Bruno Mars Is Pop’s Most Reliable Male Star. Who Is He, Really?

It’s a free-for-all on the Hot 100 chart right now. “Die With a Smile,” a slick, sappy Lady Gaga ballad destined for oldies radio rotation in about 20 years, has been hovering around No. 1 since summer. “Apt.,” a peppy new wave-inspired cut by Blackpink’s Rosé that speaks the rhythmic, hyperactive language of TikTok, is also in the Top 10. And a little further down, there’s Sexyy Red’s “Fat, Juicy and Wet,” the kind of raunchy, would-be strip club anthem that seems to float into the mainstream every few years. Nothing really links these songs — except for the fact that Bruno Mars appears on all three.

Mars checks many of the boxes of an A-list pop star. But unlike those who usually occupy the top slot of Spotify’s most-streamed artist ranking — which the 39-year-old musician has for the bulk of 2025 — it’s not always easy to discern his specific viewpoint, or even a favored niche. Pop has long rewarded shape-shifters like Madonna, whose careers are marked by bold artistic reconfigurations, but Mars is a different beast: a performer with such a malleable identity at one moment that his name stands for little except its association with hits.

Depending on your vintage, you might best remember Mars as a sappy adult contemporary crooner, thanks to his early No. 1s like “Grenade” and “Just the Way You Are.” On “Locked Out of Heaven,” certified diamond for 10 million sales, he was in full Sting drag, belting over shimmery new wave. Silk Sonic, his collaboration with Anderson .Paak that yielded a 2021 album, reveled in a kind of throwback sleaze, perhaps in tribute to his semi-adoptive hometown, Las Vegas, where he has held down a residency at the Park MGM for an astonishing near-decade.

Rather than try to distill his essence into one sound, Mars has remained stubbornly chameleonic — though rooted in old-fashioned music-making, the kind that employs acoustic instruments and appeals to Grammy voters (he has 33 nominations and 16 wins). “Die With a Smile” hearkens back to his days as a Jason Mraz-esque wedding song maestro; despite its title, the song is pure soft-rock schmaltz, finding both singers indulging their worst impulses toward lounge act cosplay. “Apt.” taps into the new wave pep of his 2012 “Unorthodox Jukebox” album, this time cribbing familiar elements of hits by the Go-Go’s, Blondie and Bananarama.

Both songs came with their own distinct visual aesthetic — ’60s Americana, and a shambolic, pseudo-punk look — and were colossal hits on TikTok, radio and beyond. While “Apt.” was always intended for Rosé’s December 2024 debut album, “Rosie,” Gaga initially said that “Die With a Smile” was a one-off, and had nothing to do with her forthcoming album, “Mayhem.” Six months later, fans noticed the song had been tacked on at the end of the “Mayhem” track list; it’s hard to argue with some two billion extra streams.