Mark Ronson : Uptown Special Era (January 2015)

[SHOOTER]

Mark's fourth album drops in January via RCA.

Mark Ronson Says New Single With Bruno Mars 'Uptown Funk' Is a Milestone for Both of Them

Is Mark Ronson the hardest-working producer in the music business? In pursuit of the perfect groove, the British/American DJ and guitarist helped launch the careers of Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, and Wale. A star-studded fourth solo album, Uptown Special, is due in January through RCA. To complete the record, Ronson, 39, ping-ponged between London and Brooklyn, and road-tripped up the Mississippi auditioning unknown church singers, and hit up legendary studios from coast to coast.

But right now he’s ensconced at the famed, Jimi Hendrix-built Electric Lady Studios in New York’s Greenwich Village, giving Billboard an exclusive preview of Uptown Special. It's jammed with unlikely musical partners like Aussie alt-rockers Tame Impala, New Orleans rapper Mystikal, and the novelist Michael Chabon. The picture of understated cool, Ronson rocks Saint Laurent pineapple-skull print sneakers and Mad Men-era slicked-back hair. He bobs his head in quiet satisfaction as the horns blare on the first single, “Uptown Funk,” released Nov. 10. Then the horns give way to vocals from the album’s biggest "get" of all: Bruno Mars.

“It’s definitely one of the best things I’ve ever done,” Ronson says of the track, chewing on a toothpick while Tommy Brenneck, a member of the Budos Band and the Dap Kings, looks on between recording guitar parts. “And I know that it’s one of Bruno’s favorite things that he’s ever done, as well.”

Ronson accrued some serious frequent flyer miles trying to pin Mars down for Uptown Special. Mars wound up playing drums throughout the album, and he co-wrote the kinetic single. “It was six or seven months of chasing Bruno around on tour,” says the soft-spoken Ronson, who co-produced “Locked Out of Heaven” and other tracks on Mars’ 2012 hit Unorthodox Jukebox.

Ronson and Uptown Special co-producer Jeff Bhasker (Kanye West, fun.) would set up shop whenever and wherever they found time with Mars, eventually recording in L.A., London, Memphis, and NYC. New York is where Ronson -- the son of socialite Ann Dexter-Jones and stepson to Foreigner’s Mick Jones -- first cut his teeth as a DJ in the mid-'90s. On Nov. 22, Ronson and Mars will head over to Rockefeller Center to perform on Saturday Night Live together.

"Uptown Funk" stems from a lick that Mars and his band were playing on tour. It turned into a full-on combustible groove workout with elastic bass and indomitable spirit. “When we hit on that opening line -- ‘This s**t, that ice cold/ Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold’ -- we knew that we had the seed of this really exciting idea,” Ronson tells Billboard. “I pushed myself much more than I have on anything else in the past.”

Big words from the man who won a Grammy for Producer of the Year after helming the majority of Amy Winehouse’s breakout LP Back in Black. But those airtight turnarounds and sharp horn lines in "Uptown Funk" -- courtesy of members of Antibalas and Dap Kings, who also played on much of Ronson’s work with Winehouse -- didn’t come easy. At one point during the song’s seven-month creation, Ronson collapsed over lunch.

“There was all of this pressure because Bhasker was leaving at the end of the day,” Ronson recalls. “The plan was for me to record my guitar part by lunch. Lunchtime comes around and I still haven’t nailed the part. We go out and in the stress of finishing this song I fainted in the restaurant. I threw up three times. Jeff had to carry me back to the studio.” In the end, they got it -- on take 82.

Ronson wrote the majority of Uptown Special with Bhasker, Emilie Haynie (Eminem, Lana Del Rey), and an unexpected lyrical contributor: Chabon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author behind 2000's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. “It’s probably my favorite piece of modern fiction," Ronson says, "I’ve basically bought it for everybody. I knew [Chabon] was a huge music fan because his last book, Telegraph Avenue, has details on ’50s, ’60s and ’70s jazz albums.”

