camille*

Yes, the video for EMD came quite late after the single release, and it's only after this that it went to #1. I wonder if there will be a video soonish.. From what I can see and hear, Celebrate is getting some radio airplay here but not that much and not particularly advertised Oh and I would have loved some 'fanfare' as you say!

Celebrate is #147 on French Itunes EMD is #144! I think he will need promotion this time, EMD was a hit with him giving only a couple of radio interviews but it seems it won't work like that everytime

I've seen it but haven't been inside, it's in a touristic part of Paris (but what part is not touristic ) so you can't really miss it

Thanks for posting; but I don't understand, on the Itunes store he's only #37? Edit : Oops sorry I get it now, he's #5 for pop songs only

I like Celebrate but if you want to make me love it I'll have to use that equation

You should go to the album thread, there are some reviews there that I translated and you'll know more about these 2 songs

Translation Mika is still the same. He promises it. 'The Origin of Love', to be released on September 17, initiates a change of direction for the singer of 'Relax' though. Today at lunch time, in a trendy café in St Germain, the singer had invited programme planners and journalists to listen to his 3rd album. 9 songs. Not all finished. The song that opens the album gives its name to it. 'The Origin of Love', written in Montreal a year and a half ago when Mika started. A very electro dance title, without a real chorus but with surprising bridges. We are far from the pop songs from LICM but the production is remarkable. Perfect introduction, the title makes 'cigarette' and 'nicorette' rhyme with the vocoded voice of Mika, who offered himself the services of Empire of the Sun for the production. The following title is 'Celebrate', launched on the radio today, which could have the same destiny as EMD did last Summer. Produced with the complicity of Pharrell Williams, this dance/disco title is ultra effective but will unsettle the admirers of the nice piano melodies of the Francophile man. The two following titles won't reassure them much more. Mika yields to the electro trend with the exhilarating 'Overrated', cut out for the clubs, the explosive 'Stardust' or the dark and nebulous 'Make You Happy' already revealed. In all these songs, Mika worked with real musicians, no computers. The production was made only after recording, he swore. We have to wait for 'Underwater' in order to hear some piano again. This title is a caesura in the album and opens the way to a more 'pop' second part. "Cause all I need is the love you breathe. Put your lips on me, and I can live underwater" sings the young Lebanese man in a quite catchy song. (I corrected their lyrics which looked strange) Much more pop, 'Lola' is the 6th title. A true hit. A potential single which will please - this time - Mika fans. A title written and produced in less than 4 hours as the singer told us. A beautiful ballad with a catchy introduction where hand clapping and choirs are mixed. The two following titles also caught our attention. 'Step With Me' in which Mika asks himself some questions and answers to himself in a genius game of opposition between back vocals and vocals. 'Step 1 Step 2 Step 3' he counts in a title based on a guitar melody. 'Popular' closes the album. Another hit. Amazing title where we find a feminine voice, allusion to his first album. 'Cause my song is popular' he chants on a lively piano rhythm. He is a popular, pop, general public artist. His wealth is that he has ingested 50 years of the history of pop music. Only the 3 French titles including EMD which will probably be on a second disc are missing. Mika is going one step forward, half-opens a door on the dancefloor without throwing himself wholeheartedly in it. It's in the bag (lol I don't know the exact translation, it means literally 'won bet')

Oh nice one! Much more positive and exciting Is anybody translating it or can I start working on it?

I found this on TBWKTM http://www.leparisien.fr/flash-actualite-culture/mika-plonge-dans-l-adolescence-et-les-80-s-avec-the-boy-who-knew-too-much-14-09-2009-638551.php Quite mixed too, but not as precise, so it's hard to tell (Oh and I found this too on the site, it looks like the Compiègne gig was a mess for months afterwards http://www.leparisien.fr/espace-premium/oise-60/les-sauveteurs-attendent-toujours-l-argent-du-concert-de-mika-08-05-2012-1989070.php)

Then, on the 8 other titles revealed today, we are running after this first excitement. 'Celebrate', new dancing single, does not really make us want to sweat. And then it really changes for the worse with the 2 following titles : 'Overrated' drowns Mika's talent in a disco electro production, 'Make You Happy' makes him a pale Pet Shop Boys heir. 'All I want to do is make you happy' he sings. We pull a face though, desperate to have lost the little pop genius and his way of knitting striking melodies, somptuous arrangements and dancing anthems. Fortunately, 'Underwater' brings us back the Mika that we love and starts with piano and voice. And despite some infra-bass there too, the singer's tone can let go with total freedom, without being manhandled by an overproduced sound. Same with 'Lola', light and carefree song. Then 'Stardust' brings us back on the steps of Lady Gaga and David Guetta so much that we feel we are listening to a producer's album not a singer's. There are all the same some real guitar on 'Step With Me', pop ballad that makes us some good in this avalanche of synthetic sounds... that we found again unfortunately in 'Popular' , a duet with Priscilla Renea. On these 9 songs, Mika blows hot and cold, excellent and less good. Everything is to be played out in the last straight line, with some last songs to finish including 2 in French besides Elle Me Dit. Final verdict at the start of the school year.

