The connection had some viewers feeling nostalgic — but others were left wondering why.
You know Bruno Mars the performer. The 10 No. 1 hits. The 21 Top 10 hits. The man behind “Uptown Funk!” who, alongside Mark Ronson, scored the No. 1 song of the entire 2010s, per Billboard.
That single alone spent 56 weeks on the Hot 100 chart and sat at No. 1 for 14 of them.
What most people don’t know is that Mars was building hits for other artists years before many of his own songs ever reached the charts. And once you start tracing his fingerprints across the pop landscape, some throwback songs suddenly sound different.
Bruno Mars’ career took off well before you knew him
According to Billboard Hot 100, 36 of Mars’ songs have appeared on the chart.
His own hits — “Locked Out Of Heaven,” “Die With A Smile,” “Grenade,” “Just The Way You Are,” “I Just Might,” “That’s What I Like,” “When I Was Your Man” — are well documented.
But the songs he wrote and produced for other artists tell a parallel story, one where Mars was shaping pop radio from behind the scenes before most listeners ever learned his name.
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In 2009, before his rise to fame, Mars formed a songwriting and record producing team called The Smeezingtons with Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine. The group became one of the most prolific hitmaking units of the late 2000s and early 2010s, crafting songs for a range of artists well beyond Mars’ own catalog.
Here are seven of those nostalgic songs he had his fingerprints on.
7. “Bow Chicka Wow Wow” by Mike Posner
This one flew under the radar compared to Mike Posner’s breakout hit “Cooler Than Me,” but it carved out its own chart run. From Posner’s debut album 31 Minutes to Takeoff (2010), the track debuted on Billboard Hot 100 on March 12, 2011, peaked at No. 30 on May 14, 2011, and spent 16 weeks on the chart. It was one of four Posner songs to appear on the charts. The production has Mars’ signature laid-back groove, and hearing it now, the connection is hard to miss.
6. “Tears Always Win” by Alicia Keys
Here’s a deep cut worth revisiting. “Tears Always Win” appeared on Alicia Keys’ fifth studio album, Girl on Fire (2012), and never appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 or Billboard 200. It was written by Keys, Mars, Lawrence and Jeff Bhasker, and released as the fifth single off the album. Keys debuted it on American Idol on May 9, 2013. The song flew under commercial radar entirely, which makes it one of the more interesting entries on this list — a collaboration between two of pop’s biggest names that most people never heard.
5. “Forget You” by Cee Lo Green
This is probably the song on this list that will catch people off guard the most. “Forget You” was everywhere in 2010 and 2011. Written by Cee Lo Green, Mars and Brody Brown, it was released on August 19, 2010, as the lead single from Green’s third solo studio album, The Lady Killer (2010). It’s by far Green’s most popular song. The track debuted on Billboard Hot 100 on Sept. 11, 2010, spent 48 weeks on the charts, and peaked at No. 2 on March 5, 2011. Forty-eight weeks. That kind of chart endurance doesn’t happen without a song that’s built to stick, and Mars had a hand in building it.
4. “Wavin’ Flag” by K’naan
The origin story here goes deeper than most people realize. “Wavin’ Flag” is a song by Somali-Canadian artist K’naan from his album Troubadour (2009). It was originally written for Somalia and aspirations of its people for freedom. The track was produced by Kerry Brothers Jr. and Mars. It became a global hit when it was rewritten and chosen as Coca-Cola’s promotional anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, hosted by South Africa. A song rooted in one country’s struggle for freedom became a worldwide anthem, and Mars’ production work helped carry it there.
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3. “One Day” by Matisyahu
Another song tied to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. “One Day” was released in 2008 and was a last-minute addition to Matisyahu’s album Light (2009). It was written by Mars, Levine, Lawrence and Matthew Miller and produced by The Smeezingtons. The track became a global hit when it was heavily featured on the official 2010 FIFA World Cup Album.
It is Matisyahu’s second most popular song, debuting on Billboard Hot 100 on March 13, 2010, and peaking at 85 on April 10, 2010. It spent six weeks on the charts. The fact that Mars had a hand in two separate songs connected to the same World Cup says something about how dialed in The Smeezingtons were during that period.
2. “Right Round” by Flo Rida
This one is the sleeper revelation. “Right Round” was released as the lead single from Flo Rida’s second studio album, R.O.O.T.S. (2009), and also serves as Kesha’s debut single. It was written by a long list of writers, including Mars and Lawrence. The song spent six weeks at No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100 and 26 weeks on the chart in 2009.
Mars himself described what the experience meant in a 2010 interview with Entertainment Weekly: “We wrote ‘Right Round’ for Flo Rida. That was a sample, obviously, but we got our name in there and got some publishing. And it was a No. 1 record. That was our first taste of what could really happen with a hit we hundred-percented.”
A No. 1 record. And for Mars, it was a proof of concept — confirmation that he and his team could write songs that dominated the charts, even if his name wasn’t on the marquee yet.
1. “All I Ask” by Adele
Written for Adele’s third studio album 25 (2015), “All I Ask” spent one week on Billboard Hot 100 at No. 77 on March 5, 2016. The song was written by Adele, Mars, Lawrence and Brody Brown and produced by The Smeezingtons.
Mars described the studio session with Adele in detail, per Billboard: “She’s a superstar. She walks into the studio, she’s got all this attitude, she’s a diva, she’s like, ‘I don’t want to do this. I don’t like that.’ And then as soon as we hit a couple chords that she liked, we started rolling and that’s where we got that song from.”
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That quote alone paints a picture of two pop heavyweights finding the groove together, and the result sits on one of the best-selling albums of the decade.
