rusted.laurels

I'm baaack! Trying to keep the thread alive, mostly, but also music's a great remedy to stressful situations and feeling stuck, so. No Mika music this time, gotta practice more first. I'd like to cover Hurts eventually but the chords I found are not quite right and I haven't gotten around to figuring out chords that work for me. Meanwhile, another bad idea by yours truly: This time I'm singing an old country song called I Think Too Much Of You by a group called Flatlanders. It's really not a song that's particularly suited to being covered because the best thing about it is the mixing and the guitar accompaniment, neither of which I can replicate, but it's a song like a warm hug and singing it is relaxing, so I don't care. (Check out the original here if you'd like; it may be unconventionally pretty but it is very, very beautiful. Yes, this is whole post is really just a stealthy song recommendation, lol) https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Zcj4cQsCm_oBMN3DDiUOxFffj1VkoGMb And then I got bored and dug through my archives, so here's some more old stuff: Skyrim - The Dragonborn Comes. Careful; this one's a bit louder. Sorry for the shaky beginning; this was recorded in February 2017 and I was fighting off the rest of a cold. Jovano. Hope it's okay to throw an instrumental or two in here, too. Basically I keep mentioning that I'm an accordion player; here's the somewhat questionable proof. I got the timing issues sorted out over the last year, but accordion is hell to record properly (the bass! it moves!) so I figured this old recording would do just fine. I love this song, and it's so much fun to play, too. Dragon Age Inquisition - Inquisitor. Another instrumental. Now, the guitar playing is not mine; the instrumental is pulled from the game itself and can be found here. The flute playing, however, is mine; it's an Ocarina. bonus bonus: terrible a capella version of Disney's One Upon A Dream as sung by somebody - that somebody being me - who's definitely not a Disney princess (nor wants to be one) and is serenading their hallway door with it. Don't take this one too seriously, lol, I just don't have an ounce of impulse control and figured somebody might get a chuckle out of it. I'll blame this one on the lockdown.

This one's Mika's fault - he played two (if I remember correctly) of Mariza's songs during the cooking livestream and I was intrigued enough to do some digging. Found the song I was looking for; also found this one, which is exactly the kind of stuff I enjoy listening to. I do tend to find interesting new music in weird ways, but "stealth recommendation by favorite musician while said musician is trying to make tomato sauce with 4000-ish people watching" probably takes the cake... ... or the sauce, as the case may be. I'll just... show myself out xD

if you have the IG app, the whole thing's still available to watch on there I'm also trying to screen record it rn, but my phone Keeps Ruining the recording, and it'd be much nicer if someone could download it properly.

I finally got an instagram account solely to watch this stream and that was so worth it

@TinyLove_CJ Oooh, Wolf definitely goes onto my playlist - I love this earthy-yet-ethereal sound. - Oh goodness! This will be fun! My taste in music is highly eclectic and my playlist contains everything from medieval music, opera and early-20th-century recordings of forgotten international folk music all the way to modern-day Colombian pop. A thousand years of music across all continents - that's me in a nutshell. Sharing some highlights from my Random Catchy Stuff playlist for now, will slide in later with more fun stuff. First off, Una Storia d'Amore by Gigliola Cinquetti because the lady's one of my all-time favorite musicians and this song is lovely Then, Fading Light by Aviators: Yes, it's technically fan music for a video game, but it's also really gorgeous with its flowing melody and evocative lyrics. Joan Baez - Sweet Sir Galahad Because it's such a sweet, warm-sounding song Beirut - Elephant Gun: It's a weird song with a very interesting rhythm and a gorgeous melody using interesting instruments Quick hop over to Japan: Sayonara Wa Dance No Ato Ni by Chieko Baisho Beautiful old song, also what the Sailor Moon anime got its opening from. And, just in case there's any Studio Ghibli fans around here, Chieko Baisho was the voice of Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle Next off, some pretty commercial Colombian Pop by Juanes: The first CD I ever got for myself was by this guy. Staying in Colombia for one more video, I have this Tiny Desk Concert by Monseur Periné Not technically a song, but good enough to make up for it. Gandalf - Can You Travel In The Dark Alone Obscure 1960's psychedelic rock, because why not. Here's an old Filk thing about a ghost ship in space, sung - probably - by some elusive guy named Vic Tyler Just linking this one because it's probably a liiiiittle too pertinent to current world events, but it's another Filk thing: Leslie Fish - The Day It Fell Apart Not enough countries yet? Here's an American-Cambodian little gem that fuses vintage and modern influences into something beautiful: And that's it from me for now, just to keep the wall-o'-stuff down a little, but I'll definitely be back with more stuff eventually.

