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Mark Ronson

Mark Ronson didn’t mean to make a debut album that reinvented party-friendly hip hop. Nor a follow-up that became one of the defining albums of the second half of the Noughties. He never anticipated that three of the up and coming British singers he produced and wrote with in his scruffy New York studio – Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse and Adele – would become three of the biggest stars in the world. The Brit and three Grammys piled into his little fireplace in his apartment? Still can’t believe those either. And for sure Ronson didn’t set out to make a third album that featured a kaleidoscope of talents, from Spank Rock to The Drums’ Jonathan Pierce to The View’s Kyle Falconer to Q Tip, Ghostface Killah, a Kaiser Chief, an ex-Pipette, Dave McCabe from The Zutons, Boy George and Simon Le Bon, the touring keyboard player from Yeah Yeah Yeahs and some funky cats from Brooklyn – a collective of talents yoked together by Ronson’s vivid, sparkling songwriting and production talents. But that’s what he did with 2003’s Here Comes The Fuzz, then 2007’s Version, and now 2010's Record Collection: a 12 song album that will stand as the most exciting, entertaining hip pop album of the year. It all happened by accident, and by enthusiasm. Back at the start of the millennium Mark Ronson was a London-born, New York-based writer, producer, DJ and hip hop head. Playing out in NYC clubs he became friends with Mos Def, MOP and Ghostface Killah. With their help he created Here Comes The Fuzz. Then small label BBE asked him if he was interested in contributing to a Radiohead covers album. ‘I was almost like a kid in the classroom when you throw your hand up before you know the answer – me! I’ll do that!’ Such was Ronson’s enthusiasm for Radiohead that he quickly roped in his friends Alex Greenwald, vocalist with California’s Phantom Planet, and Dave Guy, trumpet player from Brooklyn’s The Dap-Kings. They recorded a jump-up jazz version of The Bends’ track Just. ‘Then I remember I was in Singapore doing this f**king horrible DJ gig…’ With typical candour Ronson admits he was accepting many such bookings then – he had just started his label, Allido Records, and badly needed funds to enable him to keep developing artists/friends that he’d signed, including Daniel Merriweather. ‘And while I was out there I got a call from Zane Lowe in London. He said everyone at the Radio 1 playlist meeting had been talking about Just.’ A new record deal, with SONY/RCA, followed. Ronson had already recorded ‘eight or nine’ other cover versions – an indie-Anglophile as much as he was a beats man, he was simply a fan of The Smiths (Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before), The Zutons (Valerie), Coldplay (God Put A Smile On My Face) and Kaiser Chiefs (Oh My God). He wanted to pay homage, and he wanted to have some of his vocalist friends (Winehouse, Allen, Merriweather) help him. Gathered into the album Version, these songs became international hits, dancefloor smashes, radio staples and, once Ronson went on the road with some of the musicians and singers that he counted as amongst his best friends, live favourites. Version sold one million copies in the UK and Ronson won Best Male Solo Artist at the Brit Awards 2008, and three Grammy’s in the US including Producer of The Year. After Version fever finally died down, Mark Ronson went back to New York. He kept producing other artists, including Devon’s The Rumble Strips and Los Angeles’ The Like. He also took the helm for Duran Duran’s 13th album. And, in the middle of 2009, he began thinking about his fourth album. ‘At that point the idea of using disparate collaborators wasn’t there,’ he recalls. ‘All I knew is, my favourite drummer in the world is Homer Steinweiss from The Dap-Kings. My favourite guitar player is Tommy Brenneck. One of the most talented songwriters is Alex Greenwald. And Nick Movshon is a genius on bass. So let’s go into a studio together. There’s no mission statement; there’s nothing except we’re not gonna do what’s obvious. So, no covers. And we’re not gonna go wild with the horn arrangements.’ In July last year, Ronson and his musician friends went into Dunham studios in Brooklyn, home base of Steinweiss and Brenneck. Inspired by working with Duran Duran, notably synth innovator Nick Rhodes, he brought with him some of the vintage keyboards he’d found on eBay. And they began playing. He and the other musicians would try their hand at different instruments ‘to stop anyone getting too comfortable’. ‘We did that for two months, just playing, coming up with backing tracks we liked, until we had a little bit of a sound, something worth pursuing. Then I thought about bringing in some other writers to bring some melodies and lyrics.’ Dave McCabe, a friend since the Version version of “Valerie”, was the first to come over to New York. The Zutons’ frontman contributed “The Bike Song”, a chipper blast of Sixties psychedelia. Ronson asked Kyle Falconer of The View to sing it – he thought his scruffy, boyish tones suited the song – and an inspired Spank Rock wrote and performed a rap. “Last Night”, written by Ronson and Greenwald – whom Ronson calls ‘my co-writer and co-pilot’ – is another Sixties-tinged song. ‘I wanted to get that Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons’ Beggin’ feeling, that really haunting, barbershop-type harmonies over a heavy drum break,’ says Ronson. Vocals are shared by Greenwald, who sung the part four times to create the harmonies, and Rose Elinor Dougall, formerly of The Pipettes. Ronson describes first single “Bang Bang Bang” as ‘like Van Halen and The Meters had a baby’. It features another female vocalist, MNDR, an up and coming dance-pop artist and beatmaker, alongside Q-Tip, another old Ronson buddy. ‘Their tones work well together, these crisp, beautiful textures…’ The song was built using a classic Eighties Duran keyboard idea (‘Setting 32 on the Prophet V,’ says this self-confessed trainspotter and crate-digger), a version of French nursery rhyme Alouette (MNDR’s idea), a writing contribution from Nick Hodgson of Kaiser Chiefs, and ideas culled from Ronson’s experiences touring the festival circuit. It all hangs – bangs – brilliantly. ‘When we played all those festivals in 2007, we’d end up in the dance tent. And I got so jealous when Justice or Soulwax or Pendulum would go into their double-time breaks, and all the kids would start jumping up and down. And we never had that tempo in our set. So I just wanted that in one of our songs.’ “Somebody To Love Me” had an equally byzantine genesis, but equally triumphant outcome: Jake Shears of Scissors Sisters, Cathy Dennis (Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head), erstwhile Dirty Pretty Thing Anthony Rossomando, and Andrew Wyatt of Miike Snow all had a hand in writing what Ronson describes as a ‘bionic’ song. Then he persuaded Boy George, at his most cracked diva-esque, to sing this song of ‘earnest blue-eyed soul’. Ronson himself takes lead vocals on “Lose It (In The End)” - he took singing lessons from Lady Gaga’s vocal coach, at the Lady herself’s suggestion (Ronson met Gaga when she guested on the debut album by Wale, who's signed to AllIDo). Again, he didn’t mean to: having written the Zombies/Turtles-like track with Jonathan Pierce of The Drums, he hoped Pierce would sing it. But Pierce wanted to concentrate on the fast-rising Drums, so Ronson – accompanied by Ghostface Killah – stepped up to the mic. ‘My vocals sound so small next to Ghostface – literally dwarfed when he comes in. But I wanted that song to sound like The RZA sampling a Turtles record and putting a breakbeat on it.’ Ronson also sings the verses on the album title track, with Simon Le Bon supplying the chorus and Wylie adding a rap. The words were written by Nick Hodgson. Ronson remembers hearing the Kaiser Chief’s first pass at the lyrics in the studio. *“I just got in from somewhere really cool… I’m not as clever as I thought I was…”* ‘And after a while, I’m like, are you making fun of me?’ Ronson says with a grin. ‘Is this an ironic take on what people perceive my lifestyle to be?’ He admits that he and Hodgson ‘still haven’t super-cleared up if he’s taking the piss’. But no matter. Ronson has been around the hip hop block; he can live with a good-humoured diss. So much so that he opted to name the album after the song, ditching the original choice, Introducing The Business. ‘Record Collection suddenly made so much sense as a title,’ says accidental pop star Mark Ronson. ‘All these disparate performances and people hang together by a thread, and that thread is that I own records by all of them. And the only reason it all works is that I’m such a passionate fan of all those artists.’ “Introducing The Business”, meanwhile, refers to both the name of Ronson’s new band The Business Intl and to a song of the same name on the album. That tune features a rapper named Pill and the London Gay Men’s Choir. How did they get involved? Well, that’s another story for another day. That’s enough backdrop and cast-of-character info. For now, let’s get lost in the wonderful world of this gloriously inventive album. Time to dive into Mark Ronson’s Record Collection.

