Inezzz Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 It is the 'Elle' from France? Is that the same one that you find in the French part of Belgium? ( I live close to the border and I wouldn't mind to take my bike/horse and to go to Wallonie ) Or is it only in France (I've already texted my BF who is there now xD ) ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlightchild Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 “It was in Los Angeles, but my mother, who knows I need discipline, she advised me not to take a comfortable place...” He’s a family guy (meaning he’s into staying with his family, kinda), Mika! Around the pop star orbit 3 sisters, keepers of the family “spirit, sense”. To protect himself from the outer world? “Yes, and to keep a right vision of things” assures the one who doesn’t consider himself as the prodigy in the Penniman family. “Every day, there’s a another whiz kid in the family. One day, it’s me if I did an amazing gig. The next day, it’ll be my brother Fortuné: He’s eighteen, and he’s just passed a very hard exam to go to an Architecture school in London. Or my little sister Zuleika, brilliant student in stylism at ESMOD. It’s hard to be lousy or not to be nice in a family with five kids. As soon as one is bad tempered, all the others attack him. Actually, it’s not with the other pop singers I feel in competition with, it’s with my siblings!” The eldest, Yasmine, an artist mad about fashion, drew his two album covers. Paloma, the stylist, took care of the brother’s wardrobe, while Zuleika made a few costumes for his tour. An “all-sister” collaboration, which goes back to the time where no record company would sign Mika. And it reminds them remember the happy times when they were all together living under the same roof as a family. “Mika knows exactly what he wants”affirms Paloma. “ When he doesn’t get what he wants, because we haven’t guessed what he had in mind, he shouts, rants and raves. (very whiny Mika indeed ) We fight a lot” . Yasmine, smiling,doesn’t say otherwise. “He was a pain in the neck when he was a child. He would go into our rooms and pull our hair. Well, now he’s also really nice and very protective” All this little world express itself fluently in French, due to a childhood in France but also in Chinese. I'm taking a small break,it's taking so long! And it's basically the same thing that there's always in the interviews but well... Please tell me if there's a mistake or something that doesn't sound very english,I'd appreciate it Btw, I agree the pics are really good,I could stare at them forever, even more the big versions of them Such a gorgeous family,Mika looks common among them all Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlightchild Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 Just to have the pictures on this page too watch them again. From the france magazine Elle, Mika and his 3 sisters . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucrezia Posted August 21, 2009 Author Share Posted August 21, 2009 I update first page!! Now there is the complete interview Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melman92 Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 (edited) I update first page!! Now there is the complete interview Actually,no There was a part 3 (bolded part) Sorry it took so long-my computer overheated and of course I didn't save it... The translation is not word to word anymore but most of it is. Here's the full translation! Hope it's understandable! Never without his sisters! 1,2,3 Mika! They take care of him and help him keep down to earth. As his next album will surely be a great success, Mika tells us about his sisters, his childhood, and his endless constant teenage happiness. He enters an elegant suite of a Parisian Palace and propose us kindly to try on his cool stripped green and white sweater he bought at the Salvation Army in London. Then he asks us to help him tighten the hinden leg of his Paul Smith’s pants (????) That’s how he is, Mika. The taste of simple things (*cough*), almost childish talismans: a plastic multicoloured bracelet, a customised Mickey (I wrote Mikey at first ) as a pendant. And he’s not obsessed with his credit cart either, him who sold more than 5 million copies of - of which 1 million in France- his debut album Life in Cartoon Motion and rewarded by more than 10ish prices. “I spend a lot of money for my gigs, but in real life I’m afraid of money” he confides.” I never have a credit card with me, only cash, and I’m not at ease with spending too much money” With his ruffled brown hair, his beaming smile “full of teeth, his witty and mischievous look, we could almost catch sight of a big kid. Or an everlasting teenager aged 26. Indeed, Michael Holbrook Penniman’s long-awaited new album,- Mika, to his friends (French expression)- celebrates his adolescence whereas the first opus gave away a dreamy and ‘technicoloured’ version of his childhood. “Because we never forget our adolescence, no matter how hard we try” The first single/videoclip, “We are Golden”, displays him singing alone at the top of his voice, or at least in an amazing teenage bedroom full with posters and gadgets -thumbs up to the decorator.