When a producer who has worked on such great records such as Amy Winehouse’s
Back To Black, Adele’s
19, and Paul McCartney’s
New decides to record a solo album, there is no doubt his list of resources for help are much greater than your average solo artist looking to put out a new record. Such is the case with super-producer Mark Ronson who has some of the biggest guns in the pop world singing, playing, writing, and producing on his latest release.
Ronson’s fourth solo effort,
Uptown Special, has already yielded one of 2015’s biggest hits “Uptown Funk”.Although officially released in 2015, the song was released as a single at the tail-end of 2014 as the lead single. The collaboration saw nominations and awards and topped the charts in both the UK and the US (among other countries) and set a record for the most streams online in a single week - more than 15 million- all before year’s end.The track features Bruno Mars, with whom Ronson worked with while producing three tracks on Mars’ multi-platinum LP
Unorthodox Jukebox, as well as being co-written by Philip Lawrence, who also worked with Mars on the same album.
If working with Bruno Mars were not enough to ensure success, Ronson also employs the efforts of none other than Stevie Wonder on the opening and closing cuts. “Uptown’s First Finale”, is a short introductory piece to the album, while "Crack in the Pearl, Pt. II” also a short piece, closes the album in grand fashion leaving Stevie’s stamp on the beginning and end of
Uptown Special. Postioning Stevie at the start and end, strategically to be sure, reportedly all started with a simple letter to Wonder’s management in an effort from Ronson to have one of his music idols be a part of his latest record.
While Mars and Wonder provide the biggest names in terms of collaborators on the album, there are collaborations on every track in terms of writing performance and production that come in the form of some of the most respected in the industry. Probably the most interesting input comes from Kevin Parker, lead singer, guitarist, and main writer for the band Tame Impala, an Australian psychedelic electro-rock band. He lends his writing and and vocals to three songs, including the very strong “Daffodils”, and his instrumentation to several more. Also featured heavily is Jeff Bhasker, prolific hit maker who has won Grammys writing with heavyweights Kanye West, Jay-Z and the band fun. Bhaskar himself appears on two of the albums selections and co-writes almost every song on
Uptown Special.
If that were not enough of an all-star list of contributors, there is more. Legendary nouveau-folk singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright (for whom Ronson co-produced an album) contributes his writing skills to “In Case of Fire”, the album’s 8th track. Production team Boys Noize also lend their skills to "Feel Right" which itself features another legend in rapper Mystikal.
While Mark Ronson’s chart topping latest album
Uptown Special is said to be a reference to early 80’s disco from the Minneapolis area in the 80’s, it most certainly could have been called “With A Little Help From My Friends”. Robson has called in the troops on this record and with that has almost guaranteed his success as far as this record goes. There is little doubt his address book is deep and continues to grow deeper. It will likely not be very long before his production skills will be featured on the next big single by the next biggest stars, but for now, his contacts will keep him at the top of the heap as an artist as well.
