Christine

Yes, I wasn't referencing your mention of happiness, just the general comments by fans over the years. You can't express discontent with anything Mika is doing without someone pointing out that Mika is happy. As if there is any correlation at all between these two things.

Ha, yes I just mean a small population. We are 1/10th the size of the US, so have 1/10th the budget. There are government regulations to protect and promote Canadian TV but it's impossible to contain the influence of the US and it's all falling apart now with streaming taking over traditional TV anyway. One benefit is that it is cheaper to produce projects in Canada so a lot of American TV and movies are filmed here which at least gives jobs to locals in production and minor acting roles. I hope your skiers did well!

Looks like Team Mika is also Team Lily now. http://machinemanagement.co.uk/artists

Yes I think most small countries like Canada and Finland are not going to have particularly good TV. We just don't have the budget for it and cannot compete with these blockbuster film or period piece level productions they are coming out with now like Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey. But I am so sick of zombies and vampires and superheroes and remakes and just want to watch a good story about some interesting characters. So when it comes to film I definitely appreciate something like The Intouchables (France) over a lot of Hollywood movies. I also like Bollywood movies because they remind me of musicals from the 50s, 60s and 70s although I'd still rather watch one where the dialogue is in English.

There are trends. A couple of my friends are watching a lot of Nordic Noir at the moment because it's really good and it's available. But it's not like we were all sitting around watching Danish TV when we were 8 years old. It's just a trend at the moment. Also a lot of young people are into K-pop. One of my British friends is familiar with Korean artists and I've noticed it's a genre on Canadian Spotify, whereas the only other foreign genres are francophone and latino because there are millions of French and Spanish speakers in North America. I will watch foreign films if they've had a lot of critical acclaim or I see them on Netflix but I have never watched a foreign TV show unless it's to see Mika or whoever make an appearance. I don't think I would like most of it for the same reason I don't watch Canadian TV. The production values are low and there is far better stuff to watch coming out of the US and UK so why bother. Also I think with TV shows a lot of stuff is not going to translate even if there are subtitles. It took me years to truly understand what was going on on Coronation Street because of all the cultural references and slang in northern England that I was not familiar with. And there is a particular brand of comedy I can't imagine outside of the UK/US. Even 90% of English shows do not match up to it and I can't be bothered watching lame comedies.

I think the whole world has moved towards a monoculture and right now it happens to be English. You are right, that could change in the future. Maybe China or Islamic culture will become dominant one day. But right now English is the lingua franca of communication and entertainment because of the internet and the way English imperialism created these large wealthy countries that produce a lot of music, TV, film and books. Everyone wants to watch Game of Thrones and Star Wars and listen to Adele and Justin Bieber. To ask why English people are not constantly searching around and struggling to understand foreign entertainment is like asking why someone with a pantry full of food and a freezer full of meat is not out there gathering berries and hunting squirrels. I think English could shift to some other dominant language culture but I don't see it ever devolving so that everyone is searching out more and more languages/cultures.

Yes this is the point I was trying to make. I don't think Mika fans do this with other artists or at least not with random artists. Although that is a good point re the melodies. It makes them easier to listen to even if you don't appreciate a song that much on an intellectual level. Whereas most artists have a few catchy hit songs and it's very easy to skip the rest. Especially in this iTunes/Spotify era where there is no need to listen to or buy the songs you don't love. These old songs are not supposed to be inspiring. It is just another part of his job as a recording and performing artist to perform them. What Mika normally did between albums and what my other favourite artists who have produced stellar third albums (Adele and Paolo Nutini) have done is go off and live a real life. They were not juggling 3 other careers at the same time, they rarely performed at all and they both scrapped their initial attempts when they weren't good enough and started over. They didn't put out a product until it was good enough even if it took 3 or 4 years. Fans can repeat over and over how happy Mika is with his life or how he needs to fund his music with his millions of other commitments. All of that may be true but I do not enjoy this music anywhere near as much as his earlier albums.

You can mail it to his management directly. I don't think it will be convenient for any fans to drop it off because it's on the other side of town from the venue and touristy areas. Mika did not stop to talk to fans last time so this may be your best bet. Machine Management Studio 16 London Fields Studios 11-17 Exmouth Place London E8 3RW

Yes Mika has always cited Rufus as an influence/hero, from his early days of promo.

