The 2010s File Feature
That's What I Like
That's What I Like: Bruno Mars Brings Funk and Soul to the Summit "That's What I Like" is a funk-pop and RB single by Bruno Mars, released on January 30, 201…
01 The Story
That's What I Like: Bruno Mars Brings Funk and Soul to the Summit
"That's What I Like" is a funk-pop and R&B single by Bruno Mars, released on January 30, 2017, through Atlantic Records as the second single from his third studio album 24K Magic (2016). The song was written by Bruno Mars alongside his longtime collaborators Phillip Lawrence, James Fauntleroy, Ray Charles McCullough II, Jeremy Reeves, Jonathan Yip, and Ray Romulus, the production collective known as The Stereotypes. The track reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on March 25, 2017, where it spent four non-consecutive weeks at the top position, eventually accumulating one of the longest overall chart runs of any single that year. It also topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and the Rhythmic Airplay chart simultaneously.
The song's production is rooted in the classic funk and new jack swing traditions, featuring a tight groove built around crisp drums, a bouncing bassline, and layered synthesizers that evoke the sounds of late-1980s and early-1990s urban pop. The production team worked closely with Mars to create a sound that felt authentically connected to those vintage influences without functioning merely as pastiche. The result is a track that sounds simultaneously nostalgic and contemporary, a balance that is difficult to achieve and that "That's What I Like" executes nearly perfectly. Mars's vocal performance is relaxed and confident, projecting the specific kind of magnetic ease that has been his trademark since his commercial breakthrough.
At the 2018 Grammy Awards, "That's What I Like" won three Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best R&B Song. The Record of the Year and Song of the Year wins made Mars only the second solo male artist and the fourth solo act overall to win both awards with the same song. These victories were among the most celebrated Grammy outcomes of recent years, widely seen as a recognition of Mars's consistent excellence as both a performer and a songwriter. The Song of the Year Grammy specifically recognized the songwriting team, acknowledging the collaborative process that produced the track.
The 24K Magic album was released in November 2016 and was designed as a deliberate tribute to the funk and R&B sounds of the 1980s and early 1990s. Bruno Mars had been explicit in interviews about his desire to create a party record that felt connected to a specific historical moment in Black popular music, citing artists including Michael Jackson, Prince, New Edition, and Bobby Brown as touchstones for the project's sonic vision. "That's What I Like" crystallizes this ambition most effectively, functioning simultaneously as homage and as original creation. The track builds on a foundation of recognizable musical DNA while generating something that feels distinctly of its moment in 2017.
Critically, "That's What I Like" was received with near-universal enthusiasm, with reviewers praising Mars's ability to inhabit a vintage sonic template with complete naturalism. Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and The Guardian all highlighted the track as one of the finest pop singles of its year, with particular praise directed at the production's meticulous craftsmanship and Mars's effortless vocal performance. The song was frequently cited as evidence of Mars's status as one of pop music's most complete artists, someone who writes, produces, performs, and stages his work at the highest level across every dimension.
The music video for "That's What I Like" was filmed in Las Vegas, featuring Mars in a series of luxurious scenarios that visualize the song's narrative of lavishing a partner with gifts and experiences. The video's choreography and visual aesthetic were consistent with the retro-modern approach of the 24K Magic era, featuring the kind of synchronized group movement that had become a Mars trademark. The video accumulated hundreds of millions of views on YouTube and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video at the 2018 ceremony, adding a fourth Grammy to the song's award total.
On radio, the song became one of the most-played tracks of 2017, with extraordinary staying power on adult contemporary, urban, and rhythmic radio formats simultaneously. This cross-format dominance reflected the track's genuinely broad demographic appeal, connecting with older listeners who remembered the original funk and new jack swing era from which it drew and with younger listeners discovering those sounds through Mars's celebration of them. The multi-format radio success contributed to chart longevity that was unusual even for a major label pop release from an artist of Mars's stature.
