CharlotteL

1 hour ago, Hero said:

 - love this one! 

Ahh yes I recognize that guy

48 minutes ago, Hero said:

Who guards the guards? 

I think that's Deb. 

Well that begs the question who guards Deb and I really don't know because it definitely isn't Mika.

1 hour ago, QueenBigFat said:

Hey, Mikapeople, here’s a question:

This link takes you to a recent commercial for a US insurance co. Every time I hear the piano in the beginning my brain says —wait! That sounds like they stole it from Mikamusic!!! And it haunted me until yesterday when it came to me: the intro to Last Party! What do you think? https://youtu.be/BlLwiuXNU_E

Hahah definitely not the same but I absolutely see your point, it does sound very similar!

I guess that's a pretty standard chord progression / melody so it makes sense that a lot of pop songs or simple piano pieces would sound a bit like this.

I thought about making a new thread called "Google translated Mika" but I'm not sure if there's enough content to fill an entire thread so I'm just gonna share these here.

These are just translated bits of Mika interviews (originally in French) that I've come across and made me laugh.

"the most Frenchy of the British" Why is this such an accurate description of him?!

"cute sins" and "searching the bins"

And last but not least this bit that @sarinaa sent me today along with a voice message of her laughing hysterically that made my evening <3

8 minutes ago, mellody said:

Moi dans ton dos (song) / Ma main dans ton dos (interview) 

 

Yes true but I find the interview version tamer than the lyrics?!

Each to their own though.

16 hours ago, mellody said:

And also I still don't get why Mika feels the need to describe the details of his sexual preferences, in this interview even a little more detailed than in the lyrics.

Does he? I can't think of anything he says in this interview that isn't more or less a direct quote from the song?!

And I do agree with him that even more explicit lyrics sound less vulgar in French. It's very interesting that he thinks it's because words to do with sex are more weaponized and used as insults in English. I'm not sure that's true, I think most languages prominently feature sexualized insults (I'm gonna refrain from naming examples). I think it has more to do with the fact the he considers English his first language and spent his childhood in France but his teenage years in England. So he would have heard those insults a lot in English (and probably attacked at him as well), more so than in French.

17 hours ago, mellody said:

Children and young teenagers can't help themselves in such situations, even friendships are still fragile at that age, so the community idea has to come from the teachers, and that has a lot to do with work ethics and working conditions. So I assume the good community at the small private school Mika went to has to do with the fact that the teachers who worked there were motivated and not overworked and underpaid, like at many public schools.

THIS THIS THIS. Schools with better working conditions for educators are always more relaxed and safer environments.

It's impossible to create that atmosphere when you're constantly just putting out fires as an educator.

I find his approach to this quite unique though. He isn't really talking about finding a community of like-minded people to feel better but if I understand him correctly, he thinks the whole school / class should be made to feel like a community where everyone cares about and respects each others. He said something similar at the anti-bullying event in Paris. That we should teach kids to embrace their differences because they make their community stronger and more valuable.

I find that so remarkable because it's a mix of the opposing ideas of collectivism and individuality. This seems to reflect his own upbringing and his family.

1 hour ago, Sara penny said:

Traslate please 

I can try and give you a brief summary:

They talk about the new album and how Mika feels that French helped him express himself more freely in a way especially when it comes to love, sexuality and sensuality. That in French you can say things that would sound vulgar in English.

He says that the origin of love was an album that we was very scared to release because he wasn't sure if this mix of electronic and symphonic music would work but that it's found its place.

He talks about his mum and the phrase "may your head always bloom" and that he's made his peace with her death (by writing this album as well).

He talks about bullying and how against what many people say, words can hurt very much. The interviewer mentions "hurts" which expresses this.

They talk about other artists particularly Prince for a while, I didn't catch a lof of that.

He says that he's very happy at the moment and has come to a place of acceptance, that there are a lot of things that make him happy like doing concerts, cooking, his dogs,... and that the secret to being happy is staying open and curious.

He talks about Moi, Andy et Paris briefly and says that Andy told him that it's fine that he wrote a song about their private life but he doesn't like how Mika is projecting, because he's actually the one who's jealous. And then about Bougez, Passager and Doucement which he says is a message to himself.

Please feel free to correct anything I might have misunderstood or add!

Umm how have I never seen this before and why would y'all keep this from me??! 

