Brit star Mika is as bubbly as his music

[OhMyMika!!]

By Joan Anderman from The Boston Globe

Globe Staff / February 1, 2008

 

Rainbows and lollipops are the stuff of preschool picture books, little girls' birthday parties, and one pop singer's candy-coated career. Mika burst on the scene last year with an effervescent debut album and matching uber-aesthetic - a diligently Day-Glo approach to everything from album art and website to live shows and, most critically, his irrepressible pop songs.

 

If there were an award for extreme branding, the Beirut-born, London-bred musician would win it for "Life in Cartoon Motion." As it is, the album is up for four major honors at this year's Brit Awards; Mika has assembled a team of his own designers and choreographers who've spent two months concocting a razzle-dazzle look for his performance at the Feb. 20 ceremonies.

 

"I watched that show as a kid and always said, 'I could do it better,' " Mika says. "I'm going for it."

 

And that about sums him up. The 24-year-old Mika, born Michael Holbrook Penniman, set his sights on stardom as a child. He studied voice and soloed at Royal Opera House and sang a chewing-gum jingle. Clearly he consumed the complete catalogs of Queen and Elton John, although he prefers Rufus Wainwright and Harry Nilsson as touchstones. He pounded the pavement for years, knocking on countless music-industry doors and enduring countless rejections (famously from "American Idol" impresario Simon Cowell), all of whom wanted him to be something other than himself.

 

He documented the experience in a song called "Grace Kelly" that, in a turn of events that feels a lot like poetic justice, was one of the biggest hits of 2007 in the United Kingdom.

 

"Why don't you like me?/ Why don't you like yourself?/ Should I bend over?/ Should I look older?/ Just to be put on the shelf?" Mika ponders over a jaunty bass line, pounding piano, tap-dancing beats, and sunshiny harmonies. He slips frequently into a stratospheric falsetto, here and elsewhere. It's the icing on a Technicolor mash of disco, pop, pomp, and camp that has topped the charts in nearly every corner of the globe except the one where Mika's recently arrived for his second tour, which stops in Boston tonight for a sold-out show at the Orpheum Theatre.

 

"He's a bold writer, super talented, but there's not much gunpowder running through that record," says Greg Wells, the album's producer, who has worked with everyone from Pink to the Deftones. "Americans like music with a little gunpowder in it."

 

"Life in Cartoon Motion" has sold nearly 5 million copies worldwide, compared to roughly 300,000 stateside. Like Robbie Williams, Scissor Sisters, Kylie Minogue, and other flamboyant pop acts who've found great fame overseas, Mika doesn't seem to translate here. That's not to say he doesn't have devoted followers. R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe is a self-proclaimed fan. When Boston radio station MIX 98.5 started spinning "Grace Kelly" last year, listener response was strong but limited.

 

"The people who loved it really loved it, but lots of people didn't get it," says MIX music director Mike Mullaney. "I put him in a group with [recent British imports] Kate Nash and Lily Allen, who are very, very clever, very British, and almost too cheeky. Someone as fun as Mika will never play in the red states."

 

Mika is a level-headed fellow, and his failure so far to conquer the American pop scene isn't, he claims, a great disappointment. He notes that he's playing larger venues each time he visits, that his sales pattern here is one of steady growth, and that he feels no need to outsell Justin Timberlake.

 

"You can't look at the States the same way you'd look at Norway," Mika says. "It's a massive country, and there are so many different types of people with so many different opinions. As long as I get some understanding."

 

But it seems that not many understand "Life in Cartoon Motion" the way Mika intended it: as a themed collage concerning childhood and the transition from innocence to adulthood. The bubblegum artwork and gleeful melodies, which Mika confesses veer toward nursery rhymes, were crafted in the service of what he's dubbed his "schoolyard album."

 

Interestingly, school wasn't a happy place for Mika. Displaced by the war in Lebanon, his family fled Beirut during the height of the war, first for Paris and then London, where Mika was bullied so badly that he stopped talking and stayed home for six months. That's when, in his turbulent young teens, music changed from passing interest to lifeline.

 

"Life in Cartoon Motion" isn't so much the sound of Mika's youth, but rather the soundtrack to the refuge he sought and found in Japanese pop and Jacques Brel and nearly everything in between.

