But while cosplaying the classics is a huge part of the appeal here, Bruno and Andy also bring a lovingly winking post-hip-hop playfulness that keeps this from merely being a high-end museum tour.

There’s Thom Bell sitar, Ernie Isley guitar, melodies hoisted aloft on cushiony beds of glockenspiel, congas, violas, violins, and cellos. “Put On a Smile” is so close to the vibe of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On that you start humming “Distant Lover” when it comes on. The resplendently stretched-out grooves of the hit “Leave the Door Open” or the equally fine “After Last Night” are so historically accurate you almost expect to hear Teddy Pendergrass himself come in when the verse starts. The result is the most enjoyable record Mars has been a part of. The pair hunted down old drum magazines to make sure they were using the right snare and conga heads, cut some of the record in Memphis’ Royal Studios, where Al Green made his classic albums, and even brought in forebears like Larry Gold, of the legendary Philly International house band MFSB, to arrange and conduct strings, and P-Funk icon Bootsy Collins, who appears throughout the album, as a special guest host and spiritual advisor.

They created A Night With Silk Sonic during Covid quarantine, as chronicled in their recent Rolling Stone cover story, giving the famously obsessive Mars a ll the time in the world to fixate on getting every period detail perfect. Paak’s lavish love letter to Seventies soul music, particularly post- W hat’s Going On Motown and the sumptuous, string-bathed Philadelphia sound of greats like the Stylistics, the Delfonics, and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. SOTW_MV_035A0538_FullResc - Credit: John Esparza*

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