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Fresh

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Everything posted by Fresh

  1. It was a BBC Radio 2 event, not a BBC One or BBC Two event. They'd never broadcast something like that on BBC One, it just simply isn't the type of programming BBC One would show, and isn't the type of programming it's viewership expect. I've seen an advert for it being on the Red Button, and I've heard the continuity announcer mention it, I also think it was/is the top option when you press the Red Button on any BBC channel. The performances were also put onto the BBC Radio 2 website, which is where I viewed them. The Proms fits with the target audience of BBC One/Two. Pop concerts are more suited to BBC Three if anything.
  2. I actually think the review is well written. It's not being too harsh, he just seems be much more of a fan of Mika's slow, pretty songs such as 'Happy Ending', 'I See You' etc.... and thinks that's where his main talent and skill lies. It does seem like Mika won across many new fans when 'Happy Ending' was released, as it demonstrated a different side to his music. Even some of his biggest critics like it, and I'm sure 'I See You' will have the same effect. Hahaha you're trying to break out of everyone's screens!
  3. Thank you! I totally agree with the reviewer, 'I See You' has got the potential to be a massive hit!
  4. BBC Review Too schizophrenic of design to successfully sell its positives. Mike Diver 2009-09-11 While it may come as a surprise to those blinkered to the machinations of the music industry, Mika’s ascent to superstardom around the time of his debut album, 2007’s Life in Cartoon Motion, wasn’t exactly smooth. A spread of negative reviews for the Grace Kelly-spawning long-player did nothing to disrupt its commercial success. But Mika, as a musician who writes his own material, must surely have taken a few less-than-favourable assessments to heart – if not, it would only support the suggestion that his quirk-laden fare can’t mean much to the man himself. So expectations for this follow-up incorporate hope that Mika has developed his sound following so much exposure, so many new experiences and a much bigger budget to play with. And, certainly, The Boy Who Knew Too Much is bolder of arrangement than its predecessor – sometimes haphazardly, and sporadically disastrously, but never boringly. Mika’s classical background can lead him down cluttered compositional avenues, but when he turns down the contrast between structural elements, the results are hugely enjoyable. Both I See You and By the Time are pretty arrangements that find Mika’s occasionally questionable vocals complementing elegant piano lines well – the former is particularly striking in its accomplished articulating of melancholy, with no clunky couplet tripping over its sparely employed strings. It must surely be a single. In fact, it could very well be Mika’s finest moment yet. Closer Pick Up Off the Floor rather undoes the good work of the aforementioned brace by coming over indecently theatrical, but it’s the only other track here that aims for the heart rather than a temporary embrace for a silly, drive-time sing-along. The lyrical drivel of lead single We Are Golden, Blame it on the Girls and Good Gone Girl is, sadly, fuel for the fires burning in the bellies of Mika’s fiercest critics, and salvation via the George Michael-echoing Touches You arrives as too little, too late. Mika needs to find a balance between the polar musical worlds he’s so intent on occupying, between mature sensitivity and worrying puerility. Because, until then, his indulgences will always overshadow songs that are really quite beautiful. A disaster it’s not, then, but The Boy… is sure to attract no little vitriol from other corners of the music press, opinions swayed by its schizophrenic nature. http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/4xp2
  5. MIKA RELIVES TEEN TRAUMA 7th September 2009 POP sensation Mika is digging into his childhood angst on spangly new album The Boy Who Knew Too Much. First single We Are Golden is out today to download and the six million-selling sensation gave his first interview to me, revealing: “It’s still joyful pop music.” Brit and Ivor Novello award winner Mika told me: “I needed to liberate myself from my childhood – I was a weird, reclusive teen. “There’s a song called Rain, which was a break-up letter, but I thought it would be funny to put a disco beat behind it. “It’s my form of revenge – I’m quite a passive aggressive person.” But the chirpy chappy isn’t sobbing into his pillow – more jumping up and down on it as his new video shows him mucking about in his pants in his bedroom. Mika laughed: “The dir*ector did Paparazzi for Lady GaGa and asked me what my 17-year-old self would be wearing. I said my underwear, and then I was there in white boxers, flexing my muscles. “I almost wanted to vomit.” The engaging lad is now in talks to turn this record into a comic. Mika, 26, revealed: “I’m talking to the guy who published The Smurfs.” I reckon he’ll have some new listeners on board, even if they didn’t like Life In Cartoon Motion. Mika continued: “A lot of artists are more protective of themselves on their second album. “I don’t give a s**t about how I’m perceived. “Famous people are boring and only think about themselves.” Robbie Williams, watch your back. http://www.dailystar.co.uk/playlist/view/97533/MIka-relives-teen-trauma/ Just the type of crappy eye catching headline this rag would use, but that's really interesting news about the possible Mika comic!
