Music reviews: Bruno Mars, Mitski, and Gorillaz

‘The Romantic’ by Bruno Mars

★★★

“A new Bruno Mars album is not a grand artistic or personal statement,”
said Tom Breihan in Stereogum. The 40-year-old multi-Grammy winner
is “a one-man tribute act,” a performer whose hits are invariably “a pastiche of sounds that tend to do well at weddings,” essentially “anything that might get the party started.” His first solo album in nearly 10 years delivers more of the same, though it adds traces of Latin pop and “goes harder on sincere...