Chabon would fly down from Berkeley, Calif., to Bhasker’s Venice Beach studio where Ronson, Andrew Wyatt from Miike Snow, and Kevin Parker and Jay Watson from Tame Impala “would all be jamming in the studio with Michael typing furiously away at these great lyrics in the corner,” says Ronson, who returned to Bhasker’s space this fall to score the upcoming Johnny Depp/Ewan McGregor comedic-action film, Mortdecai. The Uptown Special collaboration was a learning curve for both Ronson and Chabon. The dark, Leonard Cohen-influenced “Summer Breaking” -- sung by Parker and featuring the lyrics “avenues empty as 44 clips / cargo ships and teen zombie ships riding their whips” -- took four drafts to get right. “He’s one of the great living American novelists and it’s tough to be like, ‘Uh, we don’t really like this one, could we try it again?’” Ronson says.

But despite Chabon’s contributions, it’s the American South that looms largest over the album. “The music that we love somehow has its roots in the South,” Ronson says. “Whether it became rock 'n' roll or gospel, that is where all our s**t comes from.” Ronson recorded much of Uptown Special at Memphis’ storied Royal Studios, which has hosted giants like Al Green and Chuck Berry. A chance encounter with Mystikal at the studio led to the rapper throwing down on “Feel Right,” which, with its sweaty horn section and call-and-response parts, is James Brown for the post-crunk era.

And then there’s the story behind Keyone Starr, the unknown 23-year-old who sings alongside Grammy winners and platinum sellers on Uptown Special. One of her cuts is a soul workout that interpolates the stutter-step beat from SOHO’s house classic “Hot Music.” Of another Keyone track, “I Can’t Lose," Ronson says, “We wanted a young Chaka Khan on it, but there just wasn’t anybody coming to mind. Jeff was like, 'We’re going to drive down to the South, we’re going to call it the Mississippi Mission, and go to the churches.’ It was a wild idea that became a reality.”

Filming the journey as they went along, Ronson and Bhasker drove up the Mississippi River over the course of nine days, from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, Jackson, St. Louis, Little Rock, and up to Chicago. They scouted choir singers at churches, local community centers, and side rooms of sports bars, where “Lil Wayne would be blasting through the glass doors,” Ronson says. “People were trying to sing as loud as they could over the music that was coming through. We saw so many great singers.”

In Jackson, at Mississippi State University, they found Starr, a preacher’s daughter with a big spiky earring. She'd been shunned from her church after getting pregnant. “She just looked so badass. I remember thinking: it would be awesome if this one could sing really great,” Ronson says. “She just opened her mouth and she had it instantly. I’m so drawn to singers with rasp and something broken in their voice, where you really hear the rawness.”

Of course, Ronson’s description of Starr’s voice could easily be applied to his former muse, Winehouse. Her passing in 2011 left a big void that Ronson is still trying to process. “I’m going to think about her for the rest of my life,” he says, as the psychedelic strains of “Daffodils,” a trippy collaboration with Tame Impala, wafts through the speakers. “There are things on this record that I think she’d like, and others she’d f**king hate.”

Another big change in Ronson’s life? There’s a ring on his finger. Despite all of his racing around the globe making Uptown Special, Ronson has settled down over the past few years, tying the knot in 2011 with French actress, model, and singer Joséphine de La Baume. “I feel a bit less like f**king around at this point,” he says, when asked how his new status affected his sound. “With this record, I felt like I needed to be firing on all cylinders.”

Ronson took care to not craft a straight '60s or '70s period piece with Uptown Special, despite citing Earth, Wind & Fire and Steely Dan as influences. “Production-wise, this is the most progressive record I’ve ever done,” says the man whose retro-soul sound on his 2007 album Version -- plus Back To Black in '06 -- helped pave the way for Adele. “When I play my last album [2010’s Record Collection] next to something contemporary, it’s obvious we just recorded all of our drums with one mic,” Ronson says. “This time around, I wanted that s**t to sound tough, crisp -- and f**king massive.”

[Agent Yoncé]

Never really heard much about this guy, but after hearing Uptown Funk' & reading this article, I am so in need of this album.

[Kishi KCM]

I want this album. :)

[maine]

Available to pre-order on iTunes with "Feel Right" w/ Mystikal being available as an instant grat. Album comes out on January 27, 2015.

[Wave.]

Mystikal is on the right path with this one.

[Agent Yoncé]

Excited about this project!

[Queen of Insomnia.]

One more song from Uptown SPECIAL:
https%3A//soundcloud.com/mrjoanofarc/mark-ronson-daffodils-feat-kevin-parker-bbc-radio-1-world-premiere

Mark said this is his favorite album to date, and that's heavy on the funk.

