If you haven’t been paying attention, you wouldn’t have seen this coming. But we may have a pop underdog ready to shake up the charts. Peter Hernandez is much better known as Bruno Mars and his mixed background (Puerto Rican and Filipino) has him crossing all kinds of cultures.
You’ve heard him on B.o.B.’s infectious first single Nothin’ On You and on Travis McCoy’s silly song Billionaire. I was fine with Mars as a hook singer on both of those songs, but the truth is, you can’t sing hooks forever. I wanted to hear him on his own. I wasn’t completely bought in on his first single Just The Way You Are until a few listenings later. But now I’m in.
He has the kind of R&B sound that reminds me of the early 90s, and I really liked that time in R&B music, as pop sounding as it was. The video is creative and cutesy, but so is the song. I think they’re a pretty good match.