This is the translation of the article I posted earlier http://www.leparisien.fr/musique/albums/nous-avons-ecoute-le-nouvel-album-de-mika-15-06-2012-2050305.php This time, it is finished... or nearly. Mika has almost finished his new album. A disc due in January, then in Spring, and which will finally be released in Autumn, on September 17. It will follow the triumphant 'Life in Cartoon Motion', with its 6 million copies sold worldwide, 1 in France, which revealed the Francophile artist in 2007 with his hits 'Grace Kelly' and 'Relax'. It also follows 'The Boy Who Knew Too Much', released 2 years later, which was a big success too with 300 000 copies sold here and 1 million worldwide. Since then, we had to wait, notably with the single in French 'Elle Me Dit', new evidence that the artist of British and Lebanese origins masters our language completely since his childhood spent partly in Paris. On this Friday, in a café in St Germain, Mika presents the result of these last months of work. 'I don't really know what to say' he says first, before adding some explanations. 'Work was very different from usually. I was not isolated. With my teams all over the world (London, Toronto, Miami, Los Angeles, Paris), I enjoyed it. It's an album that illustrates some kind of joy. I started it in Montreal one year and a half ago composing the song 'The Origin of Love'.' It is the title of this album due on Sept 17. So let's start with the listening to this song. Carried by a loud infra-bass rhythm, 'The Origin of Love' is won over by a piano and a guitar before the voice or more precisely the voices take the power. Mika's voice is double, wrapped up by choirs that sometimes sound as ones from a Church but who were put in an electronic holy water font. The song goes crescendo, lifted up by a mind-blowing and luminous chorus that makes it an instant success.

Yes, he's just answering with some humour to the interviewer's joke In the last part of the interview he just talks a little bit about Lebanon and its food, about Madonna's gigs, his gigs in which he says he has already had a lot of problems and which he thinks are not very pop but unstructured

Another question from a fan What job did you want to have when you were a child and if you had to change job now what would you do? M: There was a moment when I wanted to make cigarettes. Apparently when I was 5 all I wanted to do was to make cigarettes. I used to find them very beautiful as a child. I wanted to roll cigarettes. And when people used to ask what I would do later I'd answer 'tobacco'. Do you often steal things in hotels? M: Absolutely. Like everybody else. My weakness are spoons. You know the very small spoons that you never even have at home. Small tea spoons. I don't even know their use but I love them, it's like baby spoons. Silver ones, I always nick them here and there. And shampoo of course, sometimes small towels. Not the bathrobe as they'll always put it on the note. You need to take things they won't see. Sometimes what I do as I like cups a lot, don't take them in the bedroom or from the room service as they'll know, but go to the bar, order a coffee, and take your coffee up in your room. And then you have your cup and your coffee. And then I clean up the cup in the bathroom and put it in my bag.

Questions from fans First the girl says she likes Celebrate, and he's happy, the interviewers say it's good because Mika was really stressed, he was trembling earlier (Mika tries to deny it), Mika explains that it's also because hearing a song on the radio is a different sound. Question Have you already been chatted up by fans or have you already used your fame to spend the night with someone? M : (about being chatted up by fans) Yes of course, from time to time, but I don't know it's... I : How many babies do you have left somewhere? M: There are 2. I : Do you have a lot of wedding proposals? M : No. You know, I can also be in a bar or something and people don't talk to me. Simply because they don't want to talk to me, they think I'm a monster or something. I: It's probably a bad breath problem. M: I know. And now with my bronchitis.. Sometimes it's the other way around. People come and talk to me immediately, and it's often people I don't want to talk to. Then he says he has a song called Lola because the girl is called Lola. M: It's about a prostitute, but it's a tender song. It's one of my favourite songs on the album. (Rest of the translation after the Virgin Radio interview!!)

Rest of the translation (not word for word sorry) M: We can make love songs that are completely different. EMD, Celebrate are love songs. EMD is about some guy's mother who's telling her son, you are wasting your life, I hate you, I love you so much, look what you're doing with your life... And the guy loses his mind and thinks 'Am I going to kill myself, what am I going to do?' The interviewer says he thinks and is even sure that Celebrate will be a summer hit, Mika seems not so sure but says he hopes so. Then the interviewer makes fun of him saying he doesn't sing perfectly in key but the music is great, and that a big hit is a song that you can sing even if you're completely drunk. And so they imitate drunk people. M: There's a strange story about this song as it's a collaboration between me and Pharrell Williams and also a young artist that I found on the Internet who's not famous at all. His name is Ben Garrett (the interviewer acts as if he knew him) , his artist name is Fryars, I heard his music on the Internet, we contacted him by email, I went to his parents' house, he was 22 I: And now you live happily ever after M: Nearly, but in the studio, that's sure! And I went to his bedroom, I sat on his bed, because he had a studio in his bedroom; and his mother gave us tea and biscuits, we sat and I listened to music, and my ears started to burn, and I told myself 'this guy is 22, he's in his bedroom, he's making discs that we'll hear for years!' So I said, come with me, he said ok, and the following week we were in Miami with Pharrell Williams I : Fabulous. What I find great in this story is that you had tea and biscuits with the grandmother It's great to leave the opportunity to other artists and to be open M: Yes it's so important, it brought a whole new energy I: Did you **** the mother? () Mika doesn't understand

There's an article about the songs revealed to the press today http://www.leparisien.fr/musique/albums/nous-avons-ecoute-le-nouvel-album-de-mika-15-06-2012-2050305.php I'm just back from work so I don't know if it has been posted?

He doesn't know we heard the song! He thinks nobody heard the whole song

He's in the studio There's a game after the news and then he's on

Wow so the song is out! So glad I could hear it, not sure I'll be able to listen in an hour I think I like it after listening to it once; I'm not sure about the Pharrell part though.. not my cup of tea. But I like the verses a lot

LOL! I'm totally supporting this idea too!