@mellody I almost feel bad about throwing my sloppy improvised half-a-song up there; I really don't stack up well in this comparison x'D You have a beautiful voice, rather reminds me of some of the better Filk* singers from way back when that was still a thing - and your guitar playing's fine, too, by the way. Sounds like a classical/nylon string guitar (rather like my lovely old Höfner, actually), right? I feel like there's a bit more leeway with what sounds good on those things as compared to steel strings. Something about the mellower tone suiting a relaxed style better or whatever. Either way, I like it. *idk how involved in nerd stuff you are, so quick explanation: Filk is (largely) fandom music. Tended to be folksy, hence the name, but folk songs ~IN SPACE~. It seems to have mostly died out in its original sense, but had some pretty awesome musicians, like Leslie Fish, Julia Ecklar or Frank Hayes.

This is difficult, and #3 changes fifty times a day, but I tried. Toy Boy I stumbled over that one a lot of years ago, and I loved the song the second I first heard it. It's so unique, and there's this sort of wistful sadness to it, fragile like an antique porcelain doll, and it deals with this massive injustice - in a way, it reminded me of Oscar Wilde's fairytales, which are similarly gracefully fragile and full of love that's cast away and never ends well for the protagonists. Toy Boy's a good song to just Feel Emotions To for a while, but prettily. Boum Boum Boum This one's pretty much the exact opposite of Toy Boy, and it's just equal parts sweet, sexy and a little wry. Way more of a typical pop song than Toy Boy, but it's got panache, a flair for the dramatic, which I love - it's a kind of dramatic that reminds me of 50's and 60's pop; the old-fashioned stuff. Except, obviously, updated for modern times. Also, the orchestral version is gorgeous, especially with that immediately recognizable flute at the beginning setting the tone for the rest of the song. But yeah, basically it's just a really fun song that kind of bridges the gap between the only modern musician I actively follow and my usual old, cheesy shenanigans, I like the rhythm of it a lot, and it showing up in weird places like Casa Mika is incredibly entertaining to me, given the lyrics. We Are Golden (and approximately twenty others) So this spot should really also go to Rain (which was peak Angsty Teen Music by my humble standards), Good Wife (so wistful), Hurts (that one? That one does its title justice), and the Acoustic (but updated) version of Overrated (because good lord, the rawness of that version is stunning). But yeah. We Are Golden. The really difficult choice was between this one and Rain, which used to be my all-time fave... but We Are Golden has that beautiful, gorgeous refrain which I love so much and which instantly makes me feel better whenever I hear it, and also a bunch of other lyrics I adore.

Oh gosh, late reply here! This will probably become a running theme; I usually just flat-out forget to write down my replies, lol @Siri Ha, I always loved ghost stories; always wanted to befriend the ghosts as a kid. They sounded lonely and sad. And honestly? Italian medieval architecture is amazing, but the thing that impresses me most are the amazing books. I spent five days in Milan with my university once, not only visiting every medieval church we could (And San Bernardino Alle Ossa on my own time because I'm a morbid weirdo and marveled at the opportunity to sketch human skulls from life for twenty minutes), but also working with actual medieval manuscripts at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. I actually got to read books that were over 1300 years old which is amazing because it's one of the most direct links you can have to the people who wrote that stuff all those centuries ago, touching the same parchment they bound into something so beautiful - and we paid a visit to Sant'Ambrogio himself. I don't get to look the people who wrote the stuff I learn about in Medieval Studies in the face very often, so that was impressive. (I could also nerd out about the Renaissance and Leonardo and history in general, but I won't because if I start, I'll never stop) @EzPz_german_squeezy Aw, you folks listened to way better songs in English class than we did. All we got was a terrible Atomic Kitten cover. And I agree, seeing his music grow and develop is such a unique experience, and it's super fun to hear. Thanks for sharing your story @camille* Ha, that's exactly the kind of feeling I'd like to evoke! Thanks for the kind welcome!

Oh, that was fast! Thank you very much! I didn't expect the interview to be quite that old, lol; makes more sense that way, though. And good lord, that Mickey Mouse impression!

Does anybody know what this is from or has the full thing? https://ladder---to---the---stars.tumblr.com/post/187441575419/interviewer-is-that-a-fake-tan-that-youre They messed up so badly and poor Mika looks so bewildered I'm just really morbidly curious about how they tried to get themselves out of that mess again.

