ellie

On 10/14/2019 at 2:33 PM, krysady said:

but he has problems to be accepted by his record label in Italy. 

Haha I wonder if it is because Federico Aldrovandi is the name of a guy who was was killed by cops and there is an anti-police message in the video ( the ACAB graffity). I would have been offended if I were italian tbh, I dont think its his place to comment on italian society, or well not on this issue which is more of an american problem anyway

On 10/21/2019 at 10:54 PM, mellody said:

From the "Le Fatto Quotidiano" interview:

 

Your current period is not simple.

I would say sad, but sadness is like a drug: it has an intoxicating effect.

 

With that quote, I'd say that's what Cry is about, sadness. It makes him cry, but he feels drawn towards it. I don't think I'd have made this connection without this interview, because for me, sadness certainly isn't something I find intoxicating or am drawn towards. Maybe I did as a teenager, but not anymore today.

 

I love finding these little clues about his songs in interviews.

I wasnt too far off then

12 hours ago, silver said:

 

He could have written "who gives a damn about tomorrow", which conveys the same meaning but without using a word which was bound to get censored on radio.

This wouldve sounded less try hard to me I think

13 hours ago, giraffeandy said:

 

I hate this, it doesn't make sense to me if they don't replace the word at least, it's the same with the song IDGAF by Dua Lipa, sometimes I hear the clean version on the radio and the chorus goes just "I don't give a ...", it's so weird, especially when the song is called IDGAF.  The same with Beautiful Trauma by Pink, they just removed the swear words in the clean version and the gaps in the lyrics sound so strange. And then they play songs like Whistle by Florida which is really disgusting but no one cares.

'Can you blow my whistle' is gentler than 'I want your ice cream'

I personally dont like hearing swear words in pop songs unless the whole song or album contains harsh words or is entirely explicit, but I dont see what random words like 's**t', '####' etc. add to a song - oftenly it actually sounds forced and unnatural

This song is still nonsensical to me

Ive seen a bit of criticism in the vein of 'he's too old for twee pop' and for how juvenile his lyrics are so Im not really surprised this is a favourite cuz the song imo is the most mature sounding on the album both in term of lyrics and sound. 

Also, their voices work surprisingly great together.

27 minutes ago, mellody said:

But it's also the context, the lines seem a bit randomly aligned - maybe just so it rhymes?

Dunno I got a clear story and mental image on first listen 

28 minutes ago, silver said:

 

I'm just waiting for someone else to do a (good) cover of it.

It does sound like it could be a hit if released by someone else.

45 minutes ago, silver said:

It's getting quite a lot of views on YouTube

Same on spotify, most plays excluding pre released singles.

2 minutes ago, giraffeandy said:

 

I thought it's the blood from the scratches...  

Kind of the same idea

1 hour ago, mellody said:

scratches on my back?

He was in for a hook up not to fall in love

1 hour ago, mellody said:

Go to hell?

I assumed thats supposed to express anger at himself

1 hour ago, mellody said:

I look like James Dean?

daydreaming

1 hour ago, mellody said:

Blood is red tomorrow too?

A metaphor for passion? This does sound awkward for me too

1 hour ago, giraffeandy said:

For me it was the only line I could figure out... Apart from Domani, of course.

I think I was expecting something in italian not a name

1 hour ago, mari62 said:

Se parlo poco sembro James Dean

So is 'James Dean' what he was singing This was the line I couldnt figure out and I feel so dumb now

1 hour ago, Patty70 said:

I know that other italian fans think the same, but also there are many of them that like this version too.

Im not italian but I prefer this italian version simply because I find the lyrics much better There's a clearer narrative and more picturesque imagery and he also uhm.. sounds like an adult

18 minutes ago, Sabine64 said:

I think Mika did the mistakes on purpose in the  booklet as he is dyslectic and never tried to hide the fact. Yes the booklet is in a different style but I really like the cover. 

Lol thats a reach, Ive never seen Mika confusing words in english and Im pretty sure he said he has problems with handwritting not typing. If the mistakes in the booklet are meant to show he is dyslexic then thats a poorly done job cuz it doesnt mimic his issues

7 minutes ago, krysady said:

Thank god that he changed his mind 

4 minutes ago, Florine said:

Agree !! Mika is the show itself. He don't need dancers or anything else. He's the show!!

I think we're all on the same page here

53 minutes ago, giraffeandy said:

 

Also I think he once said there'll be artworks similar to the album cover for every single and then after Ice Cream and Tiny Love the other singles were released only with the album cover... 