The rule is that people paid money for their tickets so they can do whatever they want as long as they are not seriously impeding the performance or disturbing people in the audience. This was just a bit of banter with the audience that Mika himself initiated with parlez vous francais. It is a pop concert not an opera. I have been at shows where drunk girls scream "you're hot" at the top of their lungs for 2 hours. It goes with the territory. Yes this is exactly it. This is why I think his insistence that English pop fans embrace this music just because he likes it is ridiculous. There is no reason why someone who got turned onto Mika because of Grace Kelly should like chanson francaise unless it is part of their cultural history. If Mika started to sing 1970s era American country music, I am pretty sure his French fans who fell in love with him because of Relax would be like wtf is this? You're not seriously going to make song after song in this non-pop genre just for the sake of appealing to Americans? This is what I call songs only a mother could love. Fans only like these songs because they adore Mika and not because it honestly reflects their taste in music. (I don't mean these particular songs because we all have different tastes, but there are almost always songs people "force" themselves to listen to even when they don't like them because they want to be a good fan. Eventually they convince themselves they love them.) And before anyone starts freaking out, thinking I am calling them stupid, I understand this phenomenon because it happened to me. I used to love every single thing Mika did simply because it was Mika. But now that my sun doesn't rise and set by the light in Mika's eyes, I have no desire to listen to these songs that do not live up to the standard set by Grace Kelly. I would rather listen to Justin Bieber because he has produced some great modern pop on his last album. Yes of course, but I blame this on the influence of his total immersion in French and Italian music so he can do these TV shows instead of keeping his head in the English pop game. Everyone told me to stop moaning about the TV shows because he would make a great pop album at the end of it but that didn't happen. The first single was some melody ripped off a 1980s Italian novelty song. People talk about Mika's international influences as if it is an inherently good thing but it is not something that is guaranteed to produce better results and IMO it hasn't. At least not if you want to be a contemporary pop star in the English speaking world or even in France. The French are also not buying Mika's music like they used to. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a French person who bought LICM in 2007 who likes TAY and J'ai pas envie as much as Relax.

Sorry for all the posts, it's difficult to edit multiquotes on my tablet. Obviously this is just a matter of individual tastes but this is exactly what I do not want to hear from Mika. Christine and the Queens, great. Stromae, great. Coeur de Pirate, great. But this sounds like 1970s lounge music. This is where "British Mika" is missing in more ways than just the language he has chosen to sing. When the Brits fell in love with him and bought hundreds of thousands of his albums and sold out his extensive UK tours, he was the second coming of Freddie Mercury, not a lounge singer. If people like this music, that is great for them. His voice is really pretty of course and maybe the lyrics are meaningful if your French is better than mine. But this is not an example of great pop music in 2016 no matter what country you live in or what language you speak.

Indeed. The problem here is that someone threw a pebble at him and he has responded over and over with a bazooka.

I am starting to wonder if you are confusing me with someone else If a genie granted me 3 wishes one of them would be to have better skin. Yes but you think I (and others) are saying mean things about Mika, non? I am not sure what you mean. Clearly it wasn't a joke, given how he really felt about the incident. I agree he is allowed to make mistakes and be human, but if people would stop trying to minimize how much he hurt Jemma then we wouldn't have to keep pointing out how cruel it was. Yes it is possible. But I think it is far more likely he is just making up the "insult". This was a seated gig, MFCers were all in the front rows and would have been able to hear anything Mika heard. Jemma was in the very front, she was being vocal and I am sure he heard it. You can hear her laughing distinctly during the Sadlers Wells recording as we were also in the front for that. It is very telling to me that he describes this person as a fan and not simply "a woman in the audience". He knows who it was and wasn't just reacting to some random shout from the theatre.

