Does Bruno Mars Know “Fat Juicy & Wet” Is Not About a Hamburger?
On the questionable eroticism of the pop star’s new track with Sexyy Red
Bruno Mars’ discography is largely wholesome, so when he tries his hand at sweaty sex jams, it’s hard to take them seriously. (Recall 2017’s “Gorilla,” a song where lusty intent is marred by the image of chest-pounding apes.) This helps explain his massive popularity in the U.S., and how a current No. 5 song about a late-night booty call ends up being covered by children. In Silk Sonic, his group with Anderson.Paak which mines the carnal repertoire of classic 1970s and ’80s baby-making music, musical excellence supersedes intent, like a knowing wink that one of their songs could be about sex without resulting in actually having it. On songs like “After Last Night,” eroticism becomes an object, a means to an end. Sex’s physical imperative becomes shrouded in the precision of the musicianship and fidelity to the throwback pose.
This has never made total sense to me: Mars is objectively handsome, even virile. But when he shares the mic with a raunchy power-player like Cardi B, on their Jodeci homage “Please Me,” it sounds like they’re talking past each other. Even a song drawing its juice from the most sexual R&B of the ’90s evokes Mars as Cardi’s wingman, while she calls up her real lover on the landline. It’s not that Mars also presents a quintessential nice-guy persona—nice guys through the ages, from Barry White to Usher, have also been the purveyors of believable songs about robust dick-downs, but they also didn’t try to be all things to all people. Perhaps it’s just that Mars’ funk lacks filth, absent the atmosphere of arousal that propels sensuality through the history of recorded music. Perhaps it’s his propensity to mitigate such tracks with family-friendly mea culpas, like his by-the-book power ballad currently sitting at the top of the charts. Perhaps the only thing this guy fucks is the keyboard?