Yeah, and that he will have a dozen of dancers on tour and his music videos will be experimental films not promo videos

1 hour ago, giraffeandy said:

I'm also very disappointed by the booklet this time to be honest, it seems like it was made in a rush even though they had quite a lot of time to do it better...  Also there aren't any pics, I was bit surprised by that as I was used that Mika's booklets always had beautiful artworks even when the lyrics were missing there.

It looked like he had the artwork ready since may though so I dont get what happened here, the whole booklet looks fanmade

3 hours ago, Mikasister said:

There's something in Mika I just did not understand. I do not know if it is the record label, the management or he who does not just fit into today's musical world.

I'm thinking for example in Adele, she "breathes" releases a new album and it sounds everywhere. All her songs are on the radios day after day. Her videos are seen everywhere, at least in Spain, even wins lots of Grammys   and I wonder, are her songs better than Mika's songs?  I dont think so. 

This is reality, something I will never understand. Mika has very, very good songs and in Spain he has many fans but there is some mechanism that fails and I don't think it's just the lack of promotion

Adele is an english speaking singer based in UK while Mika is an english speaking singer based in France/Italy - no one is really looking at continental Europe for english songs  

Was this review posted before? It is the fairest imo.

https://www.popmatters.com/mika-my-name-michael-holbrook-2640966941.html

Mika Delivers Undeniably Catchy Hooks on 'My Name Is Michael Holbrook'

My Name Is Michael Holbrook, the fifth album by the English pop singer Mika, opens with the following lines:

It's not a sunrise over canyons shaped like hearts
It isn't bursting into song in Central Park
It's not the outline of your face drawn in the stars
It's a "still-there-Monday-morning" kind of love

In just these few lyrics, the point of "Tiny Love" becomes clear. Mika, for all of his global fame and success, wants a loving relationship whose virtues are the small things. At first, the song seems deeply ironic; when you think of Mika, you think of songs like "Grace Kelly", "Underwater", and "Happy Ending", all songs which fall squarely into the "sunrise over canyons shaped like hearts" mold of songwriting. Any of Mika's studio records, with little modification, could be transformed into a jukebox musical as big as any that have graced Broadway stages. Mika's choice to distance himself from such grandeur – even though the arrangement of "Tiny Love" is as Queen-indebted as any tune of his we've heard before – indicates, along with the title My Name is Michael Holbrook itself, that he's perhaps taking a turn for the more introspective and personal.

In a key post-chorus of "Tiny Love", Mika seems like he may be doing just that. The bombastic pop instrumentation that makes up the bulk of the track drops out, leaving only Mika and a gently played piano. "My name is Mika Holbrook / I was born in 1983", he states, "No, I'm not losing my mind / It's just this thing that you do to me / You get me high on a tiny love." The inclusion of those two biographical details is interesting. No one familiar with his music would mistake "Tiny Love" for anything but a Mika tune, and the year 1983 doesn't get much mention elsewhere, except in the frequent call-outs to 1980s pop throughout My Name is Michael Holbrook. Yet in the context of "Tiny Love", this confessional moment works. It's a reminder that beneath all the maximalist songwriting and theatricality that defines Mika's music, there's still an ordinary man underneath it all. My Name is Michael Holbrook gestures toward something like the mid-career self-titled LP, a chance for an artist to take stock of his work and what it all means.

What unfolds throughout My Name Is Michael Holbrook's 13 songs is, well, not quite that. The record follows the path laid out by 2015's No Place in Heaven, to date Mika's strongest studio affair. My Name Is Michael Holbrook is polished, stadium-ready pop that appeals to a wide range of listeners. Mark Crew, a relatively young producer whose track record consists of work with UK pop and electronic acts like Bastille and Calvin Harris, lacquers nearly every single track on this LP, which keeps with how most of Mika's music has sounded in the past. On the soaring, radio-ready choruses of "Platform Ballerinas" and "Tomorrow", Crew and co-producer Dan Priddy ensure that the arrangements are reduced to their purest and cleanest expressions, which allows Mika's beautiful melodies to shine.

As much as this pristine production flows naturally from Mika's songwriting style, it also flattens out the music in noticeable places. Even in the case of a pop singer like Mika, whose music feels of a piece with the way most top 40 artists are produced nowadays, production like My Name is Michael Holbrook's risks smoothing out edges that are at times needed to introduce sonic contrast and variety. The heartbreaking lyrical narrative of the piano ballad "Paloma", in which Mika recounts the night that his sister nearly died after falling off of her fourth-floor balcony, would have been better served by spare production and arrangement, ideally just Mika and the piano. A gentle drumbeat and some perfunctory strings which emerge in the second chorus add too much gloss to a tune whose beauty exists in its simple poignancy.

