Teresa

I'm not able to post links however you Google "X Factor 2013 - Sky Uno - Sky", then you click on "videos" and you'll find them!

On the official site of X Factor Sky Uno there are already videos of tonight's show! )

I have no Sky either (( I'll watch it on Cielo too. I hope the link for the live stream will work for those outside Italy, however Sky.it should upload the videos after each "episode" (I can't find the right word). At least, that's what they used to do, I hope they will continue to!

Here it is, this is the translation of the parts of the press conference- the parts in which Mika talks- that have not been translated yet! Enjoy! [skip the very first seconds] INTERVIEWER: So, how has it been for you with these three people? MIKA: I haven't absolutely understood what Morgan said... But...It's ok, thank you... I haven't understood everything! But I completely agree with what I have understood... I have made the decision to do X Factor because I like the energy of the show, from the beginning, still now, I like it more! And I have fun. Is that correct? I have fun. [From 0:52 to 2:20 it's the part I have already translated, in which he talks about Dario Fo with Morgan, he forgets what he wanted to say and then talks about the freedom of the show] Yes... At the beginning I was a little bit terrified... We have not done all the sequence in order [he means chronological order], we have done... Can I say it? Oh well I'll say it, we have done... Milan was a little bit after the other days of casting, and for this I'm worried, because the audience... how do you say “they're gonna see”? They are going to see that on the first day I'm quite a little bit more confident, that I speak a little bit more confidently and easily.. But after three days, three weeks later, I'm completely... I can't talk! We have done the reversed order... MORGAN: You have to do like I did, not going on the first day! [Morgan was very late on the first day of auditions so they started without him and he joined them later on] MIKA: Help me please! Because we filmed it the wrong way 'round, so the first day, in Milan, I'm confident, and then later I f**k it all up! Oh you cut it out! Oh, ok that's ok! No, I have fun, I have a lot of fun. [i'll explain this because it's not very clear if you don't know the context. The thing is, that the first days of auditions were in Genoa, and being the first days he wasn't very confident with his Italian, while the last days were in Milan, where he was way more confident. So he was worried because of the editing, because they put Milan before Genoa!] [From 3:40 to 4:30 it's the already translated part where he talks about the judges as friends] INTERVIEWER: Is that true that you're planning on making a record with Morgan and that Morgan has asked to make a record with you? [i'm not sure these are the exact words but that journalist had quite a weird voice ] And that you're already producing or writing something? You shut up [to Morgan] MORGAN: But I didn't tell you f**king anything, I have not understood why... ELIO: Let him talk! MIKA: We are doing... An other time (?)... MORGAN: Don't say anything! Don't say anything Mika! INTERVIEWER: No we need an answer! MIKA: No, we're having fun! We're trying something out. We are doing something, but, we'll see. Now... MORGAN: We are doing X Factor. MIKA: Yes. Tomorrow evening... INTERVIEWER: So you're not planning on doing something at X Factor, something together? C'mon! MORGAN: You'd like it, would you? INTERVIEWER: Well, why not? MORGAN: Would you like it? So then we can try to make it happen, we'll work on it, let's say. MIKA: For me it's really interesting to discover Italian music, I like vintage Italian music, I like... Now I'm learning De Andrè, I'm learning Mina's repertoire, I reeeally like Mina's repertoire in the 70s, also... I don't know, a lot of vintage Italian stuff, that I really like, that I want to try to do [he means re-make] with a production... Is that correct? With a more modern production. For me this is very interesting. Because this is a discovery for me, and I think I have the distance that allows me to try to make a new, modern version of a song from the 50s, for example. MORGAN: Yes, even if I inform you that Mina's musical arrangements were made by Ennio Morricone. MIKA: Yes I know I know I know! Ennio Morricone, a great genius. [Ennio Morricone is the Oscar-winning composer, the one who wrote the soundtrack for all the “spaghetti western” movies for example, or for movies like “Mission” or “Sacco and Vanzetti”, or even “Django Unchained”] MORGAN: And Mina's stuff is beautiful exactly in its musical arrangements MIKA: Yes yes! But really, I'm not talking about a song of Mina's, I'm talking about two other songs that are not Mina's, they're completely different. But! I like this idea... That's ok, stay calm Morgan [ironically:naughty:] MORGAN: I'm joking! MIKA: I dont' want to do a rap version of De Andrè, no!! MORGAN: No De Andrè no, I'm doing De Andrè!! [ironic, he has made several albums of a sort of re-make of De Andrè's stuff] MIKA: But, I also want to do... Because there are some singers who are very... I don't know, very...They're not.... They are very fresh. Some of the singers who are [/were?] really really fresh. MORGAN [who improvises himself interviewer]: Who's your favourite Italian singer of these ones you're listening to? The one you once told me you really really liked, an Italian songwriter, that you really surprised me... MIKA: Who? Paolo Conte? Yes. But... [i had read in an interview that he knew and liked Paolo Conte because his mother used to listen to him, he's very important but he's not very “mainstram”, that's why Morgan was surprised] MORGAN [ironically]: And he asked him to partecipate... I mean you asked Paolo Conte to make a duet with you, I mean but are you out of your mind? INTERVIEWER [trying to bring back some order! ]: Thank you MIKA: Sssh!! [This Paolo Conte thing is quite difficult to explain, and unfortunately I don't know all of Conte's music so well... Let's just say that Mika's and Paolo Conte's music worlds seem a little bit distant – I don't think so, but Morgan probably refers to the fact that Mika is commonly known as a “pop star”, especially by those who only know him superficially because of his singles, and Paolo Conte is the last singer on earth you would call a “pop star” So a duet between them would be weird, but I think certainly interesting!! Oh, and for those MFCers who remember that video where Mika compulsively repeats “un gelato al limon un gelato al limon un gelato al limon”, well “Un gelato al limon” is the name of Paolo Conte's third album ] Well that's it, this one was difficult to translate, they were wild XD however now Mika's press conference is completely translated!

