Bruno Mars released his senior studio album, “The Romantic.” After releasing two generational singles, “Die With A Smile,” with Lady Gaga in 2025 and “APT,” with Rosé in 2024, “The Romantic,” released on Feb. 27, 2026, is a comparatively under-developed album. With both singles having so much replay value and traction over the radio and social media, the new album was disappointing overall.
With over 129 million monthly listeners on Spotify, Bruno Mars has made quite the reputation for himself in the music industry, charting 10 number one singles, with four of them hitting the top three. The deterioration in quality produced makes it hard to find where the Bruno Mars everyone loves has gone.
The album takes inspiration from ‘60s soul and pop style music with similar sounds to soul pioneers, Marvin Gaye and Al Green. Occasionally, some of the songs have a Latin-style sound in songs such as “Cha Cha Cha” and “Risk It All.” Bruno Mars clearly tried to venture into a new realm of music, but executed it poorly.
The album begins with “Risk It All,” a soul-touching ballad with a lot of replay value. The lyricism and overall instrumentals are appealing to listeners, and I can definitely see this song being used in promposals, Instagram stories and TikToks as the virality potential is high.
Next, “Cha Cha Cha” is another song with a Latin-esque vibe to it. Overall the song has a dull hook with a disappointing vocal performance from Bruno Mars. The particular bar, “I don’t know how to act,” makes me cringe with how forced his voice sounds in the subtle minor key he sings.
The hit single, “I Just Might” is the perfect mix of disco and funk style music. The replay value is strong on this single and it shows with almost 200 million streams in two months. This song is the best song on the album by a big margin because of the portrayal of classic Bruno Mars-style music.
The following songs, “God Was Showing Off” and “Why You Wanna Fight?” were both very “safe.” For such an amazing artist with such a great discography, these songs fall through the cracks. Some of the songs were not fleshed out well and felt really shallow to listen to. Some other songs on Bruno Mars’ catalog have good depth and appeal to a vast majority of listeners which makes this album feel like a contrast to the other albums in his discography.
The song “Something Serious” might be the worst song Bruno Mars has produced. The beat falls so flat and his voice layering is unsatisfying to listen to. The hook is incredibly unappealing and his high notes feel extremely forced. Another sub-par song on the album, “Why You Wanna Fight?” is unappealing because of the rushed chorus that he tries to execute. With this in mind “Something Serious” takes the cake for the worst song because in “Why You Wanna Fight?,” at least the layering is listenable.
Overall, this album is such a disappointment for Bruno Mars fans. However, I would still watch him live if I had the opportunity because of how good the rest of his catalog is. This album is extremely weak compared to his other projects such as “24K Magic” and “An Evening With Silk Sonic.” I would give this album a 2/5.