This album is my must have since 2010. My heart aches when people are like... I don't know who Mark Ronson is...

[Agent Yoncé]

He's 3/3 in my book! The outro is sick.

[Deleted]

I like it. Can't wait for this album!

[Queen of Insomnia.]

[Queen of Insomnia.]

VERY GOOD NEWS FOR RONSON FANS!
His new album will be released two weeks earlier than originally planned!



MARK RONSON To Release New Album Uptown Special on January 13, 2015



GRAMMY® award-winning producer and musician Mark Ronson will release his highly-anticipated album Uptown Special on January 13, 2015 via RCA Records. It was written and produced with fellow GRAMMY® -winning producer Jeff Bhasker (Kanye West, Drake, Alicia Keys) over 18 months in studios in London, Memphis, Los Angeles and New York City. The majority of the album’s lyrics – although not the lead hit single "Uptown Funk" with Bruno Mars - were written by Pulitzer-winning American novelist Michael Chabon. Ronson's favorite living author, Chabon became a part of the songwriting process early on and was fully immersed in the album’s narrative creation, often working with Ronson and the vocalists in the recording studio.

The global phenomenon, "Uptown Funk” featuring GRAMMY® award-winning superstar Bruno Mars, premiered on November 10th and has already climbed to reach No. 5 on Billboard’s HOT 100, making it Mars’ 13th song in the Top 5, and Ronson’s first track as an artist to break into the Top 5. The single also reached No. 1 in the UK today. Tune in to The Voice season finale tomorrow night to watch Ronson and Mars perform “Uptown Funk,” alongside performances by Ed Sheeran, Hozier and Jennifer Hudson.

Uptown Special is Ronson’s most inventive and vibrant work to date. Taken as a whole, the album is inspired by his musical beginnings. As a teenager growing up in New York City in the early 90s, Ronson gravitated towards hip-hop, funk, soul and R&B. Those were the records he lugged around in boxes in the early days of his club DJ career and that scratchy, inspiring vinyl was what he returned to when creating the album.

Though Ronson is now based out of London, most of Uptown Special was recorded in the United States with stops in Los Angeles, Memphis and Mississippi. Most of the music was recorded with live musicians with Mark anchoring the sessions on guitar, while surrounded by a complimentary mix of gifted young players and R&B vets. Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker plays a huge role on the album, lending his signature, woozy vocal to three songs, as well as laying drums, guitars, synths and background vocals on other tracks. Longtime collaborator Miike Snow's Andrew Wyatt also added his wonderful vocals and songwriting talents to the song “Heavy and Rolling.” Ronson & Bhasker's great friend producer Emile Haynie (Lana Del Rey, FKA Twigs) also provided some glorious sonic landscapes to the tracks.

Several musicians, who worked with Mark on his historic production of Amy Winehouse’s multi-platinum Back To Black and his own breakthrough album, 2007’s Version, rejoined him for this album, including drummer Homer Steinweiss, bassist Nick Movshan and guitarist Tommy Brenneck. Also making guest appearances on Uptown Special are bassist Willie Weeks (who played on Stevie Wonder’s classic Innervisions) guitarist Carlos Alomar (who created the familiar guitar riff on David Bowie’s “Fame”), drummer Steve Jordan and Ronson’s personal hero, the legendary Stevie Wonder, who leant his harmonica talents to the record.

Also crucial to the sound of Uptown Special are the trippy, emotive vocals of Kevin Parker, leader of the popular Australian indie band Tama Impala. Parker sings lead vocals on three songs on the album (“Summer Breaking,” “Leaving Los Feliz,” “Daffodils”), while also contributing backing vocals, songwriting and drums on one song.

While much of the music was composed in Los Angeles, a fateful road trip across the South helped shape the album’s final form. With “I Can’t Lose” Ronson knew he had a record with the punchy groove of a real ‘80s New York club jam that demanded a young Chaka Khan on the lead vocals. But where was that voice today? Bhasker suggested they take a Southern road trip, feeling sure the voice they were looking for could be found in the country’s heartland. Starting out of New Orleans, where they began work on the producer/writers drove down into Mississippi and visited churches throughout the region before landing in Jackson, where they held an audition at the Penguin bar on the campus of Mississippi State University. In walked Keyone Starr, “a cool looking girl with an amazing rasp in her voice,” Ronson recalls. She agreed to come to Memphis to take a stab at recording. Though she had never been in a studio before, under the guidance of Mark and Bhasker, Starr truly blossomed, adding soul powered vocals to “I Can’t Lose,” and background vocals to “Crack In the Pearl”.

