Not content with being behind the most infectious record of 2014, Mark Ronson has decided to go ahead and make an entire album’s worth of laser-precisioned pop bangers. Not that he’s done it all on his own – a glance through the credits here shows that the Back to Black producer enlisted a little help from friends such as Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, rapper Mystikal and novelist Michael Chabon who wrote the lyrics. Oh, and some guy called Stevie Wonder.

In a recent interview with the Guardian, Ronson acknowledged that Uptown Special could be seen as something of a career renaissance. “I’ve made something so good that people don’t actually think it’s me,” he told Alexis Petridis.

We would tell you more, but Ronson himself has offered to do that for us by writing his own track-by-track guide. So have a listen using the player below and then scroll down for Ronson’s own take on the record. And of course, let us know what you make of it all in the comments section!



Track-by-track guide to Uptown Special

Mark Ronson reveals the secrets behind the songs ...

Uptown’s First Finale

The melody to this piece was completely inspired by the first set of lyrics that Michael [Chabon, novelist] sent me. And although I loved the lyrics, for some reason I kept hearing the melody as if it were being played by Stevie Wonder with his signature harmonica tone. His harmonica playing can really turn me inside out, just as his singing does. Anyway, I thought what the hell and sent a “hail-mary” letter to his manager with the song ... and a few months later, he recorded it! When I first heard it, it was one of the most emotional experiences I’ve ever had. I was dumbfounded, speechless, whatever word you want to use, I was all of those things. I still can’t believe somewhere in a studio in Chicago one night, Stevie Wonder actually recorded a piece of music that I wrote. I’ve listened to it a hundred times and it still messes me up when I play it.

Summer Breaking

I sought Jeff Bhasker out because I loved the song Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart that he wrote and produced for Alicia Keys. Plus I also dug all his chords and synths on Kanye’s 808’s & Heartbreak. In his music, I could hear someone who equally loved hip-hop, Earth Wind & Fire and even a bit of weird prog. He’s also a Berklee-trained jazz pianist ... needless to say, a major dude. Anyway, I went out to his house in Venice, LA to start working on my album. One night, he left early and I wrote the chords and melody to this song. It’s something way more complex than anything I’ve done before, I don’t really even know the names of the chords – they just sort of came out of me. I think I was trying to write something I thought would impress Jeff, because I wanted him to think I was good or worthy or something as it was early on. Michael then wrote the lyrics and Kevin [Parker] made it cool.

Feel Right

In 2012, Mystikal put out a song called Hit Me that a lot of my DJ friends went crazy for. It kind of went under the radar but I loved it. When I was in New Orleans (at the start of mine & Jeff’s trip to find a singer for the album), the jazz musician Trombone Shorty told me I should look up Mystikal when I got to Baton Rouge and gave me his number. We got there and kicked it with Mystikal and [legendary New Orleans rap producer] KLC for a bit. When we got to Memphis a few weeks later, Mystikal came up and we cut this song. The backing track was something that me and the band had recorded on a whim a few weeks back but it worked out to be so well suited to his vocal style.

Uptown Funk

This came out of a jam in Bruno’s studio in LA. He was on drums, Jeff on synths, me on bass. We got the basic groove and, with Phil Smeeze joining in, we wrote the lyrics to the first verse. Six months later we finished the song in Toronto. Bruno’s a good drummer.

I Can’t Lose

Jeff wrote most of this one. And then he had the idea that we should drive through the deep south to find someone to sing it. I loved the idea of discovering a new talent so we went to New Orleans, rented an Astro Van and drove up the Mississippi, stopping in Baton Rouge, Jackson, Memphis, Little Rock (which got snowed out), St Louis & Chicago. We went to a lot of churches, a few nightclubs, some bars and community centres and heard a few hundred amazing singers. But we had a very specific vocalist in mind and when Keyone came in the room in Jackson, MI and started singing, we realised she was the one.



Daffodils

Kevin sent me a demo of this riff and vocal idea maybe a year and a half ago, and I instantly loved it. When he came to Memphis to work on the album, he sat in a corner and wrote the lyrics with Michael. Then I added some synths with Riton and James Ford, and Kirin J Callinan laid this insane guitar solo. Finally, while we were mixing the song in New York, Tom Elmhirst (the mix engineer) took some of our synths and made this crazy drop happen around 4 mins 13 seconds.



Crack in the Pearl

These were the first set of lyrics that Michael sent us. As I started reading the words to the chorus (“Is this how you pictured it?/Is this how you thought it would be?”), the melody began to form in my head at the very same time. Melodies don’t usually shoot into my head from nowhere like that, so it was like an amazing “alley-oop” pass to have these words.



In Case of Fire

I wrote this guitar riff while working on Rufus Wainwright’s last album, Out of the Game. It was partly inspired by a cello line he wrote for the song Jericho. I really loved it but it didn’t fit his record and I didn’t know if I’d ever get to use it. But then a year or so later, I came up with the verse chords (inspired by some Michael lyrics that we never used) and everything seemed to fit together pretty well. I love Jeff’s vocal on this. And for all the great melodies he’s written for Kanye, Beyonce, Alicia etc, this is the first time he’s ever actually been on a record. Tom Elmhirst also made this lovely outro section from nothing during the final mix.

Leaving Los Feliz

Los Feliz is an artsy/hipster/musician-y area of Los Angeles. This song is about an ageing hipster who doesn’t want to admit that he’s too old to still be going to the party. It’s not semi-autobiographical at all. At all.



Heavy and Rolling

Michael had these lyrics fully formed. He was really into the expression “heavy and rolling” that NYC hire car drivers use to signify to the base that they have their passengers and are on the job. Andrew [Wyatt, Miike Snow] had this bassline (from an xx remix that he never finished) and just started singing the lyrics off the page. We added some chord changes and it was pretty much done. This is one of my favourite pairing of lyrics/song/performance on the album. If I could sing like Andrew, I would stay home and serenade myself all day.



Crack in the Pearl pt. II

I had to bring Stevie back one more time!