You have asked me why I automatically assume the worst of Mika's intentions but you are doing the exact same thing to me. If, as you say, something can be interpreted in more than one way, why keep jumping to the conclusion that I am being mean and insulting? If the dictionary definition of sucking up is neutral why did you insist over and over that I meant it in the worst possible way? I do really consider my wording when I'm writing. But you have to understand it is impossible for me to imagine it from the perspective of someone who is not a native English speaker. Of course I could use extremely simple and bland language but I love the English language and want to use it to express my personality and my thoughts in a nuanced way. I am sorry if my online persona rubs some people the wrong way but it has also lead me to bond with people who share my sense of humour, etc. I would rather annoy some people than never make any genuine friends because of self censorship. The thing I don't like about the endless "Mika is so amazing" commentary is not that I want people to hate on Mika, but that it is so lacking in stimulation and uninformative. All of the so-called "fights" that put some people off of MFC I find very useful for getting to know people and really understanding what they think and what kind of person they are. When I say "respect", I do not mean "doing what I say", I mean respect. If Mika respected the fact that some English fans do not share his taste in French music he would not accuse them of intolerance. That doesn't mean he has to take the French songs off the setlist to show respect, just stop being judgemental about it and accept that their perspective is different from his for very good reasons. My parents are not Lebanese. I did not spend my childhood in France. My family are not wealthy globetrotters who summer in Spain and Italy and Portugal and Greece and Bahrain every year. I am not trilingual. I have tried to learn a second language, but through no fault of my own I started too late in my childhood and I find it extremely difficult. I can never hope to be fluent at Mika's level because I did not learn a romance language when I was 3 years old and I have no opportunity to completely immerse myself in another language. I do not have untold millions and a European passport in order to buy a flat in Italy and hire a private tutor to accompany me everywhere I go. I work in an office and do not have the time or incentive of a lucrative TV job to study the past 40 years of Italian music in order to understand and appreciate it. He should respect the fact that his worldview and my worldview have arisen from our extremely different life circumstances and not judge it as some sort of character flaw or hateful attitude that I don't share his interest in foreign music. It's like me going to Egypt and calling people xenophobes because they don't want to eat poutine and spend their Saturday nights watching Hockey Night in Canada. Quebec has its own star system and music industry and generally it does not cross over into English Canada in a big way unless the artists themselves do. Celine Dion used to be a francophone artist but of course she started recording in English eventually. There are smaller French regions outside of Quebec and in Ontario you'll find many people who grew up in Montreal and have ties. They usually have a pretty good understanding of French and are likely far more aware of what is going on in French Canadian culture than I am. But as you move farther away from Quebec the French influence is virtually non-existent. In Ontario we had some mandatory French in school but in western provinces they don't even do that. The US is a cultural behemoth and because of the climate in Canada most of the population lives very close to the US border. Even back in the days before cable, we would watch American TV because we are close enough to receive signals through an antenna. The US has far, far more impact on English Canadian culture than the French region of Canada does. And our cultural ties with Britain were very tight up until the last generation or so. When I was growing up virtually everyone I knew was either born in the UK or their parents were. I have given it a try and actually I really like Elle Me Dit. But generally I think Mika's French music is terrible. It doesn't sound like his other music. It doesn't sound like modern pop music at all. (Sadly neither do most of the English songs on his new album but that is another story.) I like Christine and the Queens and have seen Yelle several times. But I really just can't be arsed with Italian pop and am not crazy about Spanish, German, etc. If I was going to listen to anything it would be French, but not Mika's music. Not unless he starts collaborating with someone who is successful at proper contemporary pop. Yes for sure! Yes, I promise you I would use it to describe my own behaviour (especially re talking on the phone), so it is not a dig at Mika. Remember that cartoon that described Twitter chatter as yippity yap yap? That cracked me up.

Sorry I've only got a minute here so will answer more later, but I just want to make clear that when I'm talking about "Canada" in my post I am only talking about English speaking Canada. No one is avoiding French songs in Quebec I am sure Cath is far more informed about what is going on inside Quebec so I'll let her explain that to you and I'll follow up later to give you my perspective on what is happening in areas that are almost exclusively anglophone.

