Am I the only one who feels mika's new sound is a little less unique?

[lemontine]

Don't get me wrong, I love his new album - but I just found the song "

" on YouTube and it just reminded me of what I miss about his old sound. I know he's growing up as an artist and therefore his style is naturally changing, but I feel like he really had something special that his new songs lack. I'm not sure how to describe exactly what's missing, and maybe I'm the only person who notices this, but I just thought I'd ask. It makes me a little sad but maybe I just need to learn to accept change. My only worry is that he's going with a less unique sound to try to conform to the modern pop society. As long as that's not it I guess I should just let him do what he wants to do. Thoughts?

[crazyaboutmika]

Don't get me wrong, I love his new album - but I just found the song "

" on YouTube and it just reminded me of what I miss about his old sound. I know he's growing up as an artist and therefore his style is naturally changing, but I feel like he really had something special that his new songs lack. I'm not sure how to describe exactly what's missing, and maybe I'm the only person who notices this, but I just thought I'd ask. It makes me a little sad but maybe I just need to learn to accept change. My only worry is that he's going with a less unique sound to try to conform to the modern pop society. As long as that's not it I guess I should just let him do what he wants to do. Thoughts?

The Origin Of Love is my favorite album and I don' t think he has lost his uniqueness. But as I said his new album being my fav I can be biased.

Underwater and OOL conquered my heart right from the start as Grace Kelly had , it was love at first hearing

I think Mika went through difficult times and "grew up" and I think that lead to his most sincere album.

He was happier making it with a team as with LICM and that shines through the album for me.

I also think that Mika's songs are always best live and I hope for a live record of The Origin Of Love songs as there was for TBWKTM at Saddler's Wells.

One thing is sure I will never get over Mika and the sound of his lovely voice . And I hope for more and more wonderful songs that make me happy in the future.

[Ellenowl]

You aren't the only one! However, I don't like a couple of songs off the album (Make You Happy and Overrated especially), because they are unpleasantly electronic and don't sound particularly 'Mika'. Quite a lot of his new album does not sound like the old Mika. I think TOOL is much more electronic than any of his other work, which explains the huge contrast between his demos and his latest album. TOOL seems to rely heavily on auto tune, whereas I don't think any of this is used on his demos at all (including Am I the Only Lonely One), giving them an older, more natural and less polished feel. Most artists nowadays use auto tune , making his voice sound more similar to everyone else's.

 

Also, MIKA seemed to experience 'writer's block' before writing TOOL, so he was probably more significantly influenced by the other artists he worked with than with his previous material. The result is mostly good songs, but mostly sounding less typically 'Mika'.

 

I don't know, just some thoughts, but I agree.

[Yuna]

You aren't the only one! However, I don't like a couple of songs off the album (Make You Happy and Overrated especially), because they are unpleasantly electronic and don't sound particularly 'Mika'. Quite a lot of his new album does not sound like the old Mika. I think TOOL is much more electronic than any of his other work, which explains the huge contrast between his demos and his latest album. TOOL seems to rely heavily on auto tune, whereas I don't think any of this is used on his demos at all (including Am I the Only Lonely One), giving them an older, more natural and less polished feel. Most artists nowadays use auto tune , making his voice sound more similar to everyone else's.

 

Also, MIKA seemed to experience 'writer's block' before writing TOOL, so he was probably more significantly influenced by the other artists he worked with than with his previous material. The result is mostly good songs, but mostly sounding less typically 'Mika'.

 

I don't know, just some thoughts, but I agree.

 

 

He has unbelievably soft and beautiful and unique voice.... I still can't understand why he had to hide and kill his most amazing weapon with autotunes..

 

And piano - another strongest weapon - he threw it away too....

Happy he's coming back with Piano from next month's tour..

 

TOOL the album,, I say, with regard to the lyrics, he really shows truely himself a lot, but the sounds, pretended to be someone else..

Edited February 16, 2013 by Yuna

[lemontine]

He has unbelievably soft and beautiful and unique voice.... I still can't understand why he had to hide and kill his most amazing weapon with autotunes..

 

And piano - another strongest weapon - he threw it away too....

Happy he's coming back with Piano from next month's tour..

 

TOOL the album,, I say, with regard to the lyrics, he really shows truely himself a lot, but the sounds, pretended to be someone else..

 

EXACTLY!!!! That's exactly what I was thinking! The lyrics are amazing and for the most part really personal to him, but the sound just isn't him.

[silver]

I think he had a hard time writing TOOL and was influenced by too many people around him, so that the Mika-ness of the music got lost.