1

Uptown Funk (feat. Bruno Mars)

2

Valerie (Version Revisited) (feat. Amy Winehouse)

3

Nothing Breaks Like a Heart (feat. Miley Cyrus)

4

Valerie (Version Revisited) (feat. Amy Winehouse)

5

Find U Again (feat. Camila Cabello)

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Ken The EP

EP • 2023

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Late Night Feelings

Album • 2019

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Version

Album • 2007

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Barbie (Score from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Album • 2023

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Mortdecai (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Album • 2015

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Exit Music - Songs with Radio Heads EP 1

EP • 2006

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Watch the Sound (Apple TV+ Original Series Soundtrack)

EP • 2021

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Uptown Special

Album • 2015

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Nothing Breaks Like A Heart (feat. Miley Cyrus)

EP • 2019

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Version Digital Edition

Album • 2007

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Can't Help Falling in Love (From the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack ELVIS) DELUXE EDITION (Bonus Track)

2023

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Then There Were Two

2019

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Don't Leave Me Lonely (Acoustic Version) (feat. James Francies)

2019

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Bird Calling

2022

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Happy Together

2019

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Don't Leave Me Lonely (feat. Yebba)

2019

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Too Much (feat. Lucky Daye)

2022

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Pieces of Us (feat. King Princess)

2019

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I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight

2020

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Find U Again (feat. Camila Cabello)

2019

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Uptown Funk (Official Visualiser) (feat. Bruno Mars)

Mark Ronson • 56K views

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Valerie (Official Video) (feat. Amy Winehouse)

Mark Ronson ft. Amy Winehouse • 30M views

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Uptown Funk (Live on SNL) (feat. Bruno Mars)

Mark Ronson • 37M views

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Daffodils (Official Visualiser) (feat. Kevin Parker)

Mark Ronson • 10K views

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Electricity (Official Video) (feat. Diplo, Dua Lipa & Mark Ronson)

Silk City • 187M views

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Don’t Leave Me Lonely (feat. Yebba)

Mark Ronson • 7.2M views

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Feel Right (Official Visualiser) (feat. Mystikal)

Mark Ronson • 6.6K views

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Find U Again (feat. Camila Cabello)

Mark Ronson • 14M views

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Nothing Breaks Like a Heart (Official Video) (feat. Miley Cyrus)

Mark Ronson • 407M views

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Late Night Feelings (Official Video)

Mark Ronson • 14M views

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Deep Funk Revival

Playlist • YouTube Music

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Presenting Anderson .Paak

Playlist • YouTube Music

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Celebrate Good Times!

Playlist • YouTube Music

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Presenting Amy Winehouse

Playlist • YouTube Music

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Ultimate Feel-Good

Playlist • YouTube Music

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Presenting Bruno Mars

Playlist • YouTube Music

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Deal With It

Playlist • YouTube Music

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The Happiest Pop Hits

Playlist • YouTube Music

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Presenting Miley Cyrus

Playlist • YouTube Music

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Evening Commute

Playlist • YouTube Music

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Dua Lipa

24M subscribers

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will.i.am

5.06M subscribers

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Years & Years

10.1K subscribers

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Naughty Boy

2.34M subscribers

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Lizzo

3.04M subscribers

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Pharrell Williams

4.71M subscribers

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Olly Alexander (Years & Years)

1.71M subscribers

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Izzy Bizu

118K subscribers

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La Roux

258K subscribers

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Black Eyed Peas

12.9M subscribers