Bruno Mars Returns: Superstar Announces New Album ‘The Romantic’

At long last, Bruno Mars will make his solo return. On Wednesday (Jan. 7), the superstar announced that The Romantic, his highly anticipated fourth solo studio album, will be released on Feb. 27, and the first taste of the album will be released this Friday (Jan. 9).

Mars recently scored a pair of collaborative smashes with the Lady Gaga duet “Die With a Smile,” which finished at No. 1 on Billboard’s year-end 2025 Hot 100 Songs chart, and the ROSÉ team-up “APT.,” which finished at No. 9 on the same chart. “APT.” is nominated in three categories at the upcoming 68th Annual Grammy Awards, including record of the year and song of the year.

Prior to those collaborations, Mars and Anderson .Paak formed the throwback R&B duo Silk Sonic and scored a No. 1 hit with “Leave the Door Open” in 2021. The pair played a Las Vegas residency at Park MGM in Las Vegas in 2022, which Mars then followed with a globe-spanning solo tour that ran through 2024.

Mars’ solo studio output has been in short supply over the past decade, after bursting through in 2010 with his debut full-length Doo-Wops & Hooligans and notching chart-topping smashes like “Just the Way You Are,” “Grenade,” “Locked Out of Heaven,” “When I Was Your Man” and “That’s What I Like” in the following years. His most recent solo album remains 2016’s 24K Magic — but the superstar hinted that the decade-long drought was ending when he posted on Monday, “My album is done.”

This article was first published by Billboard U.S.