistant Program Director at CBS Radio/WBMX), listened to the song, which was sent to CBS Radio for testing, and called it "the greatest song of all time". He added "The Ronson/Bruno tune is like JamesBrown/RickJames/TheTime jamming w/ badass brass band", describing it as "Filthy, funky" and complementing Bruno's vocals, "Bruno simply wails".

In April 2015, it was revealed that a settlement had been reached with The Gap Band's publishing company, Minder Music, to add core group members Charlie Wilson, Robert Wilson, Ronnie Wilson, keyboardist Rudolph Taylor and producer Lonnie Simmons as co-writers, due to the song's similarities to "Oops Upside Your Head", and that they would receive a 17% songwriting credit. Minder Music filed a claim into YouTube's content management system, which prevented publishers from receiving their payment.

Ronson, in an interview granted to Digital Spy, confessed that the song was to be entitled "Don't Believe me Just Watch". The earlier version of the song had "an inexplicable hard-rock breakdown and a chorus, in which Bruno Mars shouted, "Burn this motherfucker down!". They spent months working on the chorus until they came up the idea of not having one. The song almost didn't see the light of the day due to its early versions.

Composition and influences

"Uptown Funk" is in the key of D Dorian with a time signature of 4
4 and has a tempo of 115 beats per minute. "Uptown Funk" is also heavily influenced by the Minneapolis sound of the early 1980s, pioneered by Prince, The Time with Morris Day, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis with a touch of boogie of The Gap Band, and Zapp and a slight modern EDM twist. According to Ronson in Rolling Stone, the song "animates a Minneapolis groove." According to Chris Molanphy of Slate, "Uptown Funk" is a "brazen return to the electro-funk of the early ’80s."

According to Billboard writer Sean Ross, the song is widely influenced by funk artists and their songs. This includes Zapp's "More Bounce to the Ounce", One Way's "Cutie Pie", The Gap Band's "I Don't Believe You Want to Get Up and Dance (Oops Up Side Your Head)" and "Early in the Morning", Earth, Wind & Fire's "Getaway", The Sequence's "Funk You Up", The Sugarhill Gang's "Apache", George Kranz's "Trommeltanz (Din Daa Daa)" and The Time's "Cool" and "Jungle Love". The only song specifically credited on "Uptown Funk" is Trinidad James' 2012 top 10 R&B and rap hit "All Gold Everything". However, many of the songs cited "were released during the worst period of a 'disco backlash' that effectively kept all types of black music, not just disco, off of top 40", while "Uptown Funk" received instant airplay at top 40 radio.

Charles Moniz, one of the several engineers of the song, said that he helped with the "doh" vocal bass line on the track. Philip Lawrence said they needed an opening bassline, however Lawrence couldn't play the bass. Moniz told him to sing it. "That became what stayed on the album", according to Moniz. The team had been stuck on the chorus for a while, came offstage after a show one night and proclaimed: "I got it". Some of the track progressive phases were done on "makeshift studios" set up by Moniz in dressing rooms.

Reception

Nick Murray of Rolling Stone was positive, giving the song a rating of 4 out of 5 stars, praising "some George Kranz scatting and a Nile Rodgers guitar riff." He also wrote that Mars, Ronson and The Hooligans "channel the days when brags weren't humble and disco wasn't retro." Brennan Carley of Spin Magazine noted that "Mars sounds a bit like Nelly on the track, sing-rapping his way through goofy lyrics ("Got Chucks on / With Saint Laurent / Gotta kiss myself / So pretty")", while comparing the bass line to something "taken straight from Prince's playbook." He added that "It's a definite step towards more classic funk for Ronson, who has a history of dabbling in heavy horn sections and walking guitar solos." He finished by saying "Mars' voice keeps things light and bubbly though, making 'Uptown Funk' the kind of song you'll be unable to escape on the radio in a matter of days." Lucas Villa of AXS called Ronson "eternally cool" and added that the producer's "latest foray into 'Funk' is definitely his freakiest, freshest and most fun release yet."

In a mixed review for the parent album Uptown Special, Jim Farber from the New York Daily News gave an overrall 3/5 rating and claimed that Ronson "just got lucky." He particularly criticized "Uptown Funk" for being a "lazy track", unlike the rest of the songs, which "obsess on the past, but most enliven it." Similarly, in Andy Kellman's Allmusic review for the album, he criticized the song as "aiming for early Time and landing closer to a second-tier trifle -- One Way's "Let's Talk," for instance".