This kind of production does work brilliantly, however, on the show-stopping duet with Jack Savoretti midway through the album, ''Ready to call this love''. A somewhat different production issue crops up with ''Sanremo''. It's a suave tropical number with an excellent chorus that's undercut by a generic pad synth/clap beat instrumental that sounds like the backing music to a promotional video for a Mediterranean cruise. In these two songs and other places on My Name Is Michael Holbrook ("Stay High", the remix-demanding "Dear Jealousy"), the songwriting is sharp, but the production doesn't match it.

Edit: This doesnt fit into one post oops

28 minutes ago, krysady said:

Yes, if you can get over the fact that you can hear this kind of innuendo all the time among the kids in the middle school : "I want your ice cream", "I want your cookie", etc 

Even younger than middle school

I was talking more about the verses though, 'I want your ice cream' isnt the greatest hook

52 minutes ago, mellody said:

It's funny, cause the more I listen to the lyrics, the more I get the feeling that they hint to even more personal and dark secrets than he has revealed in interviews. If lyrics both sound good and make me think about the meaning, I consider them good - and for me, that's certainly the case here. Hardly any of the songs give me the feeling that it's just Blah Blah. Maybe Ice Cream, but I like it nevertheless. And at first also "Sanremo" and "Cry", but I've changed my mind about these (although with Sanremo mostly because of the video).

"Celebrate" and "Talk about You" give me that feeling - that's why I never was happy about them being the main singles of the last 2 albums. At least this time he's promoting more than one song

Oh I definitely didnt mean to say that I considered the lyrics meaningless but some stuff do sound jarring or childish to me ( Platform Ballerinas, Stay High ), Paloma is way too on the nose - i just cant really listen to it  and also some songs feel too undercooked/ still at the concept phase ( like you said, I dont really hear the story behind Sanremo in the actual lyrics or with Tomorrow for example, the italian version sounds more like what I wouldve expected the song to be like from his description ). Actually, yeah I do get the feeling that he wanted to say more than he is revealing in interviews, but also he didnt really put his stories in the lyrics either.

I think Ice Cream is pretty cleverly written for what it is, moreso than Celebrate or Talk abou you.

1 hour ago, NaoMika said:

The singer/songwriter has minimized the clutter, singling himself among artists and acts on today's pop spectrum by borrowing heavily from what's popular but also throwing in plenty of his own personality to really excite on the narrative.

I dont get this  Arent all artists borrowing from whats popular while also throwing in their personality? 

I agree with the rest, apart from the "able lyricist" part - the lyrics are the weakest part for me after more listenings 

1 hour ago, mellody said:

 

in any case it makes a lot more sense to me than OMS. I think in Blue he plays a bit with the two meanings of the word, the colour blue and being sad. Instead of saying "no one likes you when you're sad", like some people do, he declares his love for sadness in this song - and instead of describing why it's ok to be sad, he describes why blue is better than any other colour. Sure, it doesn't always make sense if you analyze it too much - "but bite a lemon, it tastes sour" doesn't actually convince me to prefer blue over yellow. But if I just listen, without thinking too much, the lyrics sound poetic to me. And I certainly love the melody.

I suppose it's like with any kind of art, it very much depends on personal taste. I always thought that OMS must be some piece of art that just doesn't appeal to me, maybe because I don't understand it... But Blue just is a piece of art that I enjoy, and I can't really tell why I love it so much more than OMS.

He just wants to say that joyful people maybe sour (blue) inside with the yellow line, doesnt he Hes playing up this concept of duality through the whole song.

1 hour ago, Poisonyoulove said:

 

I tend to not really like the really slow songs, but also, most of the lyrics don't really make sense to me... blue is a feminine color, don't trust rainbows... wtf are you on about?

Rainbows come after the rain ( when youre blue ), no? I guess he wants to say that happiness ( rainbows ) doesnt last, and 'loving the blue in you' is what matter most.

Dunno, the song makes sense to me but it feels a bit silly to analize the lyrics.

More charts

#30 on Canadian Billboard

#28 in Spain

These videos of Tomorrow and Dear Jealousy have been refreshing and the best thing he has done this era, WIZ and his pretentious concepts seemed... unfitting to me, dont even like Sanremo that much