So this pure hubris but have a very much Work In Progress cover of the first minute of Overrated. I tabbed the song by ear earlier today because I wanted to know if I could, then recorded the guitar bits at half past midnight, and then added the voice parts and a second guitar track on a whim. I have never sung the song before. I'm not very familiar with the song. I don't technically play the guitar nor do I technically know how to sing, I'm a freaking accordion player and this is a terrible idea. So, yeah. The rhythm is all messed up, there's guitar mistakes galore, but it should be mostly in tune and it's probably going to be tolerable, lol. If you're wondering why I'm posting this spontaneous midnight experiment, it's because I'm a big dum-dum who gets bored whenever I start to get decently practiced at a song, so it's either this or nothing at all, most likely, and I kinda want to bring this topic back from the dead; it's neat and I had fun listening to everybody's music. overrated v1.mp3 /EDIT: just remembered that I do have a google drive, so here's a link to there in case you don't want to mess about with attachments: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-tp_F5CEzkz4u3sQ9pj9zjrXNQJNJ3qA/view?usp=sharing /EDIT 2: Ah, and here are the tabs for Overrated in case anybody needs them https://drive.google.com/file/d/14699gsFbT4KigSQ9fgMy9r5UvMvldNap/view?usp=sharing They really suck, though, it's only the melody line, there's embellishments missing, and the formatting would make anybody who knows how tabs are supposed to look weep, and you gotta figure out which parts repeat when on your own, too. Basically, those are really more quick notes than proper tabs.

so I'm still struggling to get a good handle on his face (I'm pretty danged face blind too, to the point where I've walked past my own sister on the street, and I have no idea why I keep doing this to myself, lol) but here's some quick doodles. They're not actually watercolor, by the way, just digital art that pretends to be watercolors. Physical paint and carpeted floors don't mix well, and I don't have enough daylight in my hovel anyway. They're both inspired by The Voice screencaps, by the way - such a treasure trove of facial expressions and fun poses.

I know it's been a year since the last post in here but shush So, as has been noted before, picking one favorite per album is basically impossible - but I sure can try. Cheated a little by giving reasons for more than one song per album sometimes, but I did pick only one song per album officially, so... that counts, right? Right. LICM: My Interpretation That rising melody of the "I don't need an alibi" bit is entirely too pretty - it's just such an absolutely timeless song. My favorite recording of it would have to be the Napster Live Session one: Just one guy and one piano, and 2:46 minutes of simple, acoustic beauty. Also, I don't care about how technically skilled he is, I really adore his piano playing. TBWKTM: Toy Boy Also the entire rest of the album. I'm pretty sure six of the songs from this one are on my personal favorites list, and We Are Golden, Rain and Toy Boy share my personal top spot on this album, with Blame It On The Girls not far behind. Going for Toy Boy anyway, because I think it was the first explicitly gay mainstream song I've ever heard, and it's just so totally unique and stunning - a song like the world's saddest porcelain doll. TOOL: Underwater ... unless we're counting single performances, in which case it's this one terrifyingly intense rendition of Make You Happy: But generally speaking, yeah, Underwater. It's got such a floaty vibe to it, and it was a personal favorite of mine for many years. NPIH: Boum Boum Boum It's so oddly un-Mika-ish, and yet such an absolute joy to listen to, and pretty high up on my list of all-time favorites. So much more commercial-sounding at the surface, and yet so genuinely, incredibly fun and playful - and it still never quite fits in and I've never heard anything quite like it. As much as I enjoy Mika's vocal acrobatics, it's fun to hear him calm down a little - he sounds adorable in this. Also, I love the video - for somebody who said he can't act, seeing Mika act a little sure is fun. Plus, I'm a bit of a film nerd, so seeing Lawrence Of Arabia in there in particular made me smile. And, last but not least, the fact that this song shows up everywhere amuses me endlessly. There's an orchestral version of a pop ditty about doing the do in odd places, for crying out loud. That's hilarious. Not to mention his little concert routine for this song, which is also an absolutely lovely little gem. So, yes. Amazing, fun, joyful song that just flat-out makes me happy. MNIMH: Sanremo This one's a tie between Ice Cream, Dear Jealousy and Sanremo, actually, but I figured I might as well pick the one that's most meaningful to me. Besides, I picked The Horny Song on the last album already, so I don't need to choose Ice Cream this time - though I was tempted to, because the gleeful sexuality of it is just so fun, but it's also really evocative of just... frickin melting (hornily, lol) during a hot summer day. Dear Jealousy is just absolutely hypnotic, so that would have been another good pick... but nope, Sanremo it is. A place in Italy standing in for nostalgia-tinged, unfulfillable desires, that entire concept of a place only existing in memories, that really resonates with me. Especially one in Italy, which, to me as a child, was the only place truly worth living in... AND the video was filmed in Croatia - the only place truly worth living in according to me as a young teenager. So, places of melancholy and unfulfilled desires indeed. And on top of THAT whole bundle of things that touch me personally, there's the video and its focus on historical homosexuality and it's heartbreaking and beautiful, and thus my pick for this album. I probably would've more clever things to say about this one, but I'm falling asleep over here and gotta get the post done, lol. /EDIT: ah yes, also, once again: seeing Mika act is really fun.

