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Mika in UK Press 2017 - 2018


Littlelady

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23 hours ago, Marilyn Mastin said:

It's a good article though. A lot better than many, and they are right, it's about time he returned to making music.

 

:shocked:  "About time he returned to making music !?"  MIKA has been making music all the time!! The intervals between his albums has been the same, ever since LICM came out!!  :fisch:

He never stopped making great music, but he has managed to do A LOT in between the albums! :thumb_yello: OMG, the UK press is sooo annoying - so arrogant, when it comes to MIKA !! :annoyed_h4h:   If he's insecure, and maybe even nervous, for doing something in the  UK, he has my full sympathie and understanding...;)

 

Love, love

me

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I feel sorry about his standing in the UK. But what I meant about the music, is that he shouldn't waste his media exposure, promoting and playing other peoples songs. He's a songwriter in his own right, but UK audiences don't know that he still makes music. They complain about the covers he sings on TAOS, but he shouldn't really be singing someone elses music, when his own songs are so good. He was on the TV show, Pointless, and I was so excited, wondering what song of his we'd hear, hoping for something from NPIH, and instead, he sang Piano Man. 

What I'd love to see is a proper UK tour, and more TV appearances. Last night was great. I was on Twitter for ages. Just like old times.

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NME

 

TV blog

Mika was a guest judge on X Factor and loads of people didn’t know who he was

http://www.nme.com/blogs/tv-blogs/mika-guest-judge-x-factor-no-one-knew-2152527

 

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Rude.

The first thing that comes to mind when anyone says the word ‘Mika’ is the leapfrogging chorus of his 2007 UK Number One ‘Grace Kelly’.

But over the weekend (October 22), Mika’s name didn’t even ring that bell for a lot of X Factor viewers when he was brought in as a guest judge.

Before it was announced he’d be guesting on the show, helping Louis sort through his category – the boys – the build-up to his reveal was huge. Louis said:

“This person sold 10 million copies with their first album, he was number 1 in 10 countries.

He is a great songwriter.

I am really excited and I’m really happy to introduce you to… Mika!”

 

 

 

At this point confusion broke out on Twitter: some viewers had no idea who Mika was

 

Others suspected the boys actually being judged by Mika on the show didn’t either.
 
 
Some Twitter users mistook him for Radio 1’s Grimmy:
 

Not gonna lie ive mistaken #mika for @grimmers at least 5 times already #xfactor

— ™ (@TommyMMason) October 22, 2017

 
But there were plenty of Twitter users backing him up too, one mentioning that he released a new single last Friday (called ‘It’s My House’, if you’re interested):
 

 

He may have faded somewhat from the UK’s public consciousness, but fans pointed out he still enjoys continued fame in Europe.
 

 

This may be partially thanks to his stints as a judge on Italian and French talent shows:

 

 

Impressively, Mika actually speaks French and Italian on these shows, too – look:
 

 

Anyway, some X Factor UK fans think he did such a good job on the show that he should replace Louis Walsh

 

 

 

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41 minutes ago, cathouzouf said:

Thanks a lot for posting @cathouzouf

*********************************************************

How Mika sold 10m albums… then reinvented himself as an award-winning TV star

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/mika/

 

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When Mika first signed to Universal Music, he should have known the stakes for his career were going to be high.

 

In 2006, the Beirut-born artist inked a deal with Casablanca Records – run by record industry legend Tommy Mottola in conjunction with UMG.

 

Before he could get there, Mika had to pass a test: playing a piano and vocal set for Sir Lucian Grainge in a hotel lobby – an impromptu audition requested by the Universal boss after he’d cancelled a meeting elsewhere.

 

Within 15 minutes, Grainge had seen enough: Universal, through Casablanca, was going to sign Mika, and make him a worldwide priority.

And, to begin with, that’s exactly what happened.

 

Screen-Shot-2017-10-27-at-17_38_24.thumb.jpg.6738540086da30d5c0ad44b32db3ee09.jpg

 

Mika’s debut LP, Life In Cartoon Motion, was released in 2007 and sold more than 6m copies worldwide, with 1.5m shifted in the UK alone.

That same year, the singer/songwriter was named the winner of the BBC’s influential ‘Sound Of’ poll – a list which tips the artists the Beeb believes are going to break through in the coming 12 months.

 

But then, Mika fell victim to a blight on the music industry as old as time: he wasn’t new anymore.

 

“That’s the absolute cruelty of the entertainment business – from vaudeville to streaming, there’s no real difference,” Mika tells MBW today.