(Although now that I think about it, I think it was mentioned in that one competition last year when we had to figure out who's kissed Mika.)

13 hours ago, mellody said:

 dunno why I'm not so thrilled by that, maybe just because I prefer to hear Hello from Mika instead of Bye Bye?

 

Whaat but he even said it to you personally, that would be my favourite phrase ever if I were you

14 hours ago, mellody said:

I'm wondering about some things... like "sweet and tender intoxication", it says "ton", that's "your", no? So it would be "sweet is your intoxication"? - I'm just not sure whether it's active or passive, like does the other one intoxicate him, or does he find it sweet that the other one is intoxicated? Does that become clear from the French words?

And the "love words still left to be peeled off" - is there a double meaning intended? Because in my online dictionary it says that éplucher can also mean taking a closer look at something - so the "peeling" would be the reference to the banana, but what he really means is that the love words have to be looked at closely to see if they're really true. Does that make sense?

Great questions, you made me think about the song in great detail again!!

Interestingly, when I translate it to German it sounds like the other person is intoxicated and he finds that sweet (Süß ist dein Rausch) but in English it sounds like the other person intoxicates him (Sweet is your intoxication). Even though it's pretty much the same three words, it evokes a completely different image in me, languages are wild!

My guess is that both is possible though and it's open for interpretation.

I love the lyric "Tous ces mots d’amour restent à éplucher" for its double meaning, obviously a fitting metaphor and you're right about the other meaning. A similar word in English would be "dismantle" I think, analyzing the words deeply and taking them apart to get to the core of the issue.

To me it sounds like the song is about a brief romance, like a summer fling, that is fun and thrilling but on closer inspection, something is not quite right, so they have to leave each other.

I feel like there's a lot of ambivalence in it as well and even the idea that maybe he'll take his decision back and go see the other person again ("I know your address").

Could there also be a double meaning in "on se laisse"? Could it mean leave each other but also "let go" as in "When we're together, we just let ourselves go and that's so nice" and only later it changes into "If it's good, why do we leave each other"?

Yeah I looked it up as well!

But makes sense that it sounds a bit ridiculous in a pop song where you normally use colloquial speech like you wouldn't hear the past perfect continuous or something in an English song either

1 hour ago, lormare73 said:

Often, on social media, Italian people who don't know Mika well write, as a compliment, that he uses the subjonctif better than Italians.

That's interesting and now that I think about it he uses it a lot. 

I think French people use the subjonctif quite often (it was introduced in my hs course) while we don't use it at all basically in German so I struggle with it in French and Italian.

Anyway I'm getting off topic again, but thank you all for your responses!

Could someone explain this grammatical thing to me about the line

""Que nous bougeassions"?

He's mentioned this in several interviews now and I don't understand. Is this wrong?? Did Mika accidentally conjugate bouger wrongly in the subcontif form? Why did no one correct it?

He mentions it in this interview for example at around 3:10:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lYzIQ0Olu4

Ah wait I listened again and now I understand that he was told it was wrong in an interview and asked Valerie Lemercier who found out that it is indeed correct.

So people just think it's funny that a "foreigner" would use grammar constructions like that?!

Is that it?? 

6 hours ago, holdingyourdrink said:

Buon anno!!! O “ano”? 

Noo!!! 

Thank you @Kumazzz!
Do you happen to have a version that doesn't have the audio description?

I just watched the documentary about Freddie. Very heavy as expected but really really good so thanks for the recommendation and link.

Every time I see Brian May and Roger Taylor I just find it so heartbreaking that we get to seem them age but not Freddie.

And it makes me quite angry that some of these attitudes are still present today (or even on the rise again) like all those sad coming out stories shouldn't be relatable to people my age and yet they are. This just needs to stop. Now. Yesterday.

As for Mika, personally I don't perceive him and Freddie to be very similar. When I watch something about Queen, I'm not reminded of Mika (for once :D). I understand why that might feel different to other people but to me they don't send out the same vibe.

The only thing was that Freddie answered questions about his sexuality with "What I am is in my songs".

10 minutes ago, dcdeb said:

I watched what must be the same doc the other night as well. I thought it was quite recent, saw at the end it was 2021. Had a lot of footage that I had never seen before, so I was really interested in it.

That sounds really interesting, what was it called and can I watch it anywhere?