Actual tears may or may not have been involved because I tend to really dive into the meaning of songs on public transport (where actual crying would be a terrible idea), but eh, close enough. Toy Boy used to get me every time. That damn last verse and the way something so sweet and innocent turns into a cautionary tale because ~society~. No Place In Heaven is just as heartbreaking. We Are Golden also belongs on the list, not really because it's sad but because it has this really weird energy that does something to me alright. Last Party is in a category all by its own - the bitter-sweetness of it hurts, the allusions to Freddie Mercury do, too, and basically, the entire second verse just absolutely kills me, especially with "Don't be misled it's not a twist of fate / It's just what happens when you stay out late" Also a really mean one? Good Guys. combining Mika and Oscar freaking Wilde is just a really unfair assault on my emotions. Mika is exceptionally good at eliciting emotions and Oscar Wilde's fairy tales once had me angrily crying in the school library because they're so beautiful and so viscerally unfair (and then I had to awkwardly sneak past the librarian because I didn't want to explain that, no, I didn't have relationship troubles, I just got emotionally compromised by short stories written by some long-dead jackass with amazing hair), so basically he was just as good at doing the emotion thing as Mika is now. Combine the two, and you end up with a refrain that makes me both almost cry and REALLY want to sing along at full tilt, which is a very particular emotion I never would have expected to experience, lol. There are probably more examples. but those should be the major ones I think. Mika's good at eliciting emotions, his songs are frequently a lot more relatable to me than the average pop ditty, and I may not cry, but I sure do get emotional a fair bit, ha.

@EzPz_german_squeezy - Hi there! Nice to meet you! I appear to have summoned most of the active German members on here with my introduction, which is both extremely entertaining and absolutely lovely. I'm almost a little surprised that you're an entire five years younger than I am - how'd you end up here, if I may ask? Did you discover Mika after the initial Grace Kelly/Lollipop/Relax hype had already passed, or did you just have an impeccable taste in music as a small kid? Most people I know who are aware of Mika are at least my age, so I'm curious @Siri and @Serendipity - thanks, you two! And yes, Siri, I'm about as much of a terrible nerd as it gets (to the point where I analyse pop culture/mass media stuff for fun and wrote a BA thesis about vampires... although not the sparkly kind, I swear) (also, guess what, I found the bra video Camilla was talking about - I may be new, but I'm also really into research, lol) @mellody - pinging you for the Bra Thing, too, since you said you couldn't remember hearing about it

Oooh, so many amazing new replies! Okay, let's see... First of all, hi to everyone I'm not mentioning in person! You messages have been noted and appreciated, I just don't want to ping you just for a simple "thanks" @Starlight - ah yeah, that's relatively close indeed! Fascinating! @mellody - I vaguely remember somebody talking about bad fan behavior or similar in, uh, Düsseldorf (or something) over ten years ago... but admittedly, I doubt he'd still remember even if I did pick up on that correctly, lol. @sara09 It really is! I'm honestly a little bit baffled by how long I've been aware of it without getting terribly curious about the person who sang it - that's not like me at all, I usually know everything about the music I really love. Then again, maybe it says something about his music that I was so happy to let it speak for itself. Point is, I missed out x'D Out of everything, or just the Italian stuff? Either way (aside from Mika, if generally speaking) that'd have to be Gigliola Cinquetti. I know she sings sappy stuff that stopped being cool when my parents were kids, but she has a voice like a warm hug and a really nice repertoire of songs... but honestly, throw together a playlist of particularly corny popular music from Italy circa 1940-1980 with a dash of folk music thrown in there and chances are that I'll be pretty fond of it. @Serendipity - First of all, thank you! oomph, well I got terribly lazy about uploading stuff I do anywhere over the years... Generally speaking, art goes [here] and writing goes [here] or [here] (and music I rarely inflict upon anyone, lol) but none of this is truly up to date. I will probably show up in the fanart thread a lot, because Mika's face is pretty inspiring, lol