The funk really flows on Uptown Special. “Feel Right” is a neo-James Brown jam with a killer hook written by Bruno Mars and his longtime writing partner Philip Lawrence. New Orleans’ MC Mystikal brings his roaring rambunctious voice to the track, bridging the gap between hip-hop rhyming and old school soul shouting.

Uptown Special Track Listing:
1. Uptown’s First Finale
2. Summer Breaking
3. Feel Right
4. Uptown Funk
5. I Can't Lose
6. Daffodils
7. Crack In The Pearl
8. In Case Of Fire
9. Leaving Los Feliz
10. Heavy And Rolling
11. Crack In The Pearl pt. II

[Linnethia Monique]

Andrew Wyatt

[SHOOTER]

I canNOT wait!

[Ryan]

1. Uptown’s First Finale (feat. Stevie Wonder & Andrew Wyatt)
2. Summer Breaking (feat. Kevin Parker)
3. Feel Right (feat. Mystikal)
4. Uptown Funk (feat. Bruno Mars)
5. I Can’t Lose (feat. Keyonce Starr)
6. Daffodils (feat. Kevin Parker)
7. Crack In The Pearl (feat. Andrew Wyatt)
8. In Case of Fire (feat. Jeff Bhasker)
9. Leaving Los Feliz (feat. Kevin Parker)
10. Heavy and Rolling (feat. Andrew Wyatt)
11. Crack In The Pearl Pt. II (feat. Stevie Wonder & Jeff Bhasker)

[Agent Yoncé]

Yes yes yes!!!

[Queen of Insomnia.]

[Queen of Insomnia.]

Album stream: www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/12/mark-ronson-uptown-special-exclusive-album-stream?CMP=twt_gu

[Deleted]

The album's a lot of fun. I think it's this year's Random Access Memories/G I R L though. I didn't expect "Uptown Funk" to become the enormous smash it's become, but the rest of this album is pretty low-key for radio, and he didn't do any other collabos with current megastars.

[Live Your Life]

Entertainment Weekly gives the album a B+:

Mark Ronson's grasp of weapons-grade Soul Train revivalism has no parallel. ''Uptown Funk'' breaks a serious sweat, but the centerpiece of Ronson's fourth album is the volcanic ''Feel Right'': Over heaving horns and bubbly bass, Mystikal spits surreal lines about bananas and bamboo and getting interplanetary with Bruno Mars. It's a master class in stanky, guttural rump shaking.

In fact, ''Feel Right'' pulses with such kinetic ferocity that it's almost a shame anyone else was invited to play. But Ronson, who is always operating with a DJ's mentality, knows that parties need breathers too. Those loungier interludes, several of which are led by Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker, get so dreamy they sometimes threaten to turn Ronson's chilled-out moments into sleepy tab-closers, though several are saved by novelist Michael Chabon's vivid lyrical contributions. Still, the cumulative effect of Special's contagious cool will keep hands up and bad vibes down—and if all else fails, just put ''Feel Right'' on repeat.

New York Daily News gives the album 3/5 stars:

Mark Ronson just got lucky. His smash “Uptown Funk” eagerly rode the coattails of the current retro-’70s funk-soul trend, forged by Justin Timberlake’s “Suit & Tie,” Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” plus a host of singles shaped by Pharrell.

Yet, none of those songs milked the past as cynically as this.

“Uptown Funk” makes “Blurred Lines” seem like a work of stunning originality by comparison. It isn’t even a song. It’s a vamp, a rush of “hit me” rhythms of the style patented, and made deep, by James Brown. The vocal on “Funk,” by Bruno Mars, may have zip, but it lacks soul, not to mention an ounce of individuality. Luckily for Ronson, zip alone can apparently carry you to No. 1.

Here’s the good news: “Uptown Funk” turns out to be one of the only lazy tracks on Ronson’s fourth album. Yes, the other songs obsess on the past, but most enliven it. Better, some revive a quirk of history others overlooked.

