Holy Shit, “Uptown Funk” Has a Billion Views
Is it really a copy when almost every song sounds alike?
Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” has been inescapable since its release last fall. A year later, it’s in a rare category — one of 11 videos in the history of YouTube to surpass one billion views.
It still trails Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off,” Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” and “Roar,” Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again,” and Enrique Iglesias “Bailando,” respectively.
But holy shit, a billion! There was a time when reaching a few million views was an achievement. This is like the entire population of India sitting down to watch Bruno Mars do his best Kool & the Gang impression.
Speaking of Kool & the Gang, the reason why I even knew “Uptown Funk” had so many views was because I was listening to the aforementioned group’s platinum-selling 1981 album Something Special, and I dunno, I guess there was a chord progression in the b-section of the song “Good Time Tonight.” It sounded vaguely-familiar.
I hate doing that thing that people on the internet do. You know, the whole “This song sounds like another song, so it must be stolen” crap. Because it’s true maybe 1% of the time, and all it ever reveals is how ignorant people are about the existence of, you know, like 100 years of other music.
But Kool & the Gang’s track did make me think of “Uptown Funk,” which has already gone through a series of issues. In May, the Gap Band, another legendary funk group, was awarded 17% of the song’s publishing. “Uptown Funk” is said to crib from their 1979 hit “Oops Upside Your Head.”
Which is interesting, in as much that Kool & the Gang’s biggest hit from Something Special is actually “Get Down On It,” which itself seems to be directly-influenced by The Gap Band, if not a whole bunch of other groups.
Consider the opening lines on “Oops Up Side Your Head.” The melody and the lyrics:
“Just because you don’t believe that I wanna dance
Don’t mean that I don’t want to”
Then consider the chorus on “Get Down On It.” Melody and lyrics:
“How you gonna do it if you really don’t wanna dance
By standing on the wall?”
I think if I was less-educated about music I might make a snap judgment and say — stolen! But no, I’m actually documenting this here to show how, on a very micro-level, one person’s idea morphs into another, which then turns into another, and so on down the line. That’s how you get what is nominally called a “genre” of music.
The truth is “Uptown Funk” is a funk song. Since funk is not a popular genre of music anymore, we can be quick to say it’s influenced by x, y and z. We might even cherry pick those influences and say Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson owe a debt of gratitude, in the form of music publishing, to someone who made a song that was popular at one time.
The point is, once you start listening to music from where the original sound came from, you will realize that almost every song sounds somewhat alike. You could create a family tree from this song to that song and this artist to that artist, just to see how things connect.
Regardless, “Uptown Funk” is popular as shit. Wow. A billion views. You know what that means — it’s only a matter of time before Miley Cyrus makes a funk LP and takes credit for inventing it.
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