  6. Mika returns with The Boy Who Knew Too Much Follow-up to 2007's Life in Cartoon Motion includes first single We Are Golden and is Disney through a Tim Burton lens September 6, 2009 Lisa Verrico In a canalside studio complex in east London, Mika ushers me into a dimly lit room where a team of people are hunched over tables. The atmosphere recalls a school science lab. Several artists, including the singer’s sister, are pasting hundreds of tiny paintings, some smaller than a thumbnail, onto pieces of paper. For three weeks, Mika and his cohorts have been perfecting the artwork for his second album, the follow-up to 2007’s 6m-seller, Life in Cartoon Motion. The title, The Boy Who Knew Too Much, was decided on only last month, while the artwork will be delivered just in time for the album’s release in a fortnight. The record company, Mika concedes, must be having kittens. If it sounds as though the 26-year-old is poorly prepared to reclaim his pop crown, don’t be deceived. Beneath the flamboyant facade, the attention-seeking outfits and the songs that can seem as suited to seven-year-olds as grown-ups, lies one of the sharpest minds in music. Mika is meticulous about every aspect of his career — from the horn arrangements on the first single, We Are Golden (about which he argued with Jerry Hey, the maestro who has worked with Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra and Elton John), to the shoes he wears on stage (handmade by Christian Louboutin, whose only male client is Mika). His critics — and there are plenty who find his songs too sugary-sweet to take seriously — may mock, but you’d be hard pushed to find a pop star more concerned with the concept of “art”. “Look at the detail in this,” insists Mika, pointing to a shrunken strip of photo-booth portraits repainted by hand. “We could have used the original photos and altered them digitally, but it wouldn’t have looked as good. The painting gives them a strange, 3-D effect. It gives them soul.” For the next 15 minutes, Mika takes me on a tour of his CD booklet. It features colourful cartoon characters called Mubbins, inspired by Little Golden Books, each with their own personality defect — one is narcoleptic, one cross-eyed and overweight, another a weed-smoking manic depressive. All hold clues to the songs and, according to Mika, parts of his own personality he has left for his fans to decipher. Even a painting of an old Tube ticket boasts a significant date: February 14, 1996. “What does it refer to? Well, obviously, it’s Valentine’s Day. And I’d be... er, hang on. If I was born in ’83, what age would I have been in ’96?” Mika ponders his question for a moment, then gives up on the maths. Clearly, his decision to drop out of the London School of Economics after a day, to pursue a pop career, was a wise one. Yet the poshly spoken, elegantly mannered and surprisingly attractive (he looks a lot more handsome off stage than on, not to mention considerably taller), Beirut-born, London-based singer is no longer the awkward wannabe who won a place at the Royal College of Music by sheer persistence. After failing his audition, Mika found the phone number of the tenor Neil Mackie, the school’s head of vocal studies, and hassled him for four weeks until he agreed to a second audition that won Mika a place. Within six months of its release, Life in Cartoon Motion turned Mika into an international pop star. The album sold everywhere from America to Australia, and he won three World Music Awards and a Brit, while the single Love Today was nominated for a Grammy. When it came to starting his second album, the spectacular success of its predecessor proved a problem. “I couldn’t deny that the landscape around me had changed,” explains Mika. “My plan was to write the album in my flat, just as I did with my debut. But I couldn’t. The fact that my old songs didn’t belong to me any more I found most disorientating. I write very selfishly. To me, my songs are bedroom records. Suddenly, sitting at my little white chipboard piano trying to write new ones, I couldn’t get out of my head the image of other people singing them back at me.” After a fruitless few weeks, he took advice from a musician friend he eventually admits was Pete Townshend. “He told me that if I wanted to keep making music, I would face the same challenge with every album. He said to stop romanticising songwriting, to think of it as a craft, then the art would come. The fact that it was Pete Townshend was important. If it had come from anyone else, I would probably have said, ‘Yeah, but your music is ****.’” The result was that Mika quit trying to write in the basement of his parents’ Kensington townhouse — “Hey, don’t make it sound like I live at home,” he pleads. “It’s a separate flat with its own front door, and I do all my own washing” — spending six months at London’s Olympic Studios, instead. “I went to the studio every day at 11am,” he recalls. “I had lunch at the same place at the same time and, in the evenings, a beer at the same pub. I love that concept of going to work, of having somewhere to be. It’s the same reason I had to get myself into the Royal College of Music. I knew I wanted to make pop music, but I needed somewhere to be at 9am, just