A quarter of the album pairs Ronson with Kevin Parker of the psychedelic-prog band Tame Impala. By matching Parker’s submerged vocals to fuzz-toned guitars and rocked-up R&B melodies, Ronson re-creates the great stoner-soul of Shuggie Otis. Several songs fronted by Andrew Wyatt successfully meld that lost, and rare, sound with the more sophisticated jazz-R&B melodies of Stevie Wonder.

Wonder himself lends a caring harmonica to both the album’s first, and last, songs, implicitly blessing the project.

A host of other retro references turn up from the 1980s: “I Can’t Lose” sounds like a lost Vanity 6 track, while “In Case of Fire” could have been a hit from Mike and the Mechanics.

Such attention to history isn’t new to Ronson. He famously produced retro-soul star Amy Winehouse, and his elaborate resume as a DJ shows a long attachment to time-bound sounds. Such scholarship robs Ronson of any claim on being a progressive, but at least his best tracks prove he does know how to honor the greats with some inspiration of his own.

[SHOOTER]

Jan 12, 2015 21:55:26 GMT -5 @jazzysoul47 said:

The album's a lot of fun. I think it's this year's Random Access Memories/G I R L though. I didn't expect "Uptown Funk" to become the enormous smash it's become, but the rest of this album is pretty low-key for radio, and he didn't do any other collabos with current megastars.

My thoughts exactly. I love the groove and mood of the album but I don't see how he or his label will be able to sustain it past its initial sales burst.

[Queen of Insomnia.]

Album Dedication:

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

I don't like this at all. Uptown Funk is the only song I find even tolerable on it, and that's a stretch.

[Hurricane Lee]

Yeah...I grew up with this kind of music and the only thing I really like is Uptown Funk. I LOVE that song but the rest, eh. Very disappointed. I bought 5 CDs today and this was not one of them. That said, I hope he produces more stuff on Bruno's upcoming album because they have great chemistry.

[SHOOTER]

Projected to debut with 24-27k (60-65k SPS).

Here Comes the Fuzz never cracked top-200 (#84 on R&B/Hip-Hop) and has sold 19k to date.

Version debuted at #129 with 5.5k (65k to date).

Record Collection debuted at #81 with 5.7k (26k to date).

[Queen of Insomnia.]

Go, Mark! :o

[Queen of Insomnia.]

Uptown Special debuts @ #5 in US, exceeding expectations!

Mark Ronson -- powered by his smash No. 1 Hot 100 hit "Uptown Funk!" -- arrives at No. 5 with his album Uptown Special. The set starts with 77,000 units and marks Ronson's first top 40 album. (He previously topped out at No. 81 with 2010's Record Collection, and No. 129 with 2007's Version.)

31K = hard sales.

www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6443849/meghan-trainor-title-debut-number-one

[Juan Carlos]

In a close race with American Beauty/American Psycho (less than 1.9k between them), Uptown Special debuts atop in the UK. Also, Mark Ronson becomes the first act since Miley Cyrus to chart atop in both singles and albums charts with "Wrecking Ball" and Bangerz, respectively, in the same week.

From the Official Charts:

Mark Ronson will no doubt be celebrating this evening after becoming the first act of 2015 to top the UK's Official Singles Chart and Official Albums Chart simultaneously.

The producer and musician's fourth studio album, Uptown Special, marks his first chart-topping LP in the UK, besting his previous peaks at Number 2 with his last two albums, 2007's Version and 2010's Record Collection.

He told the following to them:

"This is absolutely incredible. I want to thank Jeff Bhasker, Michael Chabon & Emile Haynie who were there since the very beginning of this record - as well as Alison Donald, Mark Terry and Jason Iley at Sony UK. And finally, thank you to everyone who went out to the shop and bought the CD or pointed and clicked on Uptown Special this week - I really can't believe it."

[Hurricane Lee]

What the hell did Michael Chabon have to do with this???

[RainMan94]

My favorites from the album are the more funk/soul-leaning songs. Besides UF, my picks are Daffodils, In Case of Fire, and Heavy Rolling. And I 100% agree with the G I R L and Random Access Memories comparisons. I hope Bruno includes more of this type of music on his next album.

[SHOOTER]

Jan 25, 2015 18:11:51 GMT -5 Hurricane Lee said:

What the hell did Michael Chabon have to do with this???

He co-wrote every song on the album sans Uptown Funk and Feel Right.