Rating: 4/5

Bruno Mars knows his way around a pop song like the contours of a woman’s body. The whole of this enjoyable second album is about girls. And half the time, it’s carnal. Rumpy-pumpy is a familiar Mars theme, but the ‘really nice sex’ he referenced on 2011 single ‘The Lazy Song’ has been upped to ‘f*cking like gorillas’ on this record (‘Gorilla’). Occasionally the 27-year-old Hawaiian is happy just to howl, as on ‘Young Girls’. The whole thing is unsettlingly arousing.

Smut aside, this is great music. Mars’s ’80s funk influences are refreshing, there are contemporary hip hop hints in the bassy beats of ‘Natalie’ and ‘Money Makes Her Smile’, and ska infusions with a steel pan/air horn mix on ‘Show Me’. Whether Mars really is as horny as his lyrics suggest, remains to be seen, but we’re well and truly seduced by this album. Danielle Goldstein