Bruno Mars' 'Grenade' Video: The Passion Of The Crooner

Bruno Mars is sort of like Meat Loaf, only without limits: He would do anything for love, including — but not limited to — catching a grenade, putting his hand on a blade, leaping in front of a train, being shot in the brain and, of course, dragging a piano all around Greater Los Angeles.

That last one doesn't rhyme, because it's not supposed to. It's the basic premise of Mars' brand-new "Grenade" video, which finds the diminutive crooner shouldering the load (literally) for love, lugging an upright piano over freeways, through tunnels, past some serious gangbangers (and one mean-ass pit bull) and against traffic to serenade his special lady friend. Of course, by the time he makes it to her house, she's already found her way into the arms of another man, which disheartens Mars to such a degree that he sets himself (and his piano) down in front of a speeding train. After all, not only is he a man of his word, but as he proves over the course of the video, he's not exactly opposed to a dramatic gesture either.

Credit is due to Mars for thinking outside the rather rote, pop&B box when it came time to make the "Grenade" video. After all, it would've been easy — and expected — to make something slick, sexy and/or saccharine, a glossy thing where he croons from a rooftop somewhere, removes his shirt, and somehow ends up with the girl. None of that happens here. Rather, we see Mars struggling and sweating, being taunted and tempted, falling and rising again (there is something oddly "Passion of the Christ" about his ordeal). He ends up alone, unloved. He probably gets flattened by a train. It is sort of sad, really.

With "Grenade," Bruno Mars further distances himself from his smoove-crooning contemporaries, and he does it simply by being real. Really dramatic, really emotional, really clever. This one's a winner, even if, at the end of it, Mars has lost everything. That's the price you pay for falling in love.

What did you think of the "Grenade" video? Let us know in the comments!