 

“I am absolutely grateful for the big hype and platform I was able to achieve on my first record. But at the same time it sets you an enormous challenge: are you willing to fight for your continued ability to create?”

 

“It’s the absolute cruelty of the entertainment business – from vaudeville to streaming, there’s no real difference.”

MIKA on the industry’s obsession with the new

And this is where the story of Mika’s career starts getting really unconventional.

Because he fought, and fought, and fought: all the way to Italian television, where his variety show, Stasera Casa Mika, is now drawing three million households each episode.

 

Last month, it even won a prize at Europe’s most prestigious TV awards ceremony: the Palm D’or International Television Award for Best Entertainment Program.

And this, says Mika and his team, is just the start.


Mika’s path to becoming a television star began in 2013, when he was named a judge on the X Factor in Italy.

 

He soon joined The Voice in France, on which he’s about to enter his fifth year in the big spinning chair.

 

Feeling more comfortable with the idea of himself as a television personality, Mika began jotting down ideas for his own light entertainment show, inspired by US TV specials fronted by the likes of Elvis, Cher, The Beatles and The Monkees in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

The format was snapped up by Rai, Italy’s public broadcaster and the leading TV network in the country.

 

“I wanted to do something that made people fall in love with variety TV all over again.”

Mika

Last year’s first series – of four episodes, each over two hours – welcomed guests including Sting, Kylie Minogue, Monica Bellucci, Eros Ramazzotti, Rossy de Palma, LP, Jack Savoretti and Kendji.

 

Stasera Casa Mika (rough translation: Tonight at Mika’s House) is based around the idea of a house party, and will return for a second series this year.

 

“I wanted to do something that made people fall in love with variety TV all over again,” says Mika.

 

“The concept was a magic place where anything is possible – where, through the stories we tell, we can make people dream for two and a half hours.”

 

 

MikaStasera.jpg.c52dece27463a9af61b1fe02b350e437.jpg

 

The popularity of Mika’s show in Italy may surprise some in the music business who have seen the artist’s album sales take a transatlantic tumble.

 

After Life In Cartoon Motion, Mika has released three more LPs: The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009), the Origin Of Love (2012) and No Place In Heaven (2015).

 

All of them have been signed to Universal, all of them have been profitable, and all of them have sold over a million copies worldwide.

 

To date, Mika has sold more than 10m albums in total – largely thanks to his enduring popularity in regions such as France, Italy, Austria and South Korea.

 

Along the way, the multi-lingual artist has signed brand partnership deals with the likes of Swatch and Peugeot to help fund his videos and touring production demands, and leave him less reliant on huge advances from his record company.

 

“I needed to find some partners outside music simply because I was worried I was losing my [recorded music] partner at various points,” he says.

 

“Apart from brand partners, TV has become a major source of freedom in terms of explaining what kind of an artist I am, and also selling tickets to my shows.

 

“Am I going to be in the top seven global priorities at my record company? Because if you’re not, you have to face up to that – and find other ways to get what you need.”

Mika

“Am I going to be in the top seven global priorities at my record company? Because if you’re not, you have to face up to that – and find other ways to get what you need to promote your career.”

 

Iain Watt is Mika’s UK-based co-manager, working with US-based Rich Isaacson.

 

“If you have a brilliant artist like Mika who works exceptionally hard with very good ideas, and you have a team around them that can put those ideas on the right desks, you can create a lot on your own outside of the music business,” says Watt.

 

“You can then use those additional platforms to fuel the thing that is at the core of everything – the music and the touring.”

 

He adds: “Twenty years ago, an artist and manager were entirely reliant on their label to find one of only a few avenues that existed to get exposed to a broader audience.

“Now, if you’re innovative and use all the tools at your disposal, the number of those avenues are almost limitless.”


Watt, who also manages the likes of Clean Bandit, Years & Years and award-winning producer Mark Ralph at Machine Management, says that the next step for Stasera Casa Mika will be licensing the format to other territories.

 

France will be high on the agenda: just like it has in Italy, Mika’s most recent album has gone platinum in the territory, denoting his continuing popularity in the market. (No Place In Heaven is also his biggest selling album in South Korea, where it went gold.)

 

Alternatively, says Watt, Stasera Casa Mika may even go global with a single deal.

 

“In line with the way people consume entertainment these days, we might go to Amazon, Netflix, Apple or Hulu,” he says.

