Ellie13

February 23, 2013

I just thought - what we need is something like Live Aid where he could perform live to millions of viewers and grab the audience like Queen (sorry) did at that event! And subsequently they had a career renaissance.

Who should we pester to put something on, I wonder?? And which cause?

February 23, 2013

Yes, and this is the area where Mika is missing out on. His talent is totally played down in the media and his songwriting is undervalued in the music business. In other words, he has no credibility and it is very difficult to build a long term career without that. Some of his latest releases have certainly not helped that. In a way I agree with what Marilyn posted earlier (not sure where I saw it) that Mika needs to re-invent himself. I don't think that reinvention needs to mean him hiding in the background since he is a great performer. However, he needs to decide what he wants. If he wants to appeal to kids he should play a different game in the media, whilst if he wants to open his heart with any release he needs to look and sound honest and act professional.

This argument also comes back to the point of performers who manage to establish themselves as credible artists for whatever reason - whether that be for songwriting, such as for Rufus Wainwright, or for singing, like in Adele's case -, have no reason to fear what is happening to their coming releases as they will keep having their audience. I think this is what Mika is trying to make his record company / people or himself believe when he keeps talking about his loyal fans. He surely has some, like any popstars do, but not sure if it is enough. I really think he should go back to point 0, when he won BBC Sound of 2007 and see how he sounded and presented himself back then and start anew. And by that I don't mean sounding the same, but forgetting all that happened after January 2007. Approaching his career differently may help him. He is pretty creative to figure out how to.

I don't think its the music, but how he presents himself - but that's so much a part of how he wants to be that I don't think he will change that, and fair play to him. I do think the way he came over in 2007 was distinctive and himself, but relate-able and inclusive. Think of how he looked in the Grace Kelly video and the content of that - he looked like any boy next door, and he was creating a party that looked so much fun, but was really different in including all types of people not the super cool. At that time it was quite a radical statement. I think personally that he kind of lost his inclusivity with TBWKTM - I'm a fan and I couldn't get half of it. Don't think the videos helped either, notably Rain. I felt he was really hiding in that album - to me it lacked the integrity of the other 2 and was just a bunch of stories that might or might not relate in some way to him. I think he's got his relate-ability and integrity back in the music now, but his videos still aren't helping massively.

Maybe we should just accept he's not ever going to be a major star in the UK or US, and not worry about it anymore. I really can't see him giving up performing or not being able to sell tickets to gigs, he is so brilliant live...

Please don't kill me, is just my thoughts!

December 23, 2009

Yeah it is lol

It is a shame though, cos TBWKTM is really good. My mum thinks it's better then LiCM.

What does Grace Kelly have that the other songs don't? I'm not really sure. Why aren't people biting?

Grace Kelly had intelligent, witty lyrics that make sense and anyone can identify with

WAG doesn't - its aimed at teenagers and how many teenagers do you know outside MFC who'd identify with the chorus??

The video for GK was also really inclusive. with all ages represented and just about people having fun - making magic out of ordinary things. Compare that with the Rain video.

November 30, 2009

WAG didn't do so well? It went to number 4! That's his second highest chart position!

True indeed, but I got the feel from all the reviews I read before it and the album came out, that the critics were expecting him to repeat LICM / Grace Kelly level success with Boy and WAG, sweeping all before him. And that didn't happen and WAG left the charts quicker than GK.

So it did do really well, but perhaps not at the expected level of mikafying the world...

Oooh and I love analysing videos and lyrics by the way...

What's happened with releasing BIOTG in the US? Was it released and how did it do?? Or is it still to happen?

November 30, 2009

I honestly thought that Rain is a really good choice as a single And the vid for Rain is quite mainstream. I don't know the UK system that well. Can it be just too early?

The vid isn't that mainstream, it just starts off that way. Don't think it helps that what you see conflicts with what you hear in it (lyrics all about NOT wanting to be ordinary, whilst visuals are all about running away from the extraordinary).