In semi related news, it was just announced that the hiv prevention medication PrEP is gonna be free (for certain people) in Austria from next summer on. A huge step in the right direction 

1 hour ago, mellody said:

if you read the lyrics carefully it becomes very clear that it tells more about Mika than about Andy

That's exactly it!!

I think it's even kinda funny in a way because you start listening to the song and there's this dramatic tension in the first verse and you wonder what terrible thing the other person could have done and then the chorus is basically "I'm scared he's cheating on me" and you're like "Where did that come from?!". Definitely more telling of his own insecurities.

1 hour ago, mellody said:

When I tell him: yes, but I'm an artist, he replies: yes, but #### you.

And I really like that Andy seems to keep him grounded because to me the answer "I do this because I'm an artist" would sound so pretentious in that situation that I would also feel the need to say "Well that doesn't make any sense so here's something just as pointless: F*** you!".

24 minutes ago, QueenBigFat said:

Never try to follow a thread while shopping for faucet extenders on Amazon. Especially after learning about them yesterday and today opening a buzzfeed from newsfeed to see….a faucet extender!

Ok it just took me way too long to figure out what a faucet is, apparently I only knew the British word tap.

But then I realized that word is in Ice Cream ("the faucet keeps on dripping") and I think I thought it was "the force, it keeps on dripping". Don't ask me what that means 

3 minutes ago, mellody said:

Well, with Mikey I never had the impression that Mika had to force him to do that.

I was gonna say the opposite that I obviously don't feel like Mika has to force Max

With Mikey I don't know, I obv wasn't around for those shenanigans.

Although I do know that Jimmy gave him a kiss on the cheek once soo just different expressions of affection 

7 minutes ago, dcdeb said:

???

 

I wasn’t criticizing or chastising, just giving you more emoji options for “Infuriated”. 

I'm sorry this misunderstanding is kinda hilarious

Thanks for the video!! I had seen that performance of love today but not big girl.

I didn't know Max wasn't the first bassist he's forced to do the synchronized hip wiggle 

Honestly I love it when 13 yo threads get dug up and I see stuff I never would have come across otherwise.

I don't think it's unlikely that it's just a coincidence, I agree that the idea that "life is actually quite simple and we overcomplicate it" is not revolutionary. At the same time it's also not unlikely that Mika got inspiration from a philosopher. It's Mika, who knows!

6 hours ago, dcdeb said:

It's like I could never understand how people could listen to that bit and say that it *wasn't* Mika speaking!

Wait people were saying that?! That's funny, even I knew that was him right away and it took me some time to recognize his speaking voice. For example it took me ages to realize that it's his voice in that GK promo where he goes "There are many different kind of pop stars"...

1 hour ago, vanessa-love-mika said:

You can watch it from the beginning here: https://auvio.rtbf.be/live/viva-for-life-le-direct-en-continu-492856

 

There's also a small interview inside the cube a little after

This worked really well for me and you don't need a VPN either!

Also just wanted to add that I really enjoyed those performances. I get a really good vibe from the band at the moment, they've all seemed so happy and energetic in these past performances. I'm getting more and more excited for the tour! 

Scusate per disturbare il vostro Thread italiano

Ma anch'io sono confusa che l'album non riceva molta promozione in Italia. La radio in Italia non suona musica in oltre lingue di Italiano o Inglese in generale?

Perché in Germania per esempio sono piú canzoni Francese che in Inghilterra almeno da artisti molto famosi come Stromae,... e ho pensato che è la stessa cosa in Italia. E specialmente Mika è un artista molto conosciuto e amato in Italia.

Non posso credere che la ragione è una rivalità antica.

1 hour ago, SusanT said:

Have I understood correctly?

That's how I understood it as well, maybe a native speaker has more to add.

But thank you for making me watch this interview that I somehow missed.

The part where they made him sing Lollipop in French had me in stitches!! Why did he feel so embarrassed, the song sounds just as bad in English!! I guess the change of perspective made him look at it in a new light again 

20 minutes ago, QueenBigFat said:

Mods, can we have an emoji for “that’s infuriating“??!?!?

You probably mean a reaction button right?

There are definitely emojis that I would describe as expressing fury like this one... 

15 minutes ago, KAMI_83 said:

Did they charge you any fees or tariffs because the package crossed the border? 

No there aren't usually fees for anything that crosses from France to Germany.