Before the official release of his new album “Unorthodox Jukebox” on Tuesday, Dec. 11, Bruno Mars is streaming the entire album online.
The 27-year-old hitmaker has already released “Locked Out of Heaven,” his first single off the new album. The reggae-ish, Police-sounding track has had more than 31 million views since the official video was uploaded on October 13.
The single has also already sold 500,000 units, qualifying it as a gold record.
[Related: Bruno Mars evolving as a musican]“Seeing Locked Out Of Heaven at the top of the I Tunes charts makes me feel a certain way. Thank you guys so much for supporting my music,” he told his Twitter followers.
Mars admitted to a U.K. radio station his inspiration for the single, which features the raunchy lyrics “Your sex takes me to paradise.” He confessed, “I might as well just say it – Halle Berry.”
Three other singles from the album has been released: "Young Girls," "Moonshine," and "When I Was Your Man."
[More: Bruno Mars sings about Halle Berry]“Unorthodox Jukebox” is only Mars’s second album since his 2010 debut “Doo-Wops and Hooligans.”
That album proved to be all sorts of awesome for Mars, yielding the hits “Just the Way You Are,” “Marry You,” “The Lazy Song,” “Grenade,” and “The Other Side” featuring Cee Lo Green and B.o.B.Rolling Stone magazine called it 2010’s “finest pop debut: 10 near-perfect songs,” earning him 13 Grammy nominations.
Previous to that, he and the production team he founded with Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine The Smeezingtons churned out phenomenal rib-sticking tunes for Travis McCoy (“Billionaire”), B.o.B. (“Nothin’ on You”), Cee Lo Green and Flo Rida (“Right Round”) among others.
[More: Bruno Mars to spend Christmas in Hawaii, reveals Mom’s festive treat]Mars, whose mother hails from Cebu and is one of six children, was in the Philippines for a sold-out concert concerts in April 2011. He also became an endorser for the clothing brand Bench.
A year earlier, Mars was busted in a Las Vegas hotel for cocaine possession. The charges were erased after Mars, whose real name is Peter Hernandez, paid a fine, completed community service and underwent drug counseling.