to structure my day.” With the album largely written, Mika decamped to LA to work, once again, with the producer Greg Wells. “I did consider changing producer, but everyone else I spoke to told me what I should change about my sound, which smelt bad to me. There is a common perception that if you make a pop debut, you have to come back more complex and guarded on your second album. I wanted to do the opposite — not necessarily be more poppy, but certainly not apologise for making pop music. I wanted to celebrate it. That’s why the video for We Are Golden has me jumping around a bedroom in gold shoes and a pair of white pants. I’m like a 16-year-old, striking poses and staring at myself in the mirror.” Indeed, adolescence is the basis of The Boy Who Knew Too Much. Lyrically, it covers first kisses, long nights out being naughty and characters trying to figure out where they fit into the world, although since the protagonists tend to be fictional figures, it’s impossible to separate fact from fantasy. Sonically, too, it’s a slightly more grown-up successor to the relentlessly childhood-referencing Life in Cartoon Motion — there is less falsetto and reliance on nursery-rhyme melodies, and more widescreen soundscapes and moments of melancholy. There may be nods to Disney soundtracks, but there is also soul and, according to Mika, the spectre of his idol, Harry Nilsson, behind even the most discotastic tunes. He dislikes dissecting his songs, but says the album feels “like my adolescence, seen through a Tim Burton lens”. Veteran guests include the horn arranger and trumpeter Hey, the English cellist and string arranger Paul Buckmaster (Miles Davis, David Bowie, the Bee Gees) and LA’s Andrae Crouch Choir (Madonna, Michael Jackson), all known for their work with Quincy Jones. Other *collaborators include the producer Stuart Price (Madonna, the Killers), and Imogen Heap on By the Time, a ballad the pair co-wrote over two days at Heap’s home after Mika admired her hair at the Ivor Novello Awards. “I wasn’t looking to duet with anyone,” says Mika. “But we decided it might be fun to write together and our voices just clicked. It's the first time that’s ever happened. My voice doesn’t seem to sit well with other singers.” More likely, Mika is uneasy about sharing songwriting duties. He claims not to be a control freak, but purposely isolates himself from any pop scene and relies only on a close team of people around him, whom he refers to as ‘‘family’’. In fact, several of them are family. Two of his three sisters work with him, as does his mum, a former children’s-wear designer who makes most of his clothes. His mother’s influence looms large. When Mika rented a fancy house in the Hollywood Hills as his LA base, she cancelled the booking, insisting he stay instead in the meagre apartment he had previously rented. “Was she allowed to do that? No. Trust me, no. She put a gypsy curse on me and said the more money I spent on comfort, the worse my album would be. Superstitious idiot that I am, I went back to the same old apartment. “I mean, I saw her point. Mum didn’t want me in a beautiful house, sitting round watching movies. Money matters to me because I never used to be able to pay my bills, which I can now. But to her, my career never has or ever will be about commercial success. It’s about discipline. That’s how this all started. Since I was 12 years old, she drilled discipline and a quest for excellence into me — tirelessly. It was hard growing up with her always harping on about hard work, but I now know what she means.” Mum needn’t worry. Mika is exhibiting no pop-star peccadilloes and his work ethic is impressive. On the day we meet — his only scheduled day off in August — he will spend eight hours on his artwork, before flying to Sweden to record a radio session. He knocks back almost every celebrity-party invitation and shuns famous friends. Fashion appears to be his only indulgence. “Oh, no, not fashion, dah-ling,” he mock-drawls. “Fashion is about flogging perfume. I hate fashion, but I do love style.” For this month’s London Fashion Week, Mika is hosting a dinner for a number of designers who contributed artwork for free to a recently released, low-key acoustic EP, Songs for Sorrow, which he financed himself. Among them are Peter Blake, Paul Smith, Alber Elbaz of Lanvin, and Louboutin, for whom Mika is working on the soundtrack for a short film, alongside David Lynch. “Do you want to hear who I am inviting to my dinner?” Mika whispers. “The famous folk on my list are: Kathy Burke, Adele, Ian McKellen, Rory Bremner and Alan Cumming. Even I looked at that list and thought, ‘Oh, boy, what a weird collection.’ What do I think it says about me? Ha-ha. I let you decide that for yourself.” http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article6818966.ece Plus a little one from The News Of The World. Mika: The Boy Who Knew Too Much 05/09/2009 The new album by MIKA gets the thumbs up from me. I had a sneaky listen to The Boy Who Knew Too Much, out later this month, and reckon it's gonna fly off the shelves. His second album features a more mature sound but still has the catchy hooks that made Grace Kelly one of the tunes of 2006. The album, which deals with Mika's teenage years, is busting with potential hit singles. Expect to hear them all over the radio for the next year. http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/showbiz/xs/489509/The-album-which-deals-with-Mikarsquos-teenage-years-is-busting-with-potential-hit-singles.html
