Pop prince Bruno Mars probably can look forward to long career

Ain't gonna see him at the Hard Rock, especially not in the restroom.

But you will see a lot of Bruno Mars down the road, so don't fret if you couldn't score tickets for Thursday's show at the Palms with the equally fast-tracking Janelle Monae.

If good songs and good looks aren't enough, here are three more reasons why the 25-year-old stands to have a long career, including many returns to the city of his early brush with infamy.

HE GOT THE SCANDAL OUT OF THE WAY EARLY

Pop careers rise and fall like the stock market, but there's one thing we don't like to rush: We still want to build up our pop stars as high as possible before we knock them down. The bigger they are, the more dramatic the tumble, and all that.

So if Mars (born Peter Hernandez) had been arrested for cocaine possession in the Hard Rock Hotel's bathroom yesterday, it would already be a bigger deal than it was on Sept. 19 of last year, which was before two of his three ubiquitous hit singles.

Yeah, this newspaper did sorta make him No. 9 on 2010's list of the year's top stories. But it was a collective honor ("Celebrities and the Law") which he had to share with Paris Hilton and Vince Neil.

And Mars didn't try to claim his storage bag held ChapStick or even athlete's foot powder. He asked a police officer, "Can I speak to you honestly, sir?" and admitted "he did a foolish thing," according to the police report.

He smiled in his mug shot, owned up, pleaded guilty and got it over with. (He's on probation for a year, so bet on a low profile during his Las Vegas stay.)

Mars seems like such an upstanding citizen now, the official video for "Grenade" on You Tube comes with a caution: "The actions in this video serve as a metaphor, and should not be taken literally."

He feels the need to tell you not to drag a piano by a rope through a traffic tunnel or a rough neighborhood. Now that's a nice guy!

HE'S HEARD IN BOTH STRIP CLUBS AND SKATING RINKS

Granted, those may be the last two places where live DJs play the radio versions of Top 40 singles, not bass-thumpy remixes or house music.

But what better demographic spread to back up the fairly obvious assumption that this sharp-dressed lady killer has cross-generational appeal and fans who are both soccer moms and strippers?

"I just played him two songs ago," the Olympic Garden's DJ, "Billy the Kid," said on a recent afternoon, pre-empting the need to ask whether the reggae lilt of "The Lazy Song" is too mellow for a topless dancer.

"Maybe not on a night shift, because the energy level is so much higher, but on a day shift, absolutely," Billy says.

Billy also DJs weddings, and he plays "Just the Way You Are" at every one of them. Even though "Grenade" is an anthem of lost-the-girl frustration, and therefore "an offensive song (to play) at a wedding, the younger crowd doesn't care: 'Play it. We want it,' " he says. "As long as they request it, you're OK."

Mars traffics in "easy-listening music. It's not offensive in any way. That's why everyone can relate to it."

And that's why it also plays at the delightfully old-fashioned, frozen-in-time Crystal Palace roller rink on Boulder Highway. " 'Just the Way You Are' and 'Grenade' get a lot of play when the kids are here. When the adults are here, they like to hear the reggae song. I get that one requested back to back," says DJ Henry Hill.

"I am playing all three. Currently, they get a lot of spins here."

EACH OF HIS THREE HITS IS AS GOOD OR BETTER THAN PAUL MCCARTNEY'S WORST SONGS

Lopsided comparison, to be sure. But McCartney is in town this week and does his own show tonight. That sort of forced us to do this:

■ "Grenade" versus "Spies Like Us":

We have to go with "I'd catch a grenade for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah), Throw my hand on a blade for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah)" over, "Never needed special clothes (oh, oh), How we did it nobody knows (oh, oh)."

■ "The Lazy Song" versus "Ebony and Ivory":

Bruno might team up with Stevie Wonder for their own bad song some day, but for now it just feels cooler to walk around saying, " 'Cause in my castle I'm the freaking man!" instead of, "We learn to live, we learn to give."

■ "Just the Way You Are" versus "The Girl Is Mine":

Because "When I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change" is going to get a guy a lot more action than, "The doggone girl is mine."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.