“Locked Out Of Heaven” by Bruno Mars

song info

    “Locked Out Of Heaven” by Bruno Mars (official video) is a New Wave funk song.

    
    U.S. Billboard Hot 100: #1 (one) with a bullet, last week #1 (one) with a bullet, Streaming Gainer, previous week #1 (one) with a bullet, Digital Gainer, up from previous week #2 (two) with a bullet, up from previous week #4 (four) with a bullet (Airplay Gainer), previous week #4 (four), 12 weeks on chart, peak #1 (one)
    Pop: #1 (one), last week #1 (one), up from previous week #2 (two), previous week #2 (two), up from previous week #4 (four), up from #9 (nine), 12 weeks on chart, peak #1 (one)
    Adult Pop: #3 (three), up from last week #4 (four, previous week #4 (four), up from previous week #5 (five), up from previous week #6 (six), up from #8 (eight), 12 weeks on chart, peak #3 (three)
    Radio Songs: #1 (one), up from last week #2 (two), previous week #2 (two), previous week #2 (two), up from previous week #4 (four), up from #7 (seven), 12 weeks on chart, peak #1 (one)
    Digital Songs: #1 (one), last week #1 (one), previous week #1 (one), up from previous week #5 (five), previous week #5 (five), down from #3 (three), 12 weeks on chart, peak #1 (one)
    On-Demand Songs: #1 (one), last week #1 (one), up from previous week #5 (five), previous week #5 (five), up from previous week #9 (nine), up from #11 (eleven), 9 weeks on chart, peak #1 (one)
    Ringtones: #6 (six), last week #6 (six), up from previous week #27 [re-entry - 29 Dec 2012], #40, down from #32, 6 weeks on chart, peak #6 (six)
    Latin Airplay: ##32, up from last week 38, up from previous week #39, up from previous week #47 [debut - 15 Dec 2012], 4 weeks on chart, peak #32
    Latin Pop: #23, up from last week #29, up from previous week #36 [debut - 22 Dec 2012], 3 weeks on chart, peak #23
    Japan Hot 100: #16, down from last week #10 (ten), up from previous week #16, up from previous week #34, up from previous week #48, down from #36, 12 weeks on chart, peak #10 (ten)
    United Kingdom Single: #5 (five), down from last week #3 (three), down from previous week #2 (two), previous week #2 (two), 6 weeks on chart, peak #2 (two)
    Germany: out of chart, #10 (ten) (22 Dec 2012), down from last week #9 (nine), 5 weeks on chart, peak #7 (seven)
    France: #6 (six), down from last week #2 (two), up from previous week #7 (seven), down from previous week #6 (six), 5 weeks on chart, peak #2 (two)
    Canadian Hot 100: #1 (one), last week #1 (one), previous week #1 (one), up from previous week #2 (two), previous week #2 (two), 12 weeks on chart, peak #1 (one)
    YouTube: out of chart, #4 (four), up from last week #8 (eight), up from previous week #10 (ten), 7 weeks on chart, peak #4 (four)
     Billboard information for the week of Jan 5, 2013
     Billboard chart listings courtesy of Billboard Magazine

link to the static song information page for this song:
http://www.thissideofsanity.com/music/songs/lo/lockedoutofheaven.php

    Summary quotation from Wikipedia:

    “Locked Out of Heaven” is a song by American singer-songwriter Bruno Mars from his upcoming second studio album, Unorthodox Jukebox (2012). It was released as the lead single from the album on October 1, 2012. The song was written by Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence, and Ari Levine and produced by Mark Ronson, Jeff Bhasker, Emile Haynie and The Smeezingtons. The song is Bruno Mars’ ninth million-selling single. Mars visited Crossley Heath to record and produce the song and found a lot of help especially from singers Charlie Brooks, Chrissie Brooks and Rishi Bhuskute.

    “Locked Out of Heaven” is a New Wave, funk and reggae rock song about the rapturous feelings brought about by a relationship infused with positive emotion as well as good sex. Several music critics noted that the song is influenced by a number of bands, with The Police being most cited. Mars admitted that he was influenced by the band to write the song.

    It received generally positive response from most music critics; his vocals were praised, being called “smooth” and “sweet,” while its sound was lauded, with the song being called “interesting” and a “musical evolution”. The song was a commercial success, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for six consecutive weeks and the Canadian Hot 100 for three consecutive weeks, while also charting inside the top-ten in 20 countries.