(can we say heads up?) Mika’s one, we can imagine, less flamboyant than this one, and his adolescence less emblematic. “It was happy but I would stay in my own bedroom in my own world to escape “the things of life”. I was writing songs to create a new reality. Today, we could think that nothing,more or less has changed. “ Success, with its ups and downs, gave me an opportunity to live a second adolescence” And the singer stayed in his room, a small “music” studio actually, where he spent 8 “industrious” months to write and compose his songs. “It was in Los Angeles, but my mother, who knows I need discipline, she advised me not to take a comfortable place...” He’s a family guy (meaning he’s into staying with his family, kinda), Mika! Around the pop star orbit 3 sisters, keepers of the family “spirit, sense”. To protect himself from the outer world? “Yes, and to keep a right vision of things” assures the one who doesn’t consider himself as the prodigy in the Penniman family. “Every day, there’s a another whiz kid in the family. One day, it’s me if I did an amazing gig. The next day, it’ll be my brother Fortuné: He’s eighteen, and he’s just passed a very hard exam to go to an Architecture school in London. Or my little sister Zuleika, brilliant student in stylism at ESMOD. It’s hard to be lousy or not to be nice in a family with five kids. As soon as one is bad tempered, all the others attack him. Actually, it’s not with the other pop singers I feel in competition with, it’s with my siblings!” The eldest, Yasmine, an artist mad about fashion, drew his two album covers. Paloma, the stylist, took care of the brother’s wardrobe, while Zuleika made a few costumes for his tour. An “all-sister” collaboration, which goes back to the time where no record company would sign Mika. And it reminds them remember the happy times when they were all together living under the same roof as a family. “Mika knows exactly what he wants” affirms Paloma. “ When he doesn’t get what he wants, because we haven’t guessed what he had in mind, he shouts, rants and raves. (very whiny Mika indeed ) We fight a lot” . Yasmine, smiling,doesn’t say otherwise. “He was a pain in the neck when he was a child. He would go into our rooms and pull our hair. Well, now he’s also really nice and very protective” All this little world express itself fluently in French, due to a childhood in France but also in Chinese. They all speak Chinese because of a trip they did in Pekin with their mother after what happened in Tian’ amen. (says Jasmine) Mika also took Chinese lessons. This trip really influenced him. (I guess it tells a bit about the PDP decor- i.e. Chinese dragon) What also influenced Mika was a troubled childhood (surprise, surprise) which began in 1983 in Beirut, then Cyprus, then Paris (where he discovers Chantal Goya and Dorothée- basically French stars for the children in the 80’s,the first one being a singer, the second a star on tv who presented shows displaying cartoons and she stopped because something happened with a child... she slapped him or something? Or that was a politician. Anyway, I digress) and then in London. In Paris, everything was fine, his father, a banker, had a job, they were going to a private school, they had a nice apartment” (Mika says) Then his father had to stay at the American embassy in Kuwait for 7 months after a business trip there. If he went out of it, he’d have become a political prisoner. When he was eight, they’d watch CNN and prayed not to see him on TV because that would have been a bad sign for him. He’d fax drawings to them (?? I think it’s the other way around but that what they say in the interview). When he came back,his business went downhill and they had to move to London. The whole family lived in a B&B in London for a year and then moved into a house. They had a less lot (?) money at the time but those were the best years of his life because his mother, who was designing a clothing line for children at the time, encouraged them to be very creative. At 14, without everyone knowing, Mika went to record companies he saw on the street to give them his “piano-voice” demos. In class as soon as the recess began, he rushed to a small isolated room to compose songs. “I was telling myself that if I managed to write a catchy chorus, it’d be ten times more powerful than the insults they were telling me every day. At school, it was tough for me. I didn’t have the right looks, I was coming from nowhere, I had a high-pitched voice that everybody was laughing at because I began writing jingles for publicity at age 12. So,to feel better, I’d store up songs as ammunition. Ammunition, which sound as canon-shots in the more or less gloomy sky of British pop. With a new album full of promising singles and sophisticated at the same time, influenced by Kurt Weil or by Disney tunes of the 40’s, and full of hysterical joy which often announces great pains. Mika is yet to be, once again, high in the charts. And it doesn’t matter if some point out the angelic and naïve side to his music, far away from the sexual magnetism of some big names of rock’n’roll! What’s incredible about my favourite artists like Bowie or Prince is the freedom they gave themselves to explore genres. Prince walked in high heels and swayed his hips as a stripper but still being terribly masculine. I’m not like that on stage of course but my lyrics and the way that I sing and in my lyrics, I’m completely free to be who I want to be. My music is probably not open sexually-wise, but I express the blurring of genres. Besides, this big teenager has time to evolve. “In this business, were teenagers our whole life!” Except when we get closer to death. At that moment, we must feel like babies again” Edited August 21, 2009 by melman92 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mel_tinydancer Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 Oh my gosh. The sisters are so stunning. Haven't seen a pic of Zuleika and Paloma in a while, absolutely stunning. Mika of course is gorgeous, as always. Where's mom?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CazGirl Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 Thank you so much for the translation!!!! Kudos! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickadee Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 Fab photos! Thanks for posting and translating guys Seems like Mika is giving more insights this time around. His doing a grand job in keeping us interested eh? Yes, he is, isn't he? Even stuff we've heard before, if embellished with extra tiny details becomes interesting all over again. And thankyou for the translation Melman:flowers2: Unless of course you'd also rather have a private gig? