How Uptown Funk Got Its Groove

How Uptown Funk Got Its Groove is a fun and fascinating read for anyone who loves music. Learn how this timeless classic came to be, and what makes it so special.

The song’s conception

The song was conceived by Mark Ronson in 2013, during a freestyle jam session with Bruno Mars while the two were in a studio in the Uptown section of New York City. According to Ronson in 2019, they had been working all day and night and hadn’t eaten, resulting in them being “a little delirious”. When they started playing around with some 1970s-style chord progressions on a Fender Rhodes electric piano, Mars began singing lyrics based on those progressions. Aaron Bay-Schuck, president of A&R at RCA Records, was also present during the session and contacted Mars’ manager that night to tell him that “Uptown Funk” was “the greatest song [he had] ever heard”.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in November 2014, Ronson revealed that he initially thought that “Uptown Funk” would be used as part of his album rather than being released as a single. He also explained that he missions to make songs that are better than any he has made before: “I try to one-up myself every time I sit down to write… trying to get better.”

The song’s composition

“Uptown Funk” was written by Macklemore, Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence and Mark Ronson, with the latter two producing the song and additional writing by Jeff Bhasker. The track was composed as an interpolation of various older R&B songs such as “Humphrey”, “Funky President (People It’s Bad)” and “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)”. The team aimed to write a song that would be performed by many different artists and that would have a timeless quality.

The song’s release

“Uptown Funk” was released as the lead single from Ronson’s fourth studio album, Uptown Special (2015), on 10 November 2014. On the same day, it was available for digital download worldwide via iTunes and other major digital retailers. The song originally peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart in December 2014 and January 2015, before topping the chart on 18 January 2015. In February 2015, “Uptown Funk” spent seven weeks at number one in Australia, becoming that country’s longest-running chart-topper of all time by a male artist. It also became the first song to spend more than one year in the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, spending 14 consecutive weeks in the top ten and 34 weeks overall. It also became Ronson’s only solo US number-one single as a lead artist.

In May 2015, “Uptown Funk” was certified double platinum by both the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The song’s success

“Uptown Funk” was commercially successful, spending 14 consecutive weeks atop the US Billboard Hot 100 and becoming the longest-running number-one single of 2015. It topped the charts in several other countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland and the United Kingdom; in the latter country, it became Mars’ seventh number-one single (sixth as a solo artist), spending five weeks atop the UK Singles Chart. The song won two Grammy Awards: Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

The song’s legacy

“Uptown Funk” has been credited with helping to bring back the funk genre, which had been largely absent from the pop charts since the late 1980s. The song has also been credited with reviving the careers of both Bruno Mars and producer Mark Ronson. “Uptown Funk” has become one of the best-selling singles of all time, selling over 14 million copies worldwide. In 2015, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.