Mars attacks! An unstoppable force in pop music, Bruno Mars barnstorms Verizon Arena

He's a baby-faced musical chameleon whose sound has incorporated rock, hip-hop, R&B from multiple decades and funk, funk, funk. If "cute and hokey" was a musical genre, it can be said he does that too.

He has been compared to Michael Jackson in looks, dance and sound; he also channels a bit of James Brown. And if a bad boyfriend could deliver pleading romantic ballads like this guy, he'd never get dumped, no matter what he did.

He's Peter Gene Hernandez, better known as Bruno Mars. He's a four-time Grammy winner; nominated, oh, about a gazillion times. And he's coming back to North Little Rock's Verizon Arena three years after his last visit -- a June stop during his Moonshine Jungle World Tour. A sold-out stop, we might add, with more than 15,000 fans in attendance.

Mars' return on Sunday will be opened by velvet-voiced British soul singer Jorja Smith, noted for "On My Mind," "Beautiful Little Fools" and "Get It Together" (with Drake).

From the look of things, Mars may be greeted by another capacity crowd. A check online found that the only ticket remaining on Ticketmaster as of Oct. 5 was a seat in the "Official Platinum Seats" in Row 10 of Section 15. That ticket, listed for a whopping $408 -- a big jump from the original range of $45-$125 -- is long gone; a look at a secondary ticket site revealed tickets whose sellers were asking $153 to $1,587.

Wait, so who is this guy?

Cross-town funk

Many came to know the Honolulu-born singer and musician, who celebrated his 32nd birthday Oct. 8, when mega-hit "Uptown Funk" came to the airwaves. (A show of hands: Who even remembers that singer/songwriter/producer Mark Ronson gets the main billing on this song? And who remembers the totally fun cover and video of the same song, featuring the senior folks?) They may have become fans after that dance-off Mars did with Beyonce and Coldplay during Super Bowl 50, an act that meshed his "Uptown Funk" with her "Formation."

The big-haired, often-fedora-wearing Mars wormed his way into the hearts of millions with his combination of cheeky bravado, cute-and-cuddliness and smoldering

sexiness, sometimes displayed all at once. Even those who don't follow pop music closely may well have become Bruno fans without even realizing it. His No. 1 chart hits one seems to hear everywhere -- the perky, romantic "Just the Way You Are." The earnest "Grenade." And that ultra-catchy compliment-to-one's-lady song "Nothin' on You," actually by rapper B.o.B. featuring refrain vocals by Mars. That big rock-fueled hit "Locked Out of Heaven" ("Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah"). And Mars' discography includes only three studio albums so far: Doo-Wops & Hooligans (2010), Unorthodox Jukebox (2012) and 24K Magic (2016).

An Aug. 1 story at Billboard.com announced that the latter album had reached two-times platinum status, with its title cut and hit "That's What I Like" certified four times platinum. Multiple online sources name Mars as one of the best-selling artists of all time.

And who is this guy again?

Musical

cross-pollination

Mars has proved himself as a master collaborator; he has worked with Ronson and B.o.B., of course, but also with Wiz Khalifa, Snoop Dogg ("Young, Wild & Free") Lil Wayne ("Mirror") and Bad Meets Evil ("Lighters"). And his success has been helped along by the talented Hooligans -- band members and backup singer/dancers who appeared live with him during that Super Bowl act and the 2017 Grammy Awards.

Named Billboard Artist of the year in 2013, Mars is so popular, at least one Arkansan named a dog after him. A Democrat-Gazette photo published June 10 featured a photo of the mixed-breed "Bruno Mars" catching a ball at Murray Park.

Catchy as Mars' multifaceted music is, much of it reveals his earthy side. Via song and video, he seems to delight in combining the gentle and the brutal, the rough and the smooth, the refined and the crude. "Versace on the Floor," from 24K Magic, is the standard "let's make whoopie" song that Bruno made pretty, jazzing it up with an almost Stevie Wonder-like sound. "Gorilla" (2013) is in the same vein but more raw, complete with a video that pushes the buttons. And there are those collaborations. On "Lighters," the rapping by Eminem and Royce da 5'9" of Bad Meets Evil is enough to make the unprepared positively blue in the ears, clashing with Mars' beautiful vocals and ethereal end-of-video images of a night sky full of floating luminarias. But, hey, this is the man who helped write Cee Lo Green's F-word titled hit from a few years back. (Mars also teamed with Green and B.o.B. on the harmonic rock number "The Other Side.")

Mars is truly at his best when he's being:

• Just plain romantic. The best demonstrations of this come with one of his most recognizable hits, the sweet "Just the Way You Are"; "When I was Your Man," a forlorn number where Bruno laments all the things he didn't do for a former girlfriend who now has another; and "It Will Rain," the Twilight: Breaking Dawn soundtrack number about an intense romance and his "What if I lose you?" fears.

• Just plain fun, if, again, one excuses an expletive or a crudity here and there. Case in point: Mars' 2011, "The Lazy Song" about slacking, which he delivers in a video with his boys wearing monkey masks. The midtempo "That's What I Like," with its fun stop-action, live/animated video. "Treasure," which proves to be a danceable number whose video has a '70s Soul Train look to it -- complete with Bruno and the gang in matching red suits. "24K Magic," with its rap and retro vibe that borrows from the 1980s, complete with a Roger Troutman/Zapp voice box sound. "Perm," which blatantly rips off James Brown and, we suspect, is a subtle ode to Brown's heyday hair.

Don't believe? Just watch

Mars rose from being "broke, busted and nearly homeless," according to the 2016 segment about him on CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes. The son of a singer and a Latin percussionist, Mars was nicknamed Bruno as a child and began distinguishing himself early, starting to play instruments at an early age and joining his family's stage revue as an Elvis, later a Michael Jackson, impersonator. His first band, the School Boys, he formed with some friends in high school. After graduating from there he moved to Los Angeles and, after struggling to establish his singing career, began songwriting for other artists. He found success in that field but finally broke out as a singer with "Nothin' on You" in 2010.

It'll be interesting to see how Mars, who has done so much musically in so many ways, tries to top himself in the coming years. If he continues to do so, even the most out-of-the loop will know exactly who he is.

Style on 10/17/2017