By the end of 2017, "That's What I Like" had been certified seven times Platinum in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with high-level certifications following in markets including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Streaming performance continued to grow well after the initial release, as the track became a permanent fixture in R&B and pop playlists across all major platforms. Its legacy is as one of the essential pop records of the 2010s, a moment when a generation-defining artist produced something that felt simultaneously timeless and of its specific cultural moment.
02 Song Meaning
The Meaning of "That's What I Like": Pleasure, Generosity, and the Joy of Lavish Romance
"That's What I Like" is a straightforwardly celebratory song about the pleasure of giving and receiving affection through material generosity. Its narrator is someone who delights in spoiling a romantic partner, cataloging an escalating series of luxury experiences and gifts that he proposes to provide. The song operates in a register of uncomplicated joy, which is rarer in contemporary pop than it might seem. Where much R&B of the 2010s dealt in heartbreak, ambivalence, or complex emotional terrain, "That's What I Like" commits fully to the positive emotional register, a decision that reflects Bruno Mars's deliberate artistic philosophy on the 24K Magic album.
The song belongs to a tradition of R&B and soul music that celebrates what might be called "romantic boasting," the act of expressing love through the promise of abundant provision. This tradition runs through decades of American popular music, from the smooth soul of the 1970s through the new jack swing era of the late 1980s and early 1990s that Mars explicitly invokes in the production of this track. Songs in this tradition are not interested in the complications of love but in its pleasures, and they function partly as aspirational fantasies, invitations to imagine a world of shared abundance and mutual delight.
The production style Mars and The Stereotypes chose for "That's What I Like" is itself a meaningful statement. By grounding the track in the sounds of late-1980s and early-1990s funk and new jack swing, they situate the song within a specific cultural and historical moment: an era of unambiguous, groove-oriented R&B that prioritized enjoyment and sensuality over complexity. This was music made for dancing and for loving, and by reviving its sonic signatures in 2017, Mars was not just making a nostalgic gesture but proposing that these values remained valid and important despite the more fractured, irony-saturated climate of contemporary pop.
The song's narrator is distinguished by his enthusiasm for giving rather than receiving. The pleasures he describes are pleasures he plans to give his partner, which frames the narrator's wealth and generosity as expressions of love rather than as self-display. This distinction matters because it removes the braggadocious quality that can make songs about luxury feel alienating or morally uncomfortable. The narrator of "That's What I Like" is not showing off for its own sake; he is describing how his resources allow him to celebrate and honor someone he cares for deeply. This reframing of material abundance as an act of affection is central to the song's emotional appeal.
There is also a democratic quality to the song's vision of pleasure. While the catalog of gifts includes genuinely luxurious items, the song also includes simpler pleasures, taking a bath, going somewhere warm, having food brought to you, things that are available at a range of economic levels. This mixture means that listeners across different economic circumstances can engage with the fantasy the song proposes without feeling excluded by it. The specific items matter less than the attitude they express: the willingness to devote attention, effort, and resources to making another person feel valued and desired.
Mars has spoken in interviews about wanting to make an album that was a pure celebration, a party record without agenda or anxiety. "That's What I Like" is the most complete realization of that intention on 24K Magic. Its meaning is not hidden or ironic or ambivalent; it is exactly what it appears to be: a declaration of romantic enthusiasm delivered with maximum musical skill and minimum emotional complication. In an era when pop music sometimes seemed to feel obligated to be difficult or self-aware, the song's refusal of complication was itself a kind of statement.
The Grammy recognition the song received acknowledged its formal excellence while also implicitly validating the artistic choice to make something this unambiguously pleasurable. Winning Song of the Year and Record of the Year for a track that is essentially about taking someone on a good date is a reminder that pop music's highest function is not always to complicate or challenge but sometimes simply to make people feel the kind of joy and desire that romantic love at its best actually produces. "That's What I Like" does this with such craft and conviction that it transcends its immediate subject matter to become a piece of pop art worthy of sustained attention and appreciation.
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