@Starlight - I'm in the *very* rough vicinity of Nuremberg, I suppose. And yeah, I've gathered that some nasty stuff must've happened on at least one of the Germany gigs in the past - I haven't looked into it though because I honestly don't want to know; it'd just make me sad. I'm kind of hoping for Milan and some excellent timing on his part - I'm a broke university student and I can't drive, but I utterly fell in love with the city when I was there for university stuff a while back to spend five days with various medieval manuscripts and ancient churches, and my family's promised me a trip there at some point... so if the stars align, I might be able to get there on family vacation. It's definitely extremely unlikely, but I guess weirder things have happened.

Thanks for the beautifully warm welcome, everyone! Right, I forgot how much of a chicken I am about interacting with people, so this was written over the course of six hours; hope it's still coherent anyway. @Sabine64 - I'm stuck in the northern part of Bavaria, to my eternal annoyance x'D And thanks for the thread recommendation, too! I'll be sure to stop by @silver - yes, well, I'm irredeemably terrible at keeping things short, lol. I either don't talk at all, or I'm a veritable waterfall of words. I've had a peek at that thread you've linked and already found a handful of videos that I knew existed but had never seen, along with some that were completely new to me - I'm an archivist at heart, who thrives on creating massive bookmark collections and pulling out obscure clips on demand, so this makes me extremely happy. Not that I'll have much to do with my magical google skills in this particular fandom, I think - you folks are exceptionally well-organized. @Starlight - "detailed" is such a kind way of putting it, hah. Thanks! And believe me, I'm glad I'm finally appreciating his live performances, too - 14-year-old me had such a narrow view on what constituted a good live performance ("as accurate to the studio recordings as possible, and how dare they get creative with it" - which, for added hilarity, is something that Mika is absolutely capable of, just not something he does terribly often... that's why I get for judging someone from one video, lol. Lesson duly learned!), and I really missed out. I'd love to actually see him live at some point, too, especially since he's the only musician I like that I actually could feasibly see on tour - I'm usually more of a 70's person, so almost all of my faves are dead, long since retired, or stopped making good music in 1982... and the sole exception to all of that rarely sets foot outside the Americas. @Siri - Aw, thank you kindly The Imaginarium tour is one of the most visually stunning things I've seen lately and I'm honestly wondering why they went through all the trouble just to not release a DVD. It's the one tour I really would've expected to have one. And yup, I found the subtitles thread already, but thanks a bunch for the link anyway! @Mikasister - Thanks!