November 30, 2009

Okay, not tour as in "major tour", but he did do a tour in america/canada and now he's off in the far east. I don't know what it is really, but wasn't he in the UK everytime one of his singles was released in 07? I know he's performed Rain on TV a few times but that was way before its release, besides Children In Need. (well, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I can't keep up with his schedule )
I don't know.

I just don't know.

I feel like I never see him anywhere He was in loads of things when WAG come out, but now it's almost like he's disappeared from the media. Seeing his name pop up 3 times in Star magazine almost gave me a heart attack.

I think its because WAG didn't do as well as expected that he's getting ignored now I think.

Maybe.

November 28, 2009

That's exactly the problem, Mika isn't appealing to people outside his core fans.
And let's be honest there hasn't been much promotion/performances of Rain for it to be top 40 And Radio play helps to back up with the promotion and it just hasn't happened for him.

I wish he didn't do the US tour straight after promoting WAG here. He should have concentrated hard in making himself MORE relevant in the UK and expose people to his new album. Having just one or two weeks of promotion and then shooting off isn't going to help promotion wise because frankly Mika isn't a big of an artist for his music just to do the talking... as we've seen with how Rain is doing atm.

Think you're right there - odd decision to head for the hardest market first before shoring up sales in the homeland.

I don't think anyone else will agree with me, but trying to look at it from the point of view of someone neutral who maybe bought LICM but isn't a keen fan, I don't think his videos are doing him any favours either.

Still, maybe its all part of a cunning plan... :wink2:

November 28, 2009

Ellie I haven't read any specific reviews of Rain - yet I have heard a positive buzz about Rain - but TBWKTM received RAVEreviews!

I know, I know and quite rightly so!! WAG did too, often. But something seems to have happened since then. I just find it bizarre when its such a lovely song with good lyrics that its not at least getting critical acclaim....:huh:

November 27, 2009

Albims just don't sell like the used to. i was shocked when I read this

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/usa/2745743/Rihanna-suffers-bust-zip-wardrobe-malfunction.html

15000 albums for Rihanna? I expected her to be tp 5 at least

That's really interesting - something wierd is going on then.. :boxed:

I'm actually really heartened by this. Thanks for posting! :thumb_yello:

November 27, 2009

:emot-sad::tears:

This has made me really sad today. I'm totally lost for words.........

Me too....totally agree

Did anyone see any reviews of Rain in magazines? I didn't (unlike WAG), and am just wondering if some of the press have turned off Mika and so Rain isn't being promoted enough? IF the mags aren't reviewing it, how would non fans know its there to be bought?

Personally I reckon its also partly down to WAG and non-fan reactions to it. I had to listen to it a lot to like it, and I wouldn't have listened to it a lot if I hadn't had the incentive of being a fan. Its a shame it was the first single. How many people outside the MFC do you know who could identify with its chorus?

November 23, 2009

How come you still haven’t figured it out??? You must have been eating too much pizza

Mika obviously has a huge castle in the English countryside – perhaps on Eel Peel Island - where he hides under the pseudonym of Bluebeard, visiting his next-door neighbour, The Who’s beard, occassionally.

Inside his 7 bedroom castle are his lovers – one for each day of the week – and hence his different recollection of how long they have been going out with and whether they are still together or not...

In the first (red) room of his castle is the lover who broke his heart and because of whom he was writing the ’I love no more’ messages all over his myspace page three years ago.

In the armory room hides the one he has been going out with „for a while” and whom he is trying to protect. :starwars:

In the golden room is the one he went out with for over 18 months but they are no longer together ...except when you ask him on Wednesdays..

In the green room is a secret lover he tends to forget about, particularly on Valentine’s day

In he fifth, sunlit room is the one they were together with for a year before they split. (unless you ask him on any other day than Friday )

Darness falls when you opened the door of the sixth room: he killed a man there 3 weeks ago...

And no one should ever open the seveth door, for Bluebeard will become lonely again ...