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikalollipop_karla Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 (edited) lovely Edited August 22, 2009 by mikalollipop_karla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sabine64 Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 Thank you very much for posting and the translation. It´s nice to know so many little things about his childhood. And everyone can imagene what it means that he is so protective with his sisters...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 Thank you so much for the whole translation! :wub2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lil'Violet Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 thank you very very much melman for the translation!!!! “He was a pain in the neck when he was a child. He would go into our rooms and pull our hair. Well, now he’s also really nice and very protective” aww, that's our boy!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
celien Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 WOW! Beautiful is all I can say! T4P! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fmbm Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 “In this business, we're teenagers our whole life! Except when we get closer to death. At that moment, we must feel like babies again” I love that bit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucrezia Posted August 22, 2009 Author Share Posted August 22, 2009 Actually,no There was a part 3 (bolded part)Sorry it took so long-my computer overheated and of course I didn't save it... The translation is not word to word anymore but most of it is. Here's the full translation! Hope it's understandable! Ops sorry!! Finally the interview is complete!! Thanks very much Melman! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sienna Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 Thank you melman92 for a fantastic translation! It took me a while to discover your own comments they are lovely! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keti Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 Thanks loads for translation!! I've really enjoyed reading the article! Loved the part where his sister's talking about how he pulled their hair and all He's always been and remained a child I want this magazine reeeaally baad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANI56 Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 From the france magazine Elle, Mika and his 3 sisters thanks a lot, Lucrezia and Melman92 ! .... brave! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neiobi Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 I went to a press store yesterday, and saw french Elle there, looked for the article but only saw him in a page, with those chinese bead games that were used to count(don't know their name) and his face behind them.. And on the picture it also said "Golden Boy" then they talked for a short paragraph about his new album... Was expecting to see this article there:aah: (And no, I didn't buy it.. I'm not giving away 6 euros for a magazine with only one page that I like:naughty:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huikings Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 (edited) I went to a press store yesterday, and saw french Elle there, looked for the article but only saw him in a page, with those chinese bead games that were used to count(don't know their name) and his face behind them.. And on the picture it also said "Golden Boy" then they talked for a short paragraph about his new album... Was expecting to see this article there:aah:(And no, I didn't buy it.. I'm not giving away 6 euros for a magazine with only one page that I like:naughty:) oh why isn't this interview and all these lovely pics there??? i mean, why only 1 page?? not very understand the "chinese bead games" bit either:blink: Edited August 22, 2009 by huikings Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neiobi Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 Btw, really nice article! And thanks Melman for the translation:biggrin2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neiobi Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 oh why isn't this interview and all these lovely pics there???i mean, why only 1 page?? not very understand the "chinese bead games" either:blink: I really dunno, and it was the October issue, I think! Really weird:blink: Oh oh it was one of these: The beads were white, red and blue. Has anyone seen it? I don't want to sound insane:aah: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racinghorse83 Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 Whoa, they're all so pretty really nice interveiw, t4p! why is paloma in a bath with Mika? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lollipop_monkey Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 (edited) Melman, thank you so much for the translation! How can one family be so beautiful....so so so incredibly beautiful Both physically beautiful, and beautiful in character. I have serious family envy. Oh, and shoe envy for those fantastically glittery heels Zuleika is wearing. And I am IN LOVE with those silvery-blue skate-ish shoes Mika's wearing. That's only the second pic I've ever seen of him in that style of shoes - he looks bloody fantastic in them! Thanks for posting! Though i cant understand it (should have taken french instead of spanish! Me too. EDIT: Does Yasmine have blue eyes? Sure looks like it from the first pic. If so, how did THAT happen? Genetic anomaly? Edited August 23, 2009 by lollipop_monkey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suzie Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 I love this interview, thanks for the translation. Also great news that French Elle dedicated a couple of pages to this sweet and very talented family. ... .... They are a 5-star family.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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