  7. Mika - 'We Are Golden' Fraser McAlpine | 11:51 UK time, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 It would be so tempting to let this one slide. It's not like it's awful. You'd have to be a killjoy of epic proportions to take a bright and beautiful comedy butterfly of a song like this and stamp on it with heavy boots. You'd have to basically find the idea of having fun, of dancing about your bedroom in your pants like Mika does in the video, to be beneath you, because your mind is on higher things. You'd have to want to pull the plug on every social event in which music is played so that people could dance about and raise a healthy sweat. You'd have to be a huffbag, a bitter lemon, a lollipop-stealer, a grinch, a sourpuss, a balloon-popper, a bunting-burner, a COWELL, in other words. On the other hand...it is all a bit much, isn't it? (Here's the video. Mika is 26 years old.) It's a bit much that this can be boiled down into a one-sentence mission statement like Hollywood execs do with films. So where Alien was famously reduced down to "Jaws - in space", this is "Meat Loaf presents 'Walking On Broken Glass' by Annie Lennox". It's a bit much that this song demands so much of the listener. You have to let yourself get swept up in the glorious brilliance, or it doesn't work at all, then you have to let preposterous thing after preposterous thing go without raising so much as a murmur of complaint. These include: A grown man singing about a teenage circus, the swoops into falsetto, being hammered over the head by the West End musical theatre production, the way he says the word "golden" as if he is Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, the defensive lyrics - pre-empting criticism by claiming to live for "glitter, not you", the total lack of that thing people call The Cool, and the worrying realisation that it might not be as important as everyone thought...there's a lot to forgive. And you HAVE to do it, or you're a grouch. It does help that the middle eight, the only bit of the song which doesn't churn the same soft-rock riff around and around, is rather grand. But every enjoyable moment comes at a price. The yelling in the back of your head is not another stage-school showoff giving it the junior banshee, it's your musical conscience being repeatedly kicked in the stomach. But apart from that, CHOON! Download: Out now CD Released: September 7th http://www.mikasounds.com BBC Music page (Fraser McAlpine) http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chartblog/2009/09/mika_we_are_golden.shtml
  8. His site is down because it can't handle the large amount of people trying to access it after his performance on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. The show gets millions of viewers.
  9. But the longer it's on the torrent sites, the more downloads it will get. Even more so if it's a few weeks before the official release in whoever's country. That could be an official decision on keeping the original name. Or today could have been the official release of 'We Are Golden' the single in Mexico, and because of the same names they just allowed people to download 'We Are Golden' the album.
  10. Also just noticed the standard edition and deluxe edition cost the same. This also tells us that Lover Boy's length is 3:13.
  11. Oh yeah forgot to mention that, very strange. Was this a planned release or is it news?
  12. I'm not sure if this is a mistake but I've just done a search for 'Mika album' on twitter to catch up with any news and a few people had tweeted about this. I've just checked the Mexican iTunes and it's true!
  13. I was just about to say that he will defiantly be interviewed as they have 3 guests normally, and they only have three including Mika. Then I checked http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mk5dt and it appears they've added Stuart Broad to the guest line up. So sadly Mika's just doing the music, I was really looking forward to an interview.
  14. haha very true! Not sure if his management would be prepared to pay for an advert during the X Factor. I think at the moment it's ITV1's highest rated shows so the cost of an advert is very high. But they may do the weekend before the album release! Or even during tonights Xtra Factor on ITV2. Surprised no one's caught it and put it onto youtube yet.
  15. I watched it on 4oD when I got in lastnight here: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/mika-through-the-looking-glass It's fantasic! Love the idea behind 'Rain', very funny and bitchy! I like how he mentioned the cleaning the bathroom tiles again, seems to be strange in joke with him and Nick Grimshaw, as he was the interviewer on BBC Switch a while ago. Also that's an idea, how amazing would it be if Tim Burton directed one of his music videos? He's directed music videos for The Killers before (I think it was a song called Bones???), it'd be incredible! I identify with 'I See You' so much, very sad.