In January 2015, "Uptown Funk" was ranked at number 23, tied with Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass" on The Village Voice's annual year-end Pazz & Jop critics' poll. The same critics' poll ranked "Uptown Funk" at number eight the following year. Later the same month, the song was voted into Triple J's Hottest 100 at number 6.

Ronson won two Grammy Awards in February 2016, including Record Of The Year for "Uptown Funk."

Chart performance

The song is reported to earn $100,000 for the label and composers per week for streaming on Spotify alone and has more than two billion completed views on YouTube.

Canada

On 29 November 2014, "Uptown Funk" debuted at number 63 on the Canadian Hot 100. On the issue dated 10 January 2015, the song reached number one, a position it has held for fifteen consecutive weeks, becoming the second longest-running number-one single on the Canadian Hot 100, only behind The Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling", which spent sixteen weeks at number one. On the issue dated 25 April 2015, after fifteen weeks at number one, it was replaced by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's "See You Again".

Ireland

In Ireland, "Uptown Funk" debuted at number two on 12 December 2014, and the following week peaked at the top of the Irish Singles Chart, taking the Christmas number one spot. In doing this, it became the first song not released by The X Factor winner to reach this position in nine years.

It spent seven weeks at number one in the Irish Charts, before being knocked off the top by Ellie Goulding's "Love Me Like You Do".

United Kingdom

Following a September 2014 cover by Fleur East on The X Factor reaching number one on iTunes, "Uptown Funk" was released, with its release date being brought forward by five weeks. It debuted at number one in the United Kingdom with first-week chart sales of 118,000. This gave Ronson his first UK number one as either a producer or artist. The next week, despite selling over 181,000 copies, "Uptown Funk" fell to number two, being denied the coveted Christmas number one by The X Factor winner Ben Haenow's winner's single, "Something I Need". In that same week, "Uptown Funk" made UK chart history by being the first single to be streamed more than 2 million times in a single week, being streamed a total of 2.34 million times. In doing so, the single took the title of being the all-time most streamed track in a single week, replacing Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud". The following week, "Uptown Funk" returned to number one and improved on its streaming record, being streamed 2.49 million times. It spent seven non-consecutive weeks at number one, before finally being knocked off the top on 8 February 2015 by Ellie Goulding's "Love Me Like You Do", which also broke its streaming record for a single week.

The song was certified a 'million-seller' by the Official Charts Company in February 2015, just seven weeks after its release. In May 2015, the song became only the third song released during the 21st century to be certified 3× Platinum. It had combined sales of over 2 million as of October 2015 (1.47 million purchases and 60 million streams).

"Uptown Funk" was the best-selling song of 2015 in the UK, with combined sales of 1.76 million during the year (total 2.3 million). On 10 June 2016, "Uptown Funk" became only the second single of the 21st century to go 4× Platinum, after "Happy" by Pharrell Williams.

United States

On the Billboard Hot 100, the song debuted at number 65 on the week-ending 21 November 2014 due to digital downloads sold, making it Ronson's first entry on the Hot 100. During its second week, "Uptown Funk" sold 110,000 digital copies, becoming the Hot 100's top Digital Gainer of the week, and nearing Streaming Songs with a gain of 2.5 million US streams. The song rose to number 18 in its second week on the Hot 100. On its third week the song rose to number eight, after its first full seven-day tracking period after the premiere of the music video, with 4.4 million streams, digital sales of 167,000 copies and debuting at Radio Songs at number 46 (28 million audience). At this point, the song became Ronson's first top 10 as an artist (and in his first visit with such a billing) and his third top 10 as a producer (Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" (No. 9, 2007) and Mars' "Locked Out of Heaven" (No. 1, 2012–13). On its fourth week, the song reached number five. This marked Mars' eleventh top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. On its fifth week, it reached a new peak of number 3, where it stayed for two weeks. The song claimed the Hot 100's three top Gainer awards (Digital, Streaming, Airplay), making it just the fifth title to sweep all three categories in the nearly three years of their side-by-side existence, and making Ronson the first male soloist to top Digital Songs with a debut chart entry (as a lead) since Sam Smith's "Stay with Me". The next week the song climbed to number two. The following week, "Uptown Funk" topped the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Ronson's first number-one single in the country and Mars' sixth. The song crowned the three major component songs charts (Digital Songs, Streaming Songs and Radio Songs) on the Billboard Hot 100. It also marked Ronson's first single to reach number one in radio songs; for Mars, it became his sixth, reaching fifth among acts with the most number-ones in that area.

