mellody Posted October 3, 2009 Share Posted October 3, 2009 http://www.frankenpost.de/teleschau/stars/starsderwoche/art2166,1086114 Graciosa posted this on the german forum, thought i'd give you a translation here, quite like the article! especially the last sentence, he loves it when we sing along to his songs! sorry for any weird sounding english, it's quite difficult to translate this sort of flowery journalist language. Stars of the Week The colours are mixed anew Mika releases "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" Jochen Overbeck (teleschau - der mediendienst) "Of course it's not always easy when everyone recognizes you, when people always look at you and speak to you on the street. But in all honesty: If a popstar complains about people liking him, he deserves to be kicked in the face." If you can say one thing about Mika, it is, that since the release of his debut "Life in Cartoon Motion" and the success of the Single "Grace Kelly" he has gained a lot of self confidence. But the routine that goes hand in hand with it is something that the 26-year-old Brit wants to break. that's why he tries to break a few rules of the industry with his second album "The boy who knew too much". What stays is the absolute love for popsongs. "All the little coincidences that mark the start of a musical career get lost over time. You're standing on stage every evening, doing the same. Ocassionally you shoot a video, sometime you release the next album. Rules like this are so depressing that I just can't bear them." Mika already broke them this summer with the release of his "Songs For Sorrow"-EP. Four new songs, recorded acoustic. Available as a nice art edition with artwork by Paul Smith and others. Strictly limited and totally uninteresting for the record company in terms of yield. A crossing of frontiers that Mika as one of the most important british Solo Artists can afford - and wants to afford, in spite of all the pressure by the record company. For example, he didn't care at all that they thought the lyrics of "Blame it on the Girls" were too negative and asked him for an alternative version without the word "dead". "I told them to f*** off", he says and laughs. That Mika won't allow any interference, you can hear on the new album. Whereas "Life in Cartoon Motion" was a quite simplified and euphorical thing that in the main part would have also worked on children's birthday parties, "The Boy who knew too much" isn't more cumbersome (not sure if that's the right word, difficult to translate...), but more varied and less linear when it comes to the lyrics. Mika explains it by relating to the artwork: "My first record was like its cover. Black outlines, coloured with bright colours. This comic feeling is gone now. The colours are still bright, but mixed. They don't come directly out of the paint box anymore, but made a detour via the palette, got mixed and blurred." It was difficult for Mika to change the narrating perspective. "It wasn't easy to suddenly sing the word "I"." Incidentally, Mika can exactly position the record time-wise. Whereas his debut was a chronology of his childhood, "The Boy who knew too much" deals with growing up. With puberty and all its emotional distress, with unanswered love and an insecurity that also for Mika belonged to this time period. One of the central (most important?) songs on the album probably is the first single release "We are golden": What sounds like a claim, like a hymn about a feeling of togetherness and friendship, is in fact the opposite. "I never belonged to any gangs. I would've given so much for having friends. But i was the typical outsider. For the geeks I wasn't smart enough. For the cool guys I wasn't cool enough. And for the rich ones I wasn't rich enough." Thus, Mika created an alternative world for himself, by writing songs. And by hallucinating of a life in which many others existed that ticked like him. He didn't find them - not even when at the start of his adult life he changed to a music school, to study classical singing: "I never was satisfied with my skills. I wanted to be able to sing better, play piano better. At the same time I realized that the others had more skills than me in terms of technical aspects, that their voices were better and more suitable for opera. But on the other hand all of that was so unoriginal. Singing or playing something that thousands of other people also sing - where's the challenge in that?" Mika left the school right after signing the record contract. Today he cares about nuances. About songs that can be interpreted in different ways. He explicitly leaves room for interpretations. "Someone who relates a song like 'We are Golden' to himself and his circle of friends, who understands it in a positive way, has every right to do so," he explains. "Take 'Blackbird' by the Beatles. On the one hand you can read it in a very direct way, where it seems almost cheerful. On the other hand it's a song that clearly takes a stand regarding discrimination and racism." Pop shouldn't be about interpretive dominance, other things would be more important - especially, what the term 'Pop' already includes, success. "One thing I understood early: A pop song is a really good pop song only if people know it. When they can sing along, when they love it. To see how other people know your songs by heart is the best feeling in the world." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kodes100 Posted October 3, 2009 Share Posted October 3, 2009 Thank you mellody for posting this. Another interesting article about Mika. I love the insight to music making that Mika reveals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sienna Posted October 3, 2009 Share Posted October 3, 2009 Wow, what an interesting reading! If I could make a wish it would be that cound I find a Swedish news paper with an insightful review like this one! The few ones that acually care about Mika and know that he exists seems to have only one perspective in mind.... so far! Maybe they will wake up some day and listen to the music? Thank you for posting and translating, this is a lot of food for thoughts! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marilyn Mastin Posted October 3, 2009 Share Posted October 3, 2009 That is a great article! T4P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lollipop_monkey Posted October 3, 2009 Share Posted October 3, 2009 "A pop song is a really good pop song only if people know it. When they can sing along, when they love it. To see how other people know your songs by heart is the best feeling in the world." Well that clears up how Mika feels about people singing along at his gigs, I would say. Thanks for posting, very interesting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mellody Posted October 3, 2009 Author Share Posted October 3, 2009 Well that clears up how Mika feels about people singing along at his gigs, I would say. yup! *goes learning the tbwktm lyrics* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silver Posted October 3, 2009 Share Posted October 3, 2009 I think a lot of the interviews by European journalists have been really interesting as they seem to draw a bit more out of Mika than we get in the British press. T4P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xlindee Posted October 3, 2009 Share Posted October 3, 2009 Niiice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louiza Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Great article! t4p karin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gracekelly85 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 I like this article! T4P! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FREDDIESDOUBLE Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 One found this amusing "Strictly limited and totally uninteresting for the record company in terms of yield." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANI56 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 thank you, Karin! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mellody Posted October 5, 2009 Author Share Posted October 5, 2009 One found this amusing "Strictly limited and totally uninteresting for the record company in terms of yield." what's amusing about it, the fact itself or my translation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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