  16. This is fantastic news, I've emailed the BBC in the past asking if he'd be appearing on the show close to the release of Happy Endings. Also for anyone looking for info on the show it's Called 'Friday Night with Jonathan Ross'. It's only called 'The Jonathan Ross Show' when not broadcast on a Friday. Here's the UK show times: Fri 4 Sep 2009 - 22:35 - BBC One (except Scotland) Fri 4 Sep 2009 - 22:35 - BBC HD Fri 4 Sep 2009 -23:10 - BBC One (Scotland only) Sun 6 Sep 2009 - 00:25 - BBC HD Sun 6 Sep 2009 - 00:50 - BBC One (except Scotland) Sun 6 Sep 2009 - 01:40 - BBC One (Scotland only) And it will also be avalibe on the BBC iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mk5dt I also believe iti'll be shown in the US on BBC America at some point, but no dates have been announced. I'm guessing it'll be filmed this Thursday.
  17. I've still not managed to spot it yet, has it only been seen on ITV2 so far? I'd imagine it'd move onto the other, more popular channels closer to the release. Makes sense they didn't as the programme its self stood as a 25 minute advert about him. It'd have been a waste of money to pay for a 30 second advert while it was on.
  18. Just did a quick search on youtube for anyone who wants to know how it was used. The opening titles from 1:19 onwards with some vocals. The end credits from about 3 minutes on wards. Not sure how long they'll allow these videos on youtube though.
  19. Thanks! I took it off the album cover, I think it's call a Muvin. :)

  20. Fresh

    Sliimy

    Just seen the articles about him being called 'the French Mika.' Not sure about that, yeah he has curly hair, beat songs and slightly camp, but that's about it. I quite like him, reminds me of Kate Nash, very female voice, had to check it was a male singing when I first heard his version of Womanizer. Look forward to hearing more from him!
  21. Yeah I did see, true! So yeah...iPod app anyone?
  22. I haven’t denied that the MFC isn’t a source, I’m just pointing out that the MFC its self mostly relies on other news sources for its information which is merely redistributes in a concentrated location where the fans are. I imagine that the video for We Are Golden was released by the record company to news websites, which would create a viral campaign, which it did. But that was a good spot, and it did appear on Google news when I searched after I saw your post. No that really isn’t what I meant and I’m sorry if I’m coming across as this. I do appreciate what the MFC does, I was just putting a side point that it isn’t where most of the info comes from, it just redistributes it and brings to the fans, just like when you found the WAG Video. Haha that isn’t what I was getting it, I just felt ridiculed because I’m not the most active member. It’s happened to others before of forums, to the point that the post count and been removed as members with higher post counts have patronised members with lower post counts. Oh, again with the sarcasm, you people really are delightful. Hey! I'm enjoying it as much as you are. Thank you for your agreement. Google can search news sites quicker than any person can. In this case BBC Radio 1 is the news source, you don't get told there's going to be a article about Mika in the Guardian in another newspaper are you?
  23. You must be completely oblivious to it, as the ‘Wow’ and the ‘Well done Zak!’ defiantly gave of the sarcasm vibe. It’s natural for someone who doesn’t seem to know much regarding a subject to feel to a degree inferior to someone who does, it happens to me all the time, and I apologies if it did come across patronising. That’s completely fine. Not really dramatic, it’s a figure of speech. Yes you stated your point of view but I don’t think at the time you understood the purpose of such an application. Of course they’re not going to listen to us, but this is the whole point of a discussion forum; discuss ideas, explain them, develop them etc... It wasn't directed at you, but this just seemed another example of it. No, I don't have a problem with you, sorry if it seems like that. I was just explain why an app would be usefull and successful at it's marketing purpose. What other words? I am not saying Google is the source of information, but it is used as a tool to find the latest articles about Mika. It's how I've found all the information when editing Wikipedia, because as you know fan sites official or not are not reliable sources of information (even if wikipedia isn't, but I do try to make sure the Mika pages are.) Often the info posted on here has been found off another website such as MTV, The Guardian, BBC etc... and I use google as a tool to find these latest articals which contain new information, or 'news.' Although that is pretty cool, I wouldn't regard it as massive news. Ok, don't tell me, I don't want to die! h:roftl: I don't know what you're trying to get at here? No, I'm not named Fresh for nothing (that doesn't even make sense.) It's a name I've used on websites for years, and I've only recently gotten a Wikipedia account when I saw the awful state the Mika articles were in. I'm aware that the MFC isn't Wikipedia's biggest fan, but I'm also aware the large amount of people that use Wikiedpia for information, and I think it's important that it's correct and up to date.
  24. That is one of the reasons Droopsy. Why is it that post count appears to give people prestige and power, surely it would be a case of quality and not quantity. Thank you.
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