The song became the first to crown the Hot 100 and its three main component charts for nine weeks (the previous record was held by Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass", which did so for two weeks). By spending a seventh week at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, it became Mars' longest command at the top position (among his six number-ones). It also became one of the longest running singles in Billboard's Hot 100 history and also the longest-running number-one single of the 2010s decade, by topping the chart for 14 consecutive weeks, also becoming the joint second-longest number-one single in Billboard history. This surpassed the previous record set by Robin Thicke with his 2013 single "Blurred Lines", featuring Pharrell Williams and T.I., which reigned at number one for 12 weeks. After its fourteenth week, it was replaced by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's "See You Again". The song stayed in the top three of the Billboard Hot 100 for 21 weeks, a record previously owned by "Smooth" by Santana and Rob Thomas. On 5 June, "Uptown Funk" spent a 25th consecutive week inside the US top 5, equalling the all-time record set by LeAnn Rimes with "How Do I Live" in 1997 (this was surpassed on March 11, 2017 when "Closer by The Chainsmokers and Halsey ranked in the top five for a twenty-sixth nonconsecutive week). "Uptown Funk" spent 31 weeks in the top-10, with the run ending in the issue dated 11 July 2015, the longest-running top-10 single after aforementioned "How Do I Live" as well as "Closer." As of June 2015, "Uptown Funk" has sold 6.1 million copies in the United States.

Music video

The music video was released on 17 November 2014. It stars Mars, Ronson and the Hooligans walking around a city, wearing brightly colored suits and chains. On 19 November, it was released on Vevo and YouTube. It was directed by Bruno Mars and Cameron Duddy. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres on the Ellen Show, Ronson and Mars stated that it had been filmed in many cities where Mars was touring. Parts were also filmed at 20th Century Fox Studio's "New York street" backlot in Los Angeles, California. The video has over 2.31 billion views on video sharing website YouTube as of March 2017, making it the fourth most viewed YouTube video of all time.

Usage in media and remixes

The first of the two remixes was released on 12 February 2015 during Ronson's interview on Hot 97 featuring Mars and a new intro verse by rapper Action Bronson. Ronson also revealed that the final version included rapper Bodega Bamz. The second remix of the song featuring Mars and an intro verse by rapper Trinidad James. It was released by Billboard and uploaded on Bruno Mars' YouTube account on 13 March 2015. Fleur East covered the song the eleventh series of the The X Factor UK prior to the single's official release. East later included her live performance of the song on her debut album Love, Sax and Flashbacks.

Within the UK, a (somewhat humorous) claim has circulated that the song is based on the theme to The Really Wild Show, a BBC children's nature programme.

Copyright controversies and accusations

Copyright controversies about "Uptown Funk" have dogged Ronson and Mars, with The Gap Band's three core members being added on as songwriters as part of a mutually settled agreement given the inspiration given to the track by "Oops! Upside Your Head". Serbian pop artist Viktorija has also argued that "Uptown Funk" infringed on her track "Ulice Mracne Nisu Za Devojke". A third accusation was made by funk group Collage that released music in the early 1980s. The group sued Ronsons and Mars for alleged copyright infringement, claiming "Uptown Funk" and its own 1983 song "Young Girls" are "almost indistinguishable".

Credits and personnel

Recording Recorded at: Cherry Beach Sound in Toronto, Ontario; Royal Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, Daptone Records, Brooklyn, New York; Electric Lady Studios, New York; Zelig Sound, London, UK; Enormous Studios, Venice, California; mixed at Mixstar Studios in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Horn Section Although several recorded horn sections were used during the recording process, it was noted in magazine Billboard in November 2014, that Ronson engaged Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and Antibalas horns for the final rendering of the track. The horn parts were recorded at Daptone Records in Brooklyn, New York in August 2014. Members of this horn section were reflected in the Saturday Night Live performance of "Uptown Funk" and have been reported in sources such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and more.

Antibalas Horn Section

Personnel