 

“Twenty years ago, an artist and manager were entirely reliant on their label to find one of only a few avenues that existed to get exposed to a broader audience.”

Iain Watt, Machine Management

“These platforms are very well known for producing great dramas and TV movies – whether it’s The Man In The High Castle or Narcos – but they’re now starting to experiment in formats outside of those, particularly light entertainment.”

 

He’s not wrong: Netflix, for example, just signed a big money deal to bring back US chat-show legend David Letterman to the small screen.

 

With Mika able to speak Italian, French, Spanish and English – and owning the format rights to Stasera Casa Mika – an enterprising digital or traditional TV programmer may see a canny opportunity for this slightly zany, slightly surrealist series to spread its wings into other territories.

 

 

Lucian_Grainge-e1461148655773.thumb.jpeg.6894c8209ec979699a325c94fdb54f1b.jpeg

( Lucian Grainge )

 

As for Mika’s music, he has a fifth album coming in 2018 – again on Universal Music.

 

And despite riding out the rollercoaster of immense debut album hype through to a sustainable, globalized career, Mika’s opinion of the man in charge of the world’s biggest record company has not changed.

 

“Lucian Grainge might be the most powerful person in the music business, but he’s also the guy who started in the industry aged 16 years old cataloguing tapes in a publishing house,” he says.

 

“Somebody who does that as their first job keeps a certain part of that in their philosophy at work. Lucian is an example of what being a true music industry executive is.

 

“There’s no executive like Lucian in the world – I’ve never met someone like him.”

Mika

“The last time I saw him I was in the States with my family – he called me in and told me the only thing he wanted from me was demos, and that the only demos he wanted were piano and vocal. That was the one rule.

 

“The guy who’s sitting there having lunch with Warren Buffet and arguing with Apple or Alibaba is also the guy sitting with me for an hour-and-a-half explaining what direction my demos should take and why.”

 

He adds: “Lucian has screamed at me in the past when I’ve ####ed up or I’m not pulling my weight. But when someone has that kind of attitude, all you do is respect and admire them for it, and you listen to them. Because when someone doesn’t give a s**t, they just smile and tell you everything’s great.

 

“There’s no executive like Lucian in the world – I’ve never met someone like him.

 

“He’s clever. But he’s not fancy; his life is fancy, his work is fancy, but there’s still that guy in him that catalogues tapes in a publishing house.”

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1.  Mika is still really a service oriented business.  He has to do Casa Mika himself. He has to write and record and tour himself.  He cannot clone himself in order to fulfill all of these many avenues.  Also, his successes come from a hands on, handmade point of view.. The sets on Casa Mika may be made for him, but the structure and content of the episodes are handmade by one man.   Service oriented businesses are more limited than product oriented ones, but ironically, the individualism, quirkiness and quick thinking of Mika does not easily adapt itself to mass produced products.   I shudder at the thought of the Mika couch.  The Mika cookbook.  The Mika white tee shirt.  The Mika tribute band.    I am pretty sure he would too.  So I somewhat doubt the syndicated Mikaverse.

 

2.  I don’t know how many he needs to fund an album and a tour, I do know he said he lost a great deal of money on Parc des Princes.  I believe that a worldwide tour as he has done before is not going to be constructed the way he did it in the past.   But writing and performing his music is still, and always will be, at the core of who he is.  The trouble is with time. Nobody can be in two places at once.  Servicing tv and music are going to be quite a trick.  And this is why, I suspect, the book isn’t done.  He is only one extremely talented, unique, inspirational person.  

 

3. If I were Mika (ha!) I would be writing a Broadway or West End show to star in.   Thiis is the one genre where I think he could be replaced by another star and have it still be successful.   Or could actually not have to star at all.  And spin off a touring company,  use merchandising and cast albums to make money, and still not be eaten up by the project.

 

4. I am sorry for those of you who miss the old days.  I would have given a tooth to have been there.   You are all different people because of this experience in a way I envy.  When I see his old handdrawn site and personally written blogs, I am actually very moved.   It’s all there.  The vulnerability.  The desire to have a communal experience.  The intellectual, artistic bent.  And the kindness.   Everywhere else, if you look, you can find the ambition, the self control, ideas beyond measure that have been brilliantly executed or have not gotten done yet.  And it all still gets you in a tizzy, 

 

I do wish people could hope for the best outcome for Mika, and try to understand how complicated the situation is.   He doesn’t just pick music, record an album and tour.   Who knows, he might be missing the good old days too.  But he was always destined to change many, many people’s lives through living out his own.  It’s a rare, dangerous yellow brick road that would scare the hell out of me.  I wish him luck, peace and happiness as he goes.  I will be watching from a nearby tree.