Oh thank you, thank you all! I had not seen it all! That's very interesting! Oh, I forgot! Tomorrow if I have time I will translate the missing parts!

Jeez, you're really good!! it is a very good translation! P.s.: another thing that was said during the press conference- and that I think has not been translated yet- is that already during the Home Visit (last part of the auditions) the contestants will sing with a "superband" (sic!) live, and each judge will be in a different location and with a different special guest-judge for the HomeVisit. Mika will be (well actually has already been, they have already filmed it!) in Dublin with the Italian young singer (and winner of XF 3) Marco Mengoni. And I'm very excited for this because I really like Marco, he's an amazing singer and person, even if I think he could do sooo much better than the songs he sings now, which are a little bit too "traditional" (blame it on the lazy Italian music industry). So if you want to check him out, search for his performances during XF, they were really amazing imo. So for the choice!! And again good job for the translation!!

Honestly? I think he's amazing. I mean, of course he makes some mistakes- little ones, that are often quite funny for an Italian speaker - but I think that the most impressive thing is that in a few months he has become able to express his thoughts in a very clear way, and he's willing to risk, he never sacrifices the complexity of his ideas just in order to use simpler words. And surely French and Spanish have helped him a little bit, but you can also see that he has studied Italian, its grammar, because you can't improvise Italian (especially if you're English-speaking, since English doesn't belong to the “Romance languages”) and he even uses some grammatical tenses (I don't know if this is the right word) that even some Italians can't use! Really, I'm quite impressed, I'm aware that for foreign people Italian can be difficult, but -as he's said- he always surprises us!

I'll translate this one too, even if some concepts are the same as those of the press conference, but I think it's still interesting! “For me this is a beautiful experience, it's an ever-changing experience, every day I don't know what... I can't prepare myself! Because everyday is a complete surprise. I've found three people who are a mix of cultured, educated, very intelligent, but at the same time completely crazy, completely free, and thanks to this I feel... “tranquillo” [you can translate it with “calm/relaxed”], I feel free and this is very important, because a talent-show programme becomes clichè, becomes boring when the judges, and the “talents” too, are not free... Do you understand? When the judge is not … when the judges are not completely free, they become a little bit boring, a little bit clichè. But in this programme there is a lot of freedom, and this is very important. I have a different perspective, I think, from the Italian people's, just because all of this for me... De Andrè [one of the most important Italian songwriters] is new, most of Mina's songs are new [Mina was one of the best and best-known Italian singers/interpreters from the 60s-70s] to me, and this is a great pleasure, of … of a discovery, in a month, to learn all of these songs, this is a great pleasure, but... It's true that for me it is a little bit difficult, to decide, to choose the repertoire for the contestants from Italian songs [in xf Italia contestants usually sing both English and Italian songs, sometimes even songs from other countries, but not often], for this I need a little bit of help and a little bit more time, but!, we'll see! I'll surprise!”

LOL yes I had seen it, that's quite hilarious even if you can't undestand Italian!

