New song: Underwater

[suzie]

Originally Posted by mari62

@Suzie and Christine:

the lyrics of the Nice version are a mixture between both your lyrics

Well, never mind. He might sing it differently each time.
I think it is easy to put together any version from the the lyrics we have so far.

[silver]

Originally Posted by suzie

Well, never mind. He might sing it differently each time.
I think it is easy to put together any version from the the lyrics we have so far.

I think that's a foregone conclusion

[crazyaboutmika]

Originally Posted by suzie

Well, never mind. He might sing it differently each time.
I think it is easy to put together any version from the the lyrics we have so far.

I think he does, that struck me too when I was in Gruchet le Valasse 's gig.

[camille*]

Originally Posted by Christine

Did you notice in the Heaven version he sort of ended the song and restarted it again saying "we" instead of "I" in the final lines.

He did it in Vienne too, I liked it


Concerning pronunciation, if you are familiar with English phonetics, I'd say that Mika sings wætə(r) (open 'a') instead of wɔ:tə(r). It's a common mistake made by French speakers who learn English, as the only 'a' sound in French is æ.

I have to say although I know how 'water' should be pronounced, it didn't shock me the way Mika sings it before it was mentioned here; I just thought it was more appropriate with the singing

[suzie]

Originally Posted by silver

I think that's a foregone conclusion

oh shame. I love drawing conclusions.

[Gatagordinha]

Originally Posted by camille*

Concerning pronunciation, if you are familiar with English phonetics, I'd say that Mika sings wætə(r) (open 'a') instead of wɔ:tə(r). It's a common mistake made by French speakers who learn English, as the only 'a' sound in French is æ.

I have to say although I know how 'water' should be pronounced, it didn't shock me the way Mika sings it before it was mentioned here; I just thought it was more appropriate with the singing

Yes he does, that's spot on.

For some reason (probably just heavy cultural influence) many British singers use an approximation of American vowels and consonants when singing. It's quite common. Even those who have pronounced regional British accents in speech (Adele being a good example). There's a tendency to soften consonants and alter vowel sounds or dipthongize them. Use of the rhotic "r" also increases.

For example In 'Someone Like You', Adele tends to pronounce "instead" as "instayeed" which sounds very American, and specifically southern USA, to me. I actually find it a bit annoying but that's by the by...

Since Mika's spoken accent is a strange mix of British and American, it comes as no surprise that he sometimes mixes up the rules when singing, hence the "waater" thing.

[Christine]

Originally Posted by Gatagordinha

For some reason (probably just heavy cultural influence) many British singers use an approximation of American vowels and consonants when singing. It's quite common. Even those who have pronounced regional British accents in speech (Adele being a good example). There's a tendency to soften consonants and alter vowel sounds or dipthongize them. Use of the rhotic "r" also increases.

For example In 'Someone Like You', Adele tends to pronounce "instead" as "instayeed" which sounds very American, and specifically southern USA, to me. I actually find it a bit annoying but that's by the by...

I really think EVERYONE does this when they are singing at the level of Mika and Adele. You can hear pronounced British accents with rappers and Kate Nash (who is also pretty much talking rather than singing) and in bands like the Arctic Monkeys. But when someone is proper singing I can rarely detect a British accent - there is an occasional ambiguous word at most. I mean who would imagine that Leona Lewis grew up in London and not next door to Mariah Carey? I would say Mika's pronunciation of water is even less American than Adele's since we would never use a "t" sound.

I don't think it's just Brits either, Americans do the same thing and you won't detect regional accents unless they are country singers. I guess people just learn to imitate other singers in their genre. So country singers always have that twang even if they come from the northern US or even Canada. Adele mimics blues singers so she sounds especially American particularly when she sings covers of blues/country artists.

Originally Posted by camille*

Concerning pronunciation, if you are familiar with English phonetics, I'd say that Mika sings wætə(r) (open 'a') instead of wɔ:tə(r). It's a common mistake made by French speakers who learn English, as the only 'a' sound in French is æ.

No I am not familiar with phonetics which is why it is taking me so long to understand what people are hearing/expecting to hear.

I still say that Mika's vowel is identical the American one, as is Adele's. I think most singers would pronounce it the same way as Adele and what is odd about Mika's pronunciation is the enunciated "t", not the vowel.

[Tannu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmV5b...ature=youtu.be

[DerMoment1608]

The hypnotic swell of Underwater was inspired by a 90s Michel Gondry denim ad, a seemingly slight but beautifully realised 90 second polemic on the idea that when you are in love it consumes you so much you can breathe below sea level.

[dcdeb]

Originally Posted by dcdeb

do you think that one line in the second verse is "... with a space-born high"?

Aha. Now that the album sampler is out, I can hear it much better --
it's "space BOY high."

[DongDong]

Listened after the album sampler,I think Underwater is correctly to be the next single!!!!!!

[Christine]

Originally Posted by dcdeb

Aha. Now that the album sampler is out, I can hear it much better --
it's "space BOY high."

I guess we shouldn't be surprised by that should we?