 

6.  Why did I number these ideas?  I have no idea.

 

Pat

Edited by Anditwassummer
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13 hours ago, cathouzouf said:

 

Thanks Cath and Eriko for posting! :thumb_yello: Finally someone is writing about his television work from this point of view. It's a huge possibility, not just something postponing his next album (even it's taking his time of course). It's something way too big to limit it only in Italy. He must have a dream to do his own show in English at some point. 

 

10 hours ago, Anditwassummer said:

 

I do wish people could hope for the best outcome for Mika, and try to understand how complicated the situation is.   He doesn’t just pick music, record an album and tour.   Who knows, he might be missing the good old days too.  But he was always destined to change many, many people’s lives through living out his own.  It’s a rare, dangerous yellow brick road that would scare the hell out of me.  I wish him luck, peace and happiness as he goes.  I will be watching from a nearby tree.

 

Many good things are happening all the time. He still has the same impact on my life as he had ten years ago. Every single day.

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Thanks for this. Actually I meant to ask him at the Rose d'Or awards whether he was planning to bring Casa Mika to other countries, but the time he was there was too short and I forgot. Happy to have my question answered by this article. I agree with Nina, it's good to see this point of view in an article.

 

I just wish they had gotten their facts right. Rose d'Or, not Palm d'Or. And I really ask myself how they get the idea that Mika is still popular in Austria. :lmfao:

 

I've never stopped following him because as long as he keeps making music - and I'm glad to read it's true that this is still the core of it all - I don't care much what else he's doing. And I've said quite often in discussions about this that I believe he started this all to finance his music. Ok, now he came to like doing TV, so indeed things have changed a lot. But with a show like Casa Mika, I understand why he likes it and I certainly would love to watch it in English. Sad that he doesn't speak German, so my country will probably stay Mika-less forever. *sigh* 

Anyway, although I kinda miss the good old times, I'm fine with all those changes. Times and people change... it's sometimes hard to accept for me as well, but I know it's necessary for development. Just one thing really bothers me: The fact that it has become so rare for him to meet his fans after the gigs. Maybe he's just getting old and needs more sleep than in his 20s. :teehee: But it was one of those things in the "good old times" that made it so special, and I can't see the reason for this change, because it has nothing to do with him doing TV. At least as long as I refuse to believe that TV has changed him in such a negative way that he cares less about his fans than he used to. The special moments have gotten extremely rare but they still exist.

 

 

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Thanks for sharing this article

 

Mika is Mika, whether he expresses himself through his music or through a tv show, I'm glad to watch him since I know that it's his idea and it's written by him, and I'm happy that he got the opportunity to do his own show in Italy, it's a big program, and italian fans are just unbelievable and they deserve him.

 

He got the idea of the tv show from the begining, and now here is the opportunity and he's realising his project.

Edited by Amy hudsone
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I love the article. Finally, some respect for Mika. I'd love to see his TV show, available for us in the UK. I also agree with the poster who said that he should write a show, for Broadway, or The West End of London.

The main thing is that things are not standing still anymore, and for those of us, not in Italy or France, it's been a Mika-Wilderness for years.

But one short appearance on UK TV, has made all the difference. It may not be exactly like the old days, but I don't mind. Mika is around again. That's all that matters. I hope his music continues to do well again

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As an American, living in a mikaless desert, I have some complicated feelings about worldwide Casa Mika.

I LOVE the idea of broadcasting it in other countries.

I am...unsure about REMAKING it for other countries.

 

The language barrier remains the issue here. Because it's only in one language (Italian, though the specific language doesn't really matter), simply re-broadcasting Casa Mika in non-italian speaking countries isn't necessarily plausible. I'm not sure how it is in Europe, but in america getting most people to watch anything with subtitles is like pulling teeth. There are, of course, exceptions, but by and large foreign media doesn't sell in America. Shows re-dubbed in english can do okay, but that usually only really airs on netflix. Airing Casa Mika in another country - France, England, America - would probably require "remaking" or recording a entirely new show, geared specifically towards the country airing it. It really is too big and too wonderful of a thing to keep only in one country, I agree. But I wonder how the show going to other countries would be handled. Would they move the show, or simply duplicate it? If there's two of them at once (Casa Mika Italy and France, for example), are there enough hours in the year to produce, write, etc both of those shows?

