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Mark Ronson: 5 Records That Changed My Life
Grammy winner Mark Ronson lists the songs that influenced him and his music.
By Nicole Pajer
2 min readPublished on
Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson© Red Bull Media House
Updated July 28, 2015.
Mark Ronson scored a No. 1 hit in 2015 with "Uptown Funk," featuring Bruno Mars, a song off his new album "Uptown Special." But that's only the latest success in a long career spanning four studio albums, multiple collaborations (most notably with Amy Winehouse) and three Grammy awards. During an interview with RedBull.com in 2013, Ronson told us the five records that changed his life. Here they are.

1. The Stone Roses: ‘Fools Gold’

"‘Fools Gold’ by The Stone Roses was an incredible record because it was an English/Brit-pop song but it had this James Brown breakbeat under it. That was the first time I really heard a breakbeat and a psychedelic Brit pop-type record over it. That was definitely a subconscious blueprint for what 'Version' was."

2. Black Moon: ‘Who Got Da Props’

"Then listening to New York radio, hearing things like 'Who Got Da Props' by Black Moon, listening to Funkmaster Flex on a Friday night and hearing that record and being like, “I need to play this music all the time.” That’s what made me want to DJ – listening to those things and falling so in love with rap around that time in the early-mid '90s."

3. The Brand New Heavies: ‘The Brand New Heavies’

"The Brand New Heavies first album is kind of what made me go and discover all the original rare groove and funk and soul stuff – that and the first Jamiroquai record."

4. Arcade Fire: ‘The Suburbs’

"I guess Arcade Fire – 'The Suburbs' – I don’t know if at 35 you can have a record change your life, but it just becomes one of these records where you just fall in love with and you can’t listen to it enough and you kind of dream about the melodies in your sleep and then you wake up all melancholy because you’re like, “That song that was in my dream, I’ll never heard it again,” and then you realize it’s actually a song (‘We Used To Wait’) on the Arcade Fire album and you can just go listen to it. It’s quite nice. That happened to me like three times."

5. Duran Duran: ‘Rio’

"Duran Duran 'Rio' is just a good album that I always come back to."
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