I think I've been annoying Nectar with too many generalizations about UK fans ( ) but let me talk about myself and Canada. I looked at the top songs in Italy a few weeks ago and there were 5 songs by Canadian artists in the top 10. I don't think there will ever be a time when there is even one Italian song on the Canadian charts. Of course we have some exposure to Italian through opera but there has never been and will never be Italian pop music in the mainstream here. The English speaking entertainment industry and culture in general is massive. I do not have enough time in the day to consume everything that is out there - Canadian, American, British, Australian, Irish. It is just not part of my culture to seek out foreign language entertainment unless it is something extraordinary that captures the entire world's attention (Amelie, Gangnam Style, etc). You can call it lazy but it seems absurd to me to spend the extra time struggling to learn some foreign lyrics when there are literally millions of other songs I could be listening to that are of the same quality and appeal to me in terms of the melody, rhythm, etc. When people say they "don't understand it" and especially when Mika calls it intolerant, you are judging something that is unfair to judge and imposing your worldview on people who have no reason to share it. It is obvious to me that the culture in Italy is to listen to English pop music and it is not the culture in (English) Canada at all to listen to Italian music. You can't compare your individual interest in foreign language music to mine. It is not an analogous situation. I live in a culture where we just don't do that. My tastes in music are based on my life experiences. My life experience includes having almost zero exposure to foreign pop music while I was growing up and acquiring my tastes. No one needs to understand it, but people should at least accept that a lot of people who have spent their lives immersed in English language culture have other reasons for finding foreign pop music unappealing beyond being intolerant,

Let me rephrase that - he doesn't respect what we think. Unless of course you simply echo his own thoughts, tastes, interests and worldview back to him.

Well there was a little bit of this: But it's hard to spend more than 10 minutes on the internet without that happening.

I dislike it precisely because I can understand it and I find it ridiculous. But we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. As abealma says he doesn't care what any of us think so it is neither here nor there. And if I know Mika, BBB will be on the setlist in June, along with some more French songs. Because although he sucks up to the locals in every single city he plays in, it seems his attitude towards the UK is always "f*ck you".

Indeed. I don't understand why people characterize differences of opinion as fighting. It is the whole purpose of message boards. And I have to roll my eyes at the passive aggressive status updates on the front page about "no drama". People descend on a 6-month old thread about a gig they did not attend precisely because they want to witness some drama. And then contribute to it in their sanctimonious way in order to draw attention to themselves by announcing they are above it all. We did have some fun times

I am talking about the disapproving "no"s when he asked parlez-vous francais. There was plenty of that.

The only thing I am angry about is what he did to Jemma. If Mika's priority is self-indulgence he can knock himself out but he should stop complaining about the consequences. It is nothing but narcissm to expect people to value French language music because he feels it is part of who he is. I do not see the world through Mika's eyes and ears and neither should any individual with their own sense of self.

No, what I am saying is that he shouldn't completely disregard 40% of it. These are only 13 songs. That leaves plenty of room for other songs. This is not statistical nonsense, it is common sense that you do not take an entire 40% of your top selling songs, throw them in the bin and replace them with a song that has sold exactly 0 copies. Or maybe you do and your audience starts booing when you ask a room full of English people parlez-vous francais? In that case you should just accept the consequences of your poor choice with some humility instead of throwing a strop.

Being familiar with Mika's gigs is not being "closer" to him. That word implies we have some sort of personal relationship. Lots of older fans have interacted with his partner because it was his job to interview us. But he is professional and it's not like he gossips with fans about Mika Self indulgence is not a thought, it's an action. I don't need to read his mind to draw conclusions about what he's doing. It doesn't matter what he thinks, it matters what the result is. Besides everyone keeps telling me that Mika should sing French songs (or do all kinds of other things I don't approve of) because he can do whatever he wants. Doing whatever you want is exactly what self-indulgence is.

The difference is lobbying Mika to play your favourite song is nothing but selfishness. Telling Mika not to play his French songs in a market that doesn't value them benefits the vast majority of people involved, including Mika. He is not doing himself any favours by alienating people and replacing their favourite songs with ones that don't hold any meaning for them. You and Mika's other fans who love his French songs can cling to your belief that people who want an English-only gig are intolerant and closed minded or rude or dumb or whatever it is you want to say or think about them. It doesn't change reality. It doesn't change their behaviour. They are just going to stop buying albums and gig tickets as they have been doing year after year as Mika ignores them and their preferences. And before you know it, you won't be hearing BBB in NYC because Mika will stop coming to NYC altogether because his fanbase is too small. Going back to some of your previous comments can you please not say that I am close to Mika? If that was true I would be calling him up and telling him to apologize to Jemma so she didn't have to make that video and we wouldn't be having this ridiculous debate about whether it is justified for Mika to throw one of his fans under a bus because he is butthurt.