 

I guess, simply put, this is my fear: if the show were to be duplicated, while the original still exists, it's now double the work. Double the work means picking up new people to create and write, and picking up new people terrifies me. I suppose I am afraid of "Casa Mika" without Mika; I'm scared of the idea of the show becoming an independent entity but in the process being run by...not-Mika. Casa Mika is a hard brand to make into its own self, it, like summer said, cannot exist without Mika. It's not, in my opinion, like X Factor, which is a format easily copied and pasted to any other country with pre-made roles to cast, and then you just press play (truly nothing against X factor, I know it is an unpopular opinion here but I actually quite like talent shows). The manger's words, "licensing the format", worry me. That doesn't mean selling the show, that means selling the skeleton of the show, and maybe for someone else to build.

 

IMO, the best way to bring Casa Mika to another country is not to copy it, but to move it. End the Italian one and start it France for a year or two, and if it was to be moved to another country, end it in France and move it, in its entirety, to the next place. A long-term tour, kinda. I also like the idea of the show being broadcast by a world-wide service provider like netflix, therefore bringing it everywhere at once, but the problem of what language to record it in remains. I suppose English, since English is a very common second lanuage in France and Italy, and I would imagine that it's more likely that a European audience would watch something that's in English than that a British or American audience would watch something that isn't. But saying "record it in English" feels very English centric, which I don't think is right either (as much as I would love to watch the show in English).

 

To make my point clear, I am ready and waiting to enthusiastically support Mika in whatever he does. Mika doesn't worry me at all. He's never failed me. What worries me is the idea of this concept being in the hands of someone OTHER than Mika. As long as Casa Mika stays in Mika's piano-playing hands I will follow it all over the world.

 

But there's another thought here, and it's a deeply comforting one. I keep thinking, as I write out these worries, of all the time's he's said he's a control freak, all of his projects he had trouble getting off the ground because he refused to change them. Casa Mika is kind of his baby, and I can't see any pressure, from anyone, getting him to release it to someone else's control. And, like I said above - the man has never failed me. To be honest, I wasn't even sure what Casa Mika was going to be like, when it was first announced. Of course, I THOUGHT it would be great, and expected it to be great, but there was (as there always is with anything you look forward to) a tiny unsure voice - what if it's a disaster? What if, somehow, it's not good? But then, of course, the show actually aired. Fast forward to me standing in my room, watching the last episode and literally openly weeping, because I had become so emotionally attached to the show and I was just feeling so many FEELINGS. It's My House, too - it's here and it's WONDERFUL and I am in love with it. Every time I've had so much as a teeny, tiny voice of worry about something Mika's done, when the thing has appeared it's been above and beyond even my best expectations.

So in a weird way, I'm gonna semi-disregard all those worries above. I still think they're important things to consider when thinking about remaking the show. But I will be optimistic.

Because I trust Mika <3

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:thumb_yello: Very interesting thoughts re. Casa Mika, and the possibility for making it available worldwide! Thanks for sharing  it ladyoliver :hug: 

I can only join you: I trust MIKA, and his decisions...:blush-anim-cl:

 

Love, love

me

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On 10/28/2017 at 1:15 AM, silver said:

But I hope he uses the opportunity to promote his own music

 

Last year he performed 12 of his own songs during the 4 episodes of CasaMika, plus another 2 written by him in duet with Eros Ramazzotti and Morgan, and this year he does the same. So I'm sure he'd use this opportunity in the future as well, no matter the country :thumb_yello:

Edited by krysady
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On 10/30/2017 at 5:47 AM, ladyolivier said:

But there's another thought here, and it's a deeply comforting one. I keep thinking, as I write out these worries, of all the time's he's said he's a control freak, all of his projects he had trouble getting off the ground because he refused to change them. Casa Mika is kind of his baby, and I can't see any pressure, from anyone, getting him to release it to someone else's control.

 

Exactly, you can be sure that nothing is going on in his show without him being totally in control, and anyone who attended the recordings could see it very clear. So like you said, CasaMika without Mika wouldn't make any sense.

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Just to say, when all the Twitter stuff was going on after #JudgesHouses I tweeted quite a lot, encouraging ppl to get all his albums. I even named them all. I hoped more ppl from the fandom might notice my tweets and follow me, but only one did. For anyone who wants to follow me, I am @AlansGoodWife on Twitter. I'd welcome followers, and would follow back.

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