 

"1920s crooners, flamenco, Nina Simone . . . it was a gamut that fascinated and confused me, but it wasn't a bad confusion. It gave me a cowboy-like attitude toward the arts," Mika says. "And it got me back on my feet."

 

Now that Mika has established such a signature sound with his debut album, one wonders what it will be like to try to move on. He's already written a handful of material for his next project and says that while it'd be easy to continue on the familiar and well-loved path, he's in "an entirely differently place. There's a great variety of sound. The process is insane," Mika says. "I can't really tell yet."

 

Wells, who's been asked to return for Mika sophomore effort, has listened to a half-dozen new songs. "He was so true to the cause of telling his story on the first album," he says. "The compass was always so fixed on that, and I would say these songs are a logical continuation but more soulful and more authorial."

 

Whether it will play in Peoria is anyone's guess, and of not much concern. Mika's gift, Wells says, "is that he's unfalteringly himself."

[pinkunicorn123]

Grr i hate these interviews that draw on unhappy pasts to make good reads.

Talk about something else - gain some creative licence maybe

[Gatagordinha]

Thanks for posting

 

Mmm. Mika and Greg Wells are slowly cranking up the anticipation for the next album

I like all these little teases. But it's going to feel like an age before this album is released...

[Milou]

Thank you!

 

Like the interview, especially the part about the new album. I didn't like all that zooming in on the 'no-succes-in-the-USA'-part. Dear, it took Robbie Williams some albums too . It'll be fine..

[vanessa]

Thanks for posting Roxy !

[Marilyn Mastin]

Thank you!

 

Like the interview, especially the part about the new album. I didn't like all that zooming in on the 'no-succes-in-the-USA'-part. Dear, it took Robbie Williams some albums too . It'll be fine..

Anything worth doing, takes time to achieve. it's much better, that Mika doesn't write songs that would deffinately appeal Americans. If he did that, he wouldn't be being himself. In the end, it's the fact that he IS himself, and not a sell out like so many other pop stars, which will gain him respect in America, and the sales of his discs will follow in the US

[Queenie]

Thanks for posting!

[mariposa]

Thanks a lot for posting!

I think it was quite interesting...though I don't really understand why so many Americans don't seem to "get" Mika's music...

 

 

But, well, I am pretty convinced that this will be changing little by little...it need some time to "invade" such a huge country as the states.

[RAK1]

It's great news that Greg Wells is back for the second album.

Soulful and authorial, interesting description, can't wait to hear the songs if they are anything like HMDYLM, it should be amazing.

[uhsofamous]

Thanks for posting!

[dcdeb]

Very well-written article -- thanks for posting!

 

dcdeb

[chickadee]

Yay, another interesting article. We seem to be having a few more of these just lately. Thanks for posting it.

[AKateisaKate]

I'll have to call my family and ask them to save this piece out of The Globe for me, for next time I see them.

[sillyjody]

You know what I've noticed? American's, and being an American myself, seem to judge people by what they do and how they dress. And I, personally, don't think that America isn't that fond of his music just becuase some don't understand what he's trying to say, I think it is becuase of the way he dresses perhaps or how he sings. And unfortunatly if you were to ask 10 people in my school, 6 of them would probably hate mika just because of how he sings or the way he dresses. And I'm really disappointed in my country for thinking that. Some people just can't open their minds and hearts to get to know someone who is himself and he has such a strong will-power to be himself and not change, that is why I really like Mika. (and because he's AMAZING! )

[PhotoJenic]

Thanks for posting! I'm excited to see an article appear after the Boston gig! I think it was well written.

 

I think it's just plan pathetic that the US won't play him and that he can't break through. He tries hard, does tours yet he still has to try. I'm sure he will do it someday I just hope he never gives up on the US because heck I think just about every gig is sold out and that in itself is amazing!

People will get their act together someday and like him and go, "oh he must be new" until someone corrects them then they'll wonder where they've been all this time. : P

 

Okayyy so now I'm getting a bit more excited for the new album too.

[femifrosk]

"You can't look at the States the same way you'd look at Norway," Mika says. "It's a massive country, and there are so many different types of people with so many different opinions. As long as I get some understanding."

 

What's that supposed to mean? Is he talking about The States or the Norway here?