This is the English translation of the third video of the press conference posted here, the one in which Mika talks. Enjoy! MIKA: After having being afraid for many years of this kind of programmes, I've made the discovery of X Factor, I've discovered... [everyone starts laughing because he said “ho scopArto” instead of “ho scopErto”, and “scoparto” is a non-existent word that is quite similar to “scopato”, the past participle of the vulgar verb used to say “make love” ] MORGAN: Dario Fo would be very pleased... [Dario Fo is an important figure in Italian culture, especially for drama, he won the Nobel prize for literature in 1997] MIKA: Just a minute Morgan! MORGAN: No I have to write down these words! What is that he said? “Scoparto”... MIKA: I like Dario Fo... I've studied Dario Fo in school, but in English... MORGAN: Oh, Dario Fo in English [quite surprised!] SIMONA: Ok, 1-1 and the ball is back in the middle of the football pitch [idiomatic phrase meaning that they “are even”] MIKA: I've completely forgotten what I was saying... F**k... MORGAN: you were saying scoparto! MIKA: yes, I've scopaaarto... I've discovered... I've completely forgotten everything!! MORGAN: That you liked the energy of the programme! MIKA: Yes! And also I like the freedom of this programme... this freedom... That we can have a press conference in which we are completely free to say everything and nothing at the same time [hints at Morgan, who is known for talking a loooot ] but with intelligence and while having fun. I have fun, I'm having a lot of fun. When someone arrives in a city, he looks for friends... that are intelligent, cultured, with access (?), educated, but also completely mad, and without discipline, and this is important, too much discipline is boring, and I've had the luck to find these three friends and thanks to them this challenge – because it's a challenge for me, it's a completely new language- this challenge has become one of the best experiences of these last years, I'm very happy, thanks to them. MORGAN: thank you Mika. This made another thing come to my mind, since I'm such a “logorroico” [i think you can translate it with “too talkative/verbose”]... Right, you riminded me of one thing. I'm doing X Factor because Mika is in it. I mean... I've even written this to him in a letter. I didn't want to do it anymore [Morgan is a long time xf judge], but the fact that Mika was in it... Well this year according to me the challenge among us will be very different from the previous years, because the entry of a person, of a personality, of an artist like Mika, who has- as we said before- an international “appeal”, a different culture from ours, but who also has a great propulsion to know ours but also to offer his own... According to me this -and he has already done it and we know it [he refers to the auditions that took place in summer and that will now be aired]- well according to me this is giving a result, that the “game” is getting very higher, I mean, everything is higher, and so we are playing a higher, more beautiful match. I feel very stimulated by this, that's what I wanted to say. ELIO: I also wanted to say one thing. I'm doing X Factor in order to listen to Morgan... too. *INTERVIEWER starts talking without being listened to* [as usual ] MORGAN: I have to do again your bow-tie because this one sucks... ELIO: But Mika did it! MORGAN: and he did it badly!! ELIO: he didn't like my bow-tie made by Mika...this is a title, a title! MORGAN: but he did it very badly! This is not the way to do a bowtie!! And the video ends! Sorry if sometimes I've made some mistakes, I've tried to keep it as litteral as possible And yes, Italians are a little bit crazy!

If it's ok with everyone, since I'm free today and I think some of the non-Italian fans would like to understand what he said in the conference, I'll start writing an English traslation of the third video, the one in which Mika speaks

Thank you for the transcript! Btw yes, I confirm that he mentions De Andrè. (And this makes the chat -at least for me- even more perfect than it already is, as De Andrè was one of the best songwriters- I'd even rather say poets- Italy has ever had. Mika never fails to prove himself as such an interesting and clever artist, even in his musical tastes )

Thank you for recording and posting it! I absolutely LOVED the chat, he managed to give clever and funny answers ever to the worst and most boring questions! And him and Mel are just... too sweet for words :wub2:

Ahah, why not? I mean, one of the main reasons I love Mika is because his music is label-free. His music is recognizable not because of the musical genre but because of his artistic signature, and he is free to explore whatever sounds he likes -dance, rock, even gregorian music!- and still 'sound like Mika'. And very few artists are (and have been) able to put their fingerprint on their music like that! Even in his 'danciest' stuff you can always recognize his artistic lightness of touch. Having said that, maybe Mika singing 'country roooooads take me hoooome' would actually be too much XD

I've sent my question too: 'With your third album you explored a lot of electronic sounds. On the next album will you continue on that way or will you follow a more acoustic path?' I don't think it will get picked but I still hope he tells us something about his ideas for the 4th album

Totally, totally agree with you. And I admire him because he has the courage to make his own decisions, however they turn out, and because he always puts his freedom first.

Little bit late, but I also wanted to thank those who made this wonderful collage and say that I' very proud to be a part of it! Thank you!