Um, excuse me please, where is the one who a couple of months back was really new and inspiring hope in him?? Do we think he was in room 6 until Something Went Horribly Wrong.... :bash:

November 23, 2009

Excellent!

Okay so he's in the longest relationship of his life in the UK... single in Australia...

Oh, but he was also single in the UK in the OMM interview from June. But wait! Those interviews were conducted in LA and in Amsterdam just for a British publication. Okay, so he's single in Australia, the US, and the Netherlands, but taken in the UK.

Ooooh, but, what about the Heat interview couple of months or so back, where he'd just started a relationship and was hopeful about it, but wouldn't say more because it was 'too new'! :teehee:

I liked it better when he didn't out and out lie, just said mind your own business.

But hey, its Mika, it don't have to make no sense to you at all....

Or maybe he's in an open relationship? Or a very on again / off again one? Doubt it...

Wonder what the next variant is going to be - married? divorced? off sex completely and joining a monastery? tantric sex? polygamy? eee, the possibilities are endless.... :roftl:

November 18, 2009

Maybe we should just ask non Mika fans who liked the first album, but not the second, why they don't like it as much, or why they didn't like WAG. We're Mika fans so we're NEVER going to understand it!

Has anyone had feedback on this?

Still think its WAG and its lyrics...

And the sexuality issue, much as I hate to say that and ridiculous as it is...

November 13, 2009

I agree WAG was a bad choice - I was really disappointed when I heard it, although I think its a fun stadium song that probably sounds best live. The chorus is really meaningless, whereas Grace Kelly was very witty which helped.

Rain on the other hand is great so hopefully will do well, but I don't think the video is going to help his cause much. I love it, but non-Mika-ites might find it too 'camp'.

Never mind, bet his third album is great, the pressure will be off a bit! He's brilliant so its going to come through...

October 7, 2009

I've thought a lot about that, and especially lately, since he's been more open. I keep listening to his interviews and saying through my clenched teeth, "Shut up Mika!" because ONE DAY SOMEONE will go to the press!!!! I dread it happening, but I'm sure that some day it will!

Oh I dunno, might be a relief then we could all forget about his sexuality!! Although he probably wouldn't comment and then people would say ho, hum the person was probably lying anyway...

Frankly I just can't understand why anyone who's studied him would think he was anything other than into guys and against labels (quite rightly) and why anyone on this forum should have a problem with that! Why put 'admit' to being bisexual - you don't read someone 'admitted' to being heterosexual.

He must have excellent taste in partners to pick people who don't do kiss and tell, good for him! That's the really surprising and impressive thing to me...

September 6, 2009

Great article, thanks for posting!

Anyone else noticed the contradiction of he shuns famous friends and then further down a list of some of them... thinking about it Mika actually has a heck of a lot of famous friends. Or rather friends who happen to be famous .

September 6, 2009

Thanks for posting x

July 19, 2009

Well, I was sleeping peacefully, and at 6.30am, I was woken by a text from Babs, asking if I could drive her to Latitude (because her neck was still not great, and she couldn't drive), if she got hold of a ticket for me!
Well, when I got up and started to focus on what just happened, I realised tha I could only say one thing.

Of course!

So, by 8.30am, I was on the road to Welwyn to pick Babs up, thinking, how the heck did I get this lucky?

Picked Babs up at 11, and we hit the road to Suffolk, on an incredibly glorious sunny day. At one point a couple of raindrops appeared on the windscreen, but they vanished as soon as they came.

We got to Latitude about 2pm, and after driving a round in a circle, because they decided to change the gate for Day Ticketers from green to red, we got in parked up and I went to pick up a ticket from the box office (thanks again Babs, you're a star), and we eventually (blimey, what a walk) got into the arena area.

When we had had a coffee to boost us again, we went into the Uncut tent, got up the front (by the speakers, left of the stage), and watched Paloma Faith, who was dressed in a circus assistants blue and white sparkly leotard. The stage had balloons, and giant dominoes littered around it. She's quite good live, and certainly got he crowd ready for Mika.

