MARK WHO?

COMMENTARY

On my breakfast show this week, Maddy, Jason and Arnold in the Morning, we started playing the new Billboard No 1 hit Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson ft Bruno Mars.

My first thought was, who the hell is Mark Ronson?

So I fired up the video for Uptown Funk on my computer to see how funky he looks.

Imagine my surprise when he barely appears in his own video. He's just in it for like a split second, a skinny white guy with really good hair.

He's not even remotely funky, yo!

The main star of the vid is, of course, Bruno Mars.

The reason Mars is in the vid instead of Ronson, as it turns out, is that Mars sings the whole song.

Uptown Funk is by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars, but it's basically just a Bruno Mars song.

I guess Ronson wrote and produced Uptown Funk, which is pretty cool, but he just comes across as a total dork when he puts his name above Mars'.

We don't care about the nerds who hire the musicians and twiddle the knobs and steal the samples. We care about the guy who is up on stage.

Or maybe I should just speak for myself.

I really don't understand what this new breed of celebrity DJ-producers actually do.

As far as I can tell, they just create "beats" and latch on to people with actual musical talent in order to make a name for themselves.

Ronson has produced records for Amy Winehouse and Adele.

Good for him.

But do we really believe that Winehouse and Adele wouldn't have been just as awesome without this English dude?

Now turn the tables. Where would he be without them? He wouldn't have a name at all.

ROCK STAR

I miss the days when you could tell who the rock star was because he was the guy up on the stage playing his guitar like a demon.

Eddie Van Halen could go in front of an audience and destroy all comers.

That's why he was on stage. That's why he deserved to be on stage. That's why they called the band Van Halen.

Ronson just seems like some talker who's managed to befriend a lot of musicians and convinced them that they need him.

Truth be told, even after digging around on the Internet for hours, I still can't tell you who Mark Ronson actually is.

He's the phantom rock star with the No 1 hit from nowhere.