Patrick Bateman is the figure–the monster masquerading around as a sentient human being–that perpetually seems to crop back up in modern life, no matter how much an emblem of the decade of excess he was originally intended to be by Bret Easton Ellis. Patrick Bateman is modern life in all its post-1970s ways, after all. And with each new piece of fantastically bad popular music that finds success, accolades and awards, one can’t help but envision Bateman waxing poetic about its various artistic merits. Whether he’s simply “explaining” (read: pontificating) or “explaining” before killing, Bateman has a cocksure thesis for every terrible but lauded album du jour.
In spite of not being created by a white man, “24K Magic” is just such a ditty (and album) that Bateman could get behind. Exactly as Bateman likes it, it’s all “funky” beats and materialism-oriented, “women are for the taking” lyrics–specifically, “Oh shit, I’m a dangerous man with some money in my pocket (keep up)/So many pretty girls around me and they waking up the rocket (keep up).” It’s pretty fucking gross, and one could easily sync it up to the scene of American Psycho where “Sussudio” by Phil Collins plays. In various respects, Bruno Mars is a mirror of the braggadocio of a man like Bateman, clearly becoming too arrogant for his own good after poking fun at “all the ballads” of the night (guess watching Lady Gaga and Kesha scream and wail was too much to withstand for a man still not heeding Janelle Monae’s warning, “We come in peace, but we mean business.”).
Something of an upgrade in douche-baggery to Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” “24K Magic” is a similar anthem that makes all the frat boys come to the yard. And what is an adult frat boy but a businessman who actually seems to conduct very little business other than pillaging either the earth or women? Speaking of, that brings us to the pinnacle of this archetype and then some: Donald Trump (I know, it’s something of a sacrilege to even utter the name these days, as we just want to pretend he isn’t real/doesn’t exist).
Making Ronald Reagan look like Joe Strummer in terms of politically liberal “outrageousness,” Trump is the ultimate Bateman “president,” a “superbug,” to borrow from a certain husband of Beyonce’s, representing all the years of a perpetuated exalting of excess, false promises and a cruel, persistent pushing of the long ago debunked myth of the American dream. The very concept that Mars himself also attempts to prop up on other singles from the 24K Magic album, including “That’s What I Like” and “Versace on the Floor.”
So while you try to get Bateman’s easily imaginable diatribe about the artistic evolution of Mars from Doo-Wops & Hooligans out of your head, try to push aside thoughts of the other, far musically superior nominees. Even Melodrama by Lorde (the only white girl in the mix) would have been preferable, for there’s far more artistry in the production of her evocative, synesthesia-driven album than any of the faux soulfulness on 24K Magic. But then, it’s the perfect Grammy choice for Album of the Year, for America is, if nothing else, still a place of the faux soulful, both in its pursuits and its denizens. That the award was presented by U2 merely adds the cherry on top (faithful readers of American Psycho will remember Bateman’s imagining of Bono as Satan at the U2 concert he attends in the book).