After she had finished, while they were setting the stage up for Mika, Andy popped out, and we said a quick hello, before he dashed off. saw John on stage, was surprised, as he never usually does that, but after seeing Ellies report, I understand why.

Mika came on and did brilliant set, got GK spot on, no duff notes, celesta worked pefectly for Toy Boy (he did take off his long beads, as he said they were choking him),STIM was when the planes were released, he got everyone singing along to the chorus of BIOTG, surprisingly did OMS, but not Relax, Rain or Lady Jane. For the storm before BG, he had a glittery silver umbrella, and Dan and Alexander played the dustbins for Lollipop.

Me and Babs were stood beside these young lads, to start with, an a lady with her children behind us. At first it seemed she was trying to push her whole family in between us and the boys, but it was only her 2 little girls who were tiny, so we let them in, in fact one of the boys ended up with one of the girls on his shoulders for a while (he wasn't really much taller, bless him). But near the end people started pushing from the back, and the 2 little one started getting pushed into the barrier, so the mum asked security to get them out. Funnily, two other girls asked to go over as well, I think the thought they would get round the back, but they just got taken to the other end of the barrier, an llifted out again.

While Blue Eyes was on, me and Babs were singing away, and the lady was puzzled, and said, "Wow, you are real Mika fans!" and I asked her di she not have the EP, and she looked at me blankly and said "what EP?"

Guess I'm hardcore! LOL!!!

When it finished, and the crowd went off (the tent was PACKED!), Andy came over, through the crowd. He said he'd got a rare weekend off, and watched the set from the audience for a change. He told us the video for WAG is brilliant, and they worked really hard on it, and hope we like the single. He was surprised to hear about the clip, that's circulating, and asked what was on it. But he doesn't go on the net much, as he seems to be solidly working, and when we talked about Mikas tweets, he looked completely blank and said he hadn't got a clue what we were talking about, ha ha! Then he went off to see Patrick Wolf.

After we caught up with Fanny, Steph, Sophie, LeRei and MikaClip, and chatted for a while about the set, just hanging around the tent.

I never expected Mika to come out to talk to anyone, festivals aren't usually easy to do that at. But he eventually did for 10 mins, took a few pics with people (thank you Steph, looking forward to seeing them). He was really sweet, and chatty, but apologised, that he had to go and do another interview, and went off again. I asked him if it was okay to dress up at Bestival, and he said it was, so the Golden Astronaut is on!

I did try to encourage him to go to Grace Jones, but so many people were talking, I don't think he heard, but I hope he did. I wanted to, but there was an evil looking rain cloud hovering just before she came on, so I legged it back to the van, but all it did was drizzle! I was gutted!

We then just sat in the sun outside the tent, listened to Scott Matthews, Newton Faulkener (both amazing live), drinking and chatting for a while. Mika went off after an hour into the crowd, to see some of the other acts I assume.

So we just chilled, tried to recruit some people to MFC and just had a great time, for the rest of the night.

I think I got home, about 5am this morning:naughty:

Thanks for report Rose! :thumb_yello:

You lucky things seeing him to talk to - hope I get to do that one day, would be great.

And thanks to everyone who posted pictures and vids - and for kind support re drunk idiot - I feel all hugged! This is a lovely club...

:group_hug:

Off to watch the vids...

x

July 18, 2009

Report back from Latitude

Ok, so - got there easily enough but then spent about 2 hours queuing to get into the park, they kept changing the gates we were supposed to go in by so literally drove twice round the area which was enormous. Got in and parked and walked long way to the arenas through the forest - must be a lovely park to just ramble in. Everything very smooth getting in there, and it was a good atmosphere with all ages, and SUNSHINE! Thank God he wasn't on yesterday! No mud, hmmm, almost disappointed (festival virgin you see!).

Went to the Uncut Arena about 3pm and as it was filling up decided to stay there and see the act before. It was Paloma Faith, who I'd never heard of and she was brilliant, and so appropriate to have before Mika. The perfect warm up act for him actually although of course she wasn't there for that. Balloons, glitter, confetti, a good voice and presence, yup, she was like Mika-fun on a smaller scale.