[Savage Beauty]

By Joan Anderman from The Boston Globe

Globe Staff / February 1, 2008

 

 

 

"You can't look at the States the same way you'd look at Norway," Mika says. "It's a massive country, and there are so many different types of people with so many different opinions. As long as I get some understanding."

 

But it seems that not many understand "Life in Cartoon Motion" the way Mika intended it: as a themed collage concerning childhood and the transition from innoc

 

OMFG!! *dies laughing* you should have seen my reaction when I read this

 

Oh, the small joys of life, Mika mentioned my country!!!

[Savage Beauty]

"You can't look at the States the same way you'd look at Norway," Mika says. "It's a massive country, and there are so many different types of people with so many different opinions. As long as I get some understanding."

 

What's that supposed to mean? Is he talking about The States or the Norway here?

Hahaha, you noticed too :roftl:

I think he means that Norway is easier to "win over" seeing as we're a smaller country and easier to "decipher" than the States...

 

BUT, what I read from it, between the lines, is that he is actually aware of just how extremely successful he is here, using us to compare to the States which are the exact opposite..

 

And why shouldn't he know? I told Andy on camera

[Christine]

"You can't look at the States the same way you'd look at Norway," Mika says. "It's a massive country, and there are so many different types of people with so many different opinions. As long as I get some understanding."

 

What's that supposed to mean? Is he talking about The States or the Norway here?

 

I think what he's saying is that in terms of per capita record sales and radio airplay he's not doing well in the US compared to every other western country (like Norway). But there are still pockets of the US (like NY for example) where he can expect to do a concert and get just as many enthusiastic fans and sell out shows as he does in other cities.

 

Mika may never gain mainstream acceptance across the US but it really doesn't matter. There are 300 million people in the country and even if only a small percentage of them embrace him he can sell more albums and concert tickets than he would in, say, Norway where he is deemed more "popular".

 

Take Canada for instance. His album has gone double platinum here but he would have to almost double his album sales in the US just to get gold certification. Yet in terms of raw numbers, he's sold more albums in the US than in Canada because the US population is 10 times the size of Canada's. Even though most of the US is ignoring Mika, he's still got more fans in the US than he does in Canada, so he can't look at it as some sort of failure.

[femifrosk]

Hahaha, you noticed too :roftl:

I think he means that Norway is easier to "win over" seeing as we're a smaller country and easier to "decipher" than the States...

 

BUT, what I read from it, between the lines, is that he is actually aware of just how extremely successful he is here, using us to compare to the States which are the exact opposite..

 

And why shouldn't he know? I told Andy on camera

 

Well, he can't "win over" me, because I've different opinions about everyone and everything

Am I American?

[Savage Beauty]

Well, he can't "win over" me, because I've different opinions about everyone and everything

Am I American?

 

Yes :roftl:

[femifrosk]

I think what he's saying is that in terms of per capita record sales and radio airplay he's not doing well in the US compared to every other western country (like Norway). But there are still pockets of the US (like NY for example) where he can expect to do a concert and get just as many enthusiastic fans and sell out shows as he does in other cities.

 

Mika may never gain mainstream acceptance across the US but it really doesn't matter. There are 300 million people in the country and even if only a small percentage of them embrace him he can sell more albums and concert tickets than he would in, say, Norway where he is deemed more "popular".

 

Take Canada for instance. His album has gone double platinum here but he would have to almost double his album sales in the US just to get gold certification. Yet in terms of raw numbers, he's sold more albums in the US than in Canada because the US population is 10 times the size of Canada's. Even though most of the US is ignoring Mika, he's still got more fans in the US than he does in Canada, so he can't look at it as some sort of failure.

 

*concentrates*

 

So basically, he's more known (or famous) in Norway?

 

Yes :roftl:

 

Interesting.

[Savage Beauty]

*concentrates*

 

So basically, he's more known (or famous) in Norway?

 

 

In percentage of the whole population, yes he is... Norway as a whole has accepted him more as an artist.. but he will still sell more records in the US, simply because it's such a huge country with so many people.

 

[Christine]

In percentage of the whole population, yes he is... Norway as a whole has accepted him more as an artist.. but he will still sell more records in the US, simply because it's such a huge country with so many people.

 

 

Yes, that's a much easier way to put it!

[femifrosk]

Okey! Got it. Thanks Christine and Savage Beauty!