I also agree on not sharing the pics here. Can I just add, maybe a little bit off-topic, that -wether one agrees or disagrees on certain subjects- this is the wisest and more considerate fan club ever

Sent it today! Such a nice project

Glad you agree! let's still hope it's just a rumour...

Hello everybody, I'm new on the MFC and this is my first “serious” post. I just wanted to express my opinion too, and I apologize in advance for my English that isn't perfect. Let's start: I honestly still hope that it is just a rumour. There are a lot of things that don't convince me at all... First of all, I have to reply to those who see Mika's presence in the Italian Xfactor as a sort of “self-selling”, a way to earn money and popularity selling himself to something that is distant from his anticonformist approach on music. The thing is that most of you have a wrong idea about the Italian XF, 'cause you probably have in mind the english or the american ones (that's not your fault! . However, as I've said in my introduction thread, it's not that I'm a fan of the talent-show “mentality”, but I have to admit that Italian XF is different, and I'm personally very, very proud of the fact that Mika has undestood exactly the atmosphere of the show: it is not just a singing competition where melodramatic girls try to reach the highest notes of “I will always love you”, or where the judges are singers who were successful in the past and who are yearning for popularity and argue for the sake of the show. Italian XF, mostly thanks to the judge Morgan, is a show that-of course- has its television aspects, but whose aim is to get some good, not mainstream, often not well-known music on tv, and where the judges and the contestants like to be creative, not just “perform a song”. When Mika appeared as a guest judge last year he listened to Chiara who was singing a beautiful song written by an old Italian songwriter who is almost unknown today, and the judge who had chosen it had worked himself on the musical base, and even asked Mika if he recalised that he had tried to recreate the rhythm of the Bowie song “Can you hear me?” (Poor Mika ). Then again, a few years ago, Marco Mengoni sang “My baby just cares for me”, by Nina Simone, or “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads, and I don't think that getting a wider audience of people to know music like this can be anything but a good thing. What I am trying to say is that it is different because it is very honest, as Mika said “free, not controlled”, everyone says what they want and the judges (except for Simona Ventura -.-) are all clever people and good musicians who care for music and not for the show. As Mika himself said (more or less)“Is this show businness? Yes. Is it art? No. Can art come from a show like this? Yes.” What I mean is that his partecipation on the show is not a mainstream choice, but the confirmation of his total unconformity, and that's why I'm happy with his choice, because it can stimulate him even artistically, it is something he can put his creativity and originality into. That's what doesn't convince me in this The Voice thing, the fact that he had even said that he refused to accept last year, the fact that he said in several interviews that he liked being on the italian xf because the judges had “a good energy, but a clever energy, and funny, not like the other music programmes” (Radio Deejay Interview). As I've said before these things that he said are not made up, I confirm that they're true because I know the italian xf and I know what he is talking about. And his partecipation on the voice sounds so weird to me, it doesn't look nor like a thing he would enjoy, nor like a challenge, nor something that may stimulate him. Then I don't know, he may have the best reasons in the world, but I'm not convinced at all. Anyway if this is true I hope he has a good time,I'm happy for the French people, and I hope he has the time to record the 4th album!! (I don't think time would be a problem , they say Freddie Mercury wrote “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” while he was having a bath XD). Well, sorry if I have gone off-topic somehow but I've wanted to say these things for a long time.

Thanks everybody for the warm welcome! It's such a pleasure to be officially a part of this amazing fan-site.

Hello everyone! I've read that I should introduce myself as I'm new in the MFC, but I'm not too sure if this is the right place to do it or if there is a particular thread I haven't found, sorry if I'm doing something wrong!! I'm not very good at social Technologies ... However, hello again, I'm Teresa from Italy. I study ancient languages at the university and I love good music, regardless of the musical genre, and "good music" includes Mika, of course! Mika is one of the very very veeeeery few contemporary artists that I love and support, simply because his music is original, unique and interesting, probably due to the fact that he is an extremely interesting (and clever) person, who has a lot to say artistically. I've kinda always liked him but only superficially through his singles, but I seriously got into him after his first appearance as a guest judge in the italian x-factor, which I'm a huge fan of: his judgments were incredibly smart, appropriate and funny, and I agreed with every single comma he said! Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of the "talent-show" mentality, but Italian XF is different, it is not just a singing competition, it is really about getting some good, not mainstream and often not well-known music on tv, and I loved the fact that he immediately got into the atmosphere and eventually decided to join it. So since that appearance I've increased my interest in him and of course in his music, which I found incredibly fresh and deep at the same time. That's all