After she went everyone moved forward and got crushed up a bit. Lots of people around age 15, 16. In came the piano, John, Cherisse wheeled in already in place at her drums (they were moving the gear in in a way that looked like it was gliding on an escalator, dunno how) and looking anxious about said drums. She fixed something and left. Then the orchestra came in with tall silver pointed glittery hats on (spec there's pictures here anyway so won't say much about the look of things). Couldn't see all the instruments they had but there were quite a few. Then all the others came in together including Mika in electric orange jacket.

After a quiet Hello Latitude, he started straight in on GK, then Blue Eyes. Then he went to the what's it called, (small instrument, is it a celeste???) and said would sing Toy Boy and that he'd just sung it on the radio and really confused Dermot O'Leary as it was about a 'homosexual toy' (His words). Of course it was great and went down well where I was I think. (I was about 10 rows back).

Small moment of much amusement afterwards for me I have to confess, as, when it finished a girl in front turned round to her friend behind and said in utter incredulity 'Is Mika gay??' Probably the last person in England not to have heard the speculation!!

Then he went back to the piano and sang Billy Brown, so that was quite an interesting pairing of songs. He said something about the big tent being noisy and couldn't they turn it down and that we would challenge them by being the quietest. You could hear the bass coming from there but it wasn't loud enough to interfere and spoil anything (for me anyway).

Next was 'Over My Shoulder'. (I really hope I'm getting this in the right order and not leaving anything out - v sorry if so). That was the highlight for me, it sounded absolutely heavenly and it hit me again what an amazingly beautiful voice he has and what a skilled singer he is! I didn't actually like that track on the single it was on, but live both here and Amsterdam it was incredible. And I really didn't expect it to be spectacular in this environment as you haven't got the perfect acoustics of the Concertgebouw. I've just got to say it again, he is a seriously, seriously talented artist, in a different league to most. But y'all know that...!

Mmmmm...where was I? OK in terms of the crowd, and despite the beauty of the song and his voice, I'd say that - and I can only speak for the section I was in -he lost them a bit with Over My Shoulder. Some started checking texts or talking a bit and one started looking at the programme. It wasn't a lot, and there was plenty of applause at the end, but I could sense a change in the vibe.

And brilliantly, he then grabbed their attention right back with a snowstorm of white confetti and 'Big Girl'. It was all pretty lively and upbeat then with the LICM hits and Blame it on the Girls. Can't remember the order I'm afraid but we had a great SITM, LT and Lollipop (at the end I think). He danced quite a bit and ended on the piano like in Amsterdam. I dunno if anyone else would agree but I think there was a bit of a deliberately sexier edge to the dancing than before - maybe that's part of the move- from-childhood-to-adolescence theme?? Or maybe it's my imagination, but I don't recall it so much from Hammersmith or Brixton in 08... He'd never struck me as a particularly effective dancer before, but I thought he was good today.

Ended with telling us the first new single was out on Monday.

Other observations - he didn't seem as excited and happy at first as he was in Amsterdam (but then that was really special). To me I thought he looked a bit preoccupied at first. Then he got into it more. Either way he gave 100% and had the usual skill and charisma and professionalism we expect.

I did enjoy it a lot, but it would have been nice to have had more of the new songs or 'Songs for Sorrow'. I assume he focussed on the upbeat items because of it being a festival environment which was really sensible actually.

Oh yeah - and can anyone tell me - is there an age limit on appreciating good music? Or attending a festival?? I'd just like to say a personal f**k you to the drunk, red-faced idiot behind me who said 'you're even older than I am, what are you doing here?' I think its safe to say not a member of this club...

Not going to end on that note though, I had a great time, loved the festival environment, the food, the sunshine, Paloma Faith - and most of all, our man who definitely made it worth going.

Off to wash the festival dust off now....bye for now xx

July 18, 2009