Hi everyone, I'm new here! I'm also really terrible at writing introductions! Sorry for that! You can call me Laurel (which, just to avoid misunderstandings, is (sadly) not my given name; I'm not going to mention my given name if I don't have to, because I hate that name). I'm 24 years old, and I'm from Germany, where I'm currently studying English and German at university; I also write and draw as a hobby, and I play a couple of musical instruments (accordion, guitar, ocarina, some ukulele, some tin whistle, can also kinda play the recorder if I have to) and enjoy singing (but badly, oops). TL;DR because I talk too much: always loved the music, never knew much about the artist, finally got off my butt and fixed that, am now completely and utterly smitten with the man and my friends will probably stage an intervention if I mention his name one more time, which is why I'm now here to grace you unfortunate people with my incessant rambling. - I've been aware of Mika's music since Grace Kelly came out in 2007 - and believe me, it was really hard to not be aware of that song since they played it on the radio so much - and have been stopping by to pick up a new favorite song every few years, more or less. Underwater, Rain, Kick Ass, Happy Ending and Toy Boy have been on my playlists and various MP3 players pretty much since they came out, and Blame It On The Girls joined that list eventually. Now, the thing is: I never had a look at Mika as an artist, really. I dug up a video of him singing either Grace Kelly or Rain on some talk show once back in about 2010 or so, and decided I didn't like him singing live very much and that bothered fourteen-year-old me. Yes, I have seen the error of my ways, but the point is that I only ever listened to his studio recordings and didn't know a thing about the guy behind the music, even though that music was always a part of my life. "Rain" was what I listened to when I did art for years, I had the thing on loop all the time, same with Kick Ass and all the other songs I listed earlier. I listened to Toy Boy a lot while writing, and was quietly amazed by how it's one of those very, very rare songs that's officially and pretty irrefutably gay. Also, that last verse still gets me all emotional. Grace Kelly was the soundtrack of my youth, at first just because it was catchy; then my English got better and the lyrics about having to bend over backwards to fit in and be marketable really resonated with me. I was a weird kid. Now I'm a weird adult, I guess. So, fast forward to the very recent past: I was just trying to dig up the Rain video again because I randomly remembered how absolutely gorgeous it is, and since I was listening to Kick Ass on youtube at that moment I figured I'd click through to the video via the official youtube channel instead of just searching for it. And then something caught my eye - the suit and frilly shirt in the thumbnail for Jealousy, I think, because it reminded me of the 3rd Doctor from Doctor Who. And the song's great, but the song and video in combination are striking. "Why hello there," I thought to myself, "that guy still makes music and it's still good and he still looks mesmerizing! Who'd have thought!" (okay actually it was less "mesmerizing" and more "why does he flail so much and how does his dancing look so good anyway, why can't I look away-" but I digress. I do love his dancing a lot, anyway.) And then, as one does, I threw myself down a youtube rabbit hole, wondering what else I'd missed. From Jealously to some of the other MNIMH stuff, then a swerve into some interviews after Sanremo ("Wait, gay? What happened to 'no labels'?" which should tell you how long it's been since I saw that talk show clip, lol, but that also made me really happy because I'm queer as heck myself), then to Boum Boum Boum (I'm a film nerd AND a huge history nerd; the thumbnail intrigued me, and the video warmed my geeky little heart, just because it was the last place I would ever have expected to find a Lawrence of Arabia reference of all things), and THEN the youtube recommendations threw his taxi driving shenanigans from CasaMika at me. Halfway through the second clip I watched, I realized how much he made me care about the random people he picked up, because somehow the segment was about them and not so much the famous guy behind the wheel, and that focus on other people was, paradoxically, what really cemented my newfound love for the guy behind my favorite music. (and then I realized that he was speaking Italian which I'd hardly even noticed before because I end up watching a fair chunk of Italian media due to my love for old Italian music, despite not actually speaking Italian myself and only understanding a tiny handful of it, and had some fun puzzling out why he was speaking Italian. Cue me complaining to my best friend how it's unfair that he can keep so many languages straight when I struggle with two, before realizing that he does not, in fact, always manage to keep all those languages straight and having a good laugh about how relatable that is) At that point I'd decided that I adored the man no matter what, so I decided to go and look at his live performances - the thing I originally really wasn't fond of as a kid. I think I started out with the Sinfonia Pop version of BBB - and THAT is obviously absolutely amazing and one of my new all-time favorite music things - before digging up a bunch of mixed TV and concert things from the entirely of the last decade and a bit and falling in love with his outfits and his sense of humor and his general live performance skills and the amount of love and energy he puts into all of it - good lord, he really does not do things by halves. Then I kinda stumbled through his TV work, and got another good look at all those fancy, fancy clothes, while also reading through a bunch of interviews and articles about him and started to reconcile all of those many, many different facets of him into one cohesive image and I love all his little contrasts - from that heartbreaking last verse to Toy Boy and the strange, fey beauty of the Rain video and his Imaginarium Tour (I'm incredibly disappointed by the lack of a DVD for that one, by the way) and his collected competence during Sinfonia Pop, to that kind, warm person chatting to random people in Italy and the incredibly lovable dork getting his butt stuck in a trashcan during a concert. A billion shining, sparkling sides all coming together in that magnificent being that influenced my youth so much, and I never even knew. Well, and now I'm here. I was a bit hesitant about showing up here since I don't usually do fan communities, I much prefer inflicting all of my interests upon my poor, poor followers in one place so I can switch topics better, but the fan club is pretty impressive and I do love good old internet forums so I'm here anyway. Hi folks, nice to meet y'all, so sorry for the wall of text. (also, German sadly isn't the most useful language for Mika fans, but if anybody ever needs something translated, I'm always happy to volunteer; I'm a German native speaker and my English should be passable, lol) OH, also, I do digital art (loosely based on this Voice screencap: [click]) Don't have his face down very well yet, but I have endless opportunities to practice I guess - the man is such a never-ending well of amazing facial expressions and general unbelievable prettiness. Funny how it's still his personality that won me over in the end.