Background

    After his smash 2010 debut album, Doo-Wops & Hooligans, which produced two Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, “Just the Way You Are” and “Grenade,” and was certified double-platinum by RIAA, Mars revealed he wanted to create something unexpected with its follow-up. “This is me going into the studio and recording and writing whatever I want,” Mars says confidently. “This album represents my freedom.” It was during his last two years of worldwide concerts and TV shows that Mars realized his second album needed to reflect his raucously energetic stage show. To achieve a fuller sound on the new release, he recruited some of his favorite producers, including Mark Ronson, Jeff Bhasker, Emile Haynie, Diplo and the Supa Dups. The Smeezingtons, who co-wrote and co-produced all of the tracks, also serve as the album’s executive producers. “Locked Out of Heaven” was unveiled digitally and on radio on October 1, 2012, and became available for purchase the following day.

Composition and influences

    “Locked Out of Heaven” has been described as having strong influences of New Wave, with striking resemblances to “Message in a Bottle” and “Roxanne” by The Police, The Romantics’ “Talking in Your Sleep”, and even Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”, while some have mildly referenced it to The Outfield’s “Your Love”.

    “Locked Out of Heaven” was written by Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence, Ari Levine, while production was handled by the latter three production-team The Smeezingtons, Mark Ronson, Jeff Bhasker and Emile Haynie. It was written in the key of D minor, with Mars’s vocals range from the low note of A₃ the high note of C₅. The song finds Mars singing of a relationship that is so good the narrator feels like he was “locked out of heaven” before he met his lover. “You make me feel like I’ve been locked out of heaven for too long/ Can I just stay here, spend the rest of my days here?” he sings. During his Google Hangout on the day of the song’s release, Mars was asked by a fan to name his favorite lyrics from the track. Mars picked the phrase “But swimming in your water is something spiritual,” and later said that the single’s exploration of feeling and being in love fits into the “sensual, sensual and sensual” theme of the album.

    It has been described as having strong influences of New Wave, funk and reggae rock. Andrew Unterberger of Pop Dust perceived that “the choppy guitar and bass combo that hits halfway in between The Romantics’ “Talking in Your Sleep” and The Police’s “Roxanne”.” Tim Sendra of Allmusic described the song as “a breezy mashup of ‘Beat It’, The Police, and Dire Straits.” Bill Lamb of About.com opined that it “sounds like the Police’s classic ‘Message In a Bottle’ had a head-on collision with the band Maroon 5.” For Paul MacInnes of The Guardian called it “a brazen – but successful – welding of Dire Straits’ ‘Sultans of Swing’ and ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’ by the Police.” Carl Williott of Idolator found out that “the angular guitars and Mars’ Sting-like staccato delivery are heavily indebted to The Police,” also seeing “hints of Foster the People on the omnipresent ‘eh-eh-eh-eh-ooo’ punctuating the beat.” Melinda Newman of HitFix commented that the song has a “Police/’80s rock skipping beat plus a touch of The Romantics’ ‘What I Like About You.’” Mikael Wood of Los Angeles Times expressed, “think the Police (circa Ghost in the Machine) infiltrating the Human League.” Jon Caramanica of New York Times simply called it “a vivid carbon copy of Zenyatta Mondatta-era Police.”

    Though critics have pointed out the song's similarities to some of the hits by the Police, Mars told MTV News and Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know”, he did not set out to write anything inspired by the Sting-fronted band. Instead, it came to him out of the blue, one night during his studio sessions prior to recording the Unorthodox Jukebox album. “I don’t think it initially tried to sound like anybody else, but I picked up the guitar and just started playing [the song’s opening chords],” Mars explained. “That’s how it normally works; I’ll pick up a guitar and I’ll start humming a melody, and I started singing that, and I was up there in Sting-ville, in that register, so that’s what you get…” He performed the song live with Sting himself during the 2013 Grammys.

Music video

    A music video for the song was directed by Cameron Duddy and Bruno Mars, and was released on October 15, 2012. The concept of the video is about Bruno Mars having a good time with his friends doing things like smoking, drinking beer, and playing games. He is also seen singing the song with his band at a club. The video has a vintage style, like those of VHS tapes. Mars explained to MTV News, “The concept is just old-fashioned fun. No story line, it’s not me singing to a girl, you get a good sense of what you’re going to get live… It’s very VHS-y. I love that man, it takes me back to my childhood, when the tracking is off and the color is off, there’s a beauty in that. You’d have to stand by the TV with, like, aluminum foil all over you.”

    Hugh McIntire of Billboard explained the video, writing, ’Everything about ‘Locked Out Of Heaven’ — whether it be the video or the track itself — is retro. While the song references the early discography of The Police, the video takes us back a little bit further. From the style of their dress and the wonky-TV effects on the video, one might guess that Bruno and his friends are partying in the ’70s. Only the Akai MPC sampler being played by a band member reminds the viewer that this video is, in fact, modern.”

—from Wikipedia (the Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License applies to Wikipedia’s block of text and possible accompanying picture, along with any alterations, transformations, and/or building upon Wikipedia’s original text that ThisSideofSanity.com applied to this block of text)

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