Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 10/20/2012 at 1:04 PM News

The Popdust Files: album covers, bruno mars, unorthodox jukebox

The cover image has been released for Bruno Mars’ Unorthodox Jukebox, and it’s a relatively understated one, just a shot of a sunglasses-sporting Bruno straightening his collar against a plain background. Understated is OK, even if it’s a little surprising coming from an extroverted performer like Mars, but you also might get a sense of deja vu with this image. That’s because you’ve very likely seen it before—as the cover to Bruno’s recent Billboard cover story, as the holding image to this week’s Popdust Pop-Off, or in countless other promo shots of the singer as he promotes his second album.

What happened? Was Bruno too busy to take a new cover photo and just gave his label the go-ahead to use whatever was already in their media library? Has he suffered some sort of horrible scar since the shooting of that photo that he’s desperate to keep the world from finding out about? Was it just impossible to get the reflection off his sunglasses just right in subsequent photos?

Personally, we don’t get why Bruno didn’t just go with a shot of the exploding jukebox from George Michael’s classic “Freedom” music video. I mean…an exploding jukebox…that’s pretty unorthodox, right? Works for us.

[ThatGrapeJuice]