 

I'll have disagree with you about "Make You Happy" though; he uses a vocoder (not the same as autotune, it just adds an electronic tone to your voice). I was horrified too when I first heard it, but came to realise that it adds a mechanical tone to contrast with his normal voice in the rest of the song.

[lemontine]

I think he had a hard time writing TOOL and was influenced by too many people around him, so that the Mika-ness of the music got lost.

 

I'll have disagree with you about "Make You Happy" though; he uses a vocoder (not the same as autotune, it just adds an electronic tone to your voice). I was horrified too when I first heard it, but came to realise that it adds a mechanical tone to contrast with his normal voice in the rest of the song.

 

Yea, I wasn't sure about 'Make you Happy' until I heard him explain it in the track by track thing, and he talked about how it was saying "All I wan't to do is make you happy" but it was coming from the mouth of a robot or something of the sort... I mean, once I got it I really liked it.

[Mina Alisa]

I LIKE Mika SOUND all the time!!! He makes so special music that I never heard before and that is the reason I LOVE HIM I don't think he lost his special sound

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry I am a lil bit drunk

[crazyaboutmika]

I LIKE Mika SOUND all the time!!! He makes so special music that I never heard before and that is the reason I LOVE HIM I don't think he lost his special sound

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry I am a lil bit drunk

Happy you make me Cheers!

[Marilyn Mastin]

I don't think he's stopped being the Mika of 2007, but the problem is that he has to sell records.

LICM was stratespheric, but the next album, less so, and the one after that, even less than the 2nd.

One thing I remember from the early days is that he didn't get radio-play in the USA. They said stupid things like, "he wants to be a woman because he wants to be like Grace Kelly," and they didn't like his falsetto, for the same (or at least similar) reasons.

I've been watching a show called The Big Reunion, on UK TV. It's about pop groups who were once on top, how they lost their fame and now are trying to come back for a big concert. People like Atomic Kitten, Five and LibertyX. So it's not just Mika who struggles to stay on top. Others do too.

The music business is hard, and to make it, acts have to evolve, just as Madonna has always done. This is what Mika has tried to do.

But I think he is still Mika, but the songs of yesteryear arn't going to cut it for him now. He has to try new things. But I for one am happy with his new direction. I think he is still the best, or possibly, even better than before.

[Tuittu]

Yeah, he has to sell records and be on the radio but I don't think that TOOL is that much different. At least I can't imagine that I could ever hear for example Popular song on the radio... (Not that they play Mika at all here in Finland:tears: Sometimes I hear some old songs like Relax or Grace Kelly and once I heard Underwater but that's pretty much it...) But personally I love TOOL and I think it's very Mika. Not the same way like LICM but I mean his voice is always incredible and unique!

[snowli]

come on guys!he's just trying to take a big leap of faith to see whenther he's stuck there foerever.new trials are usually good,he wants to move people without too much decoration.he wrote a lot after his tour and he called them 'rubbish',maybe a lot are similar with TBWKTM,and he really want to be more free.what is freedom?to express what he wants to express,to write songs in his own way.

unique stayed,if you try yourself to sing LYWID you'll find you are shouting like a crazy bastard,and Stardust really kept its high notes that most people can't sing well,only when you walk deeper can you find out that he's unique as always:)

[Julia Welcomes]

To summarize the above: the new album as a fulfilled product ( due to its sound, arrangement, collaborations, etc.) is probably less unique ( that doesn`t belittle its value). But not Mika as a musician. He will never be !

[basicamenteyo]

I have to disagree... I think this is his best album so far, and yes, obviously he is richer now than he was in 2006 and he has managed to get more and better producers so it maybe sounds a bit more commercial. But anyway, you just need to read the lyrics to realize it´s still him.

 

LYWID it´s (IMO) a song that would have fitted perfectly in LICM. Overrated it´s taken from an old demo... I didn ´t see anything like this in TBWKTM, and of course, songs like Stardust or Tah Dah... are simply perfect.

 

My opinion anyway

[qwurtie]

no.

but it's good in a different way ;3

[Alie]

I have to disagree... I think this is his best album so far, and yes, obviously he is richer now than he was in 2006 and he has managed to get more and better producers so it maybe sounds a bit more commercial. But anyway, you just need to read the lyrics to realize it´s still him.

 

LYWID it´s (IMO) a song that would have fitted perfectly in LICM. Overrated it´s taken from an old demo... I didn ´t see anything like this in TBWKTM, and of course, songs like Stardust or Tah Dah... are simply perfect.

 

My opinion anyway

 

I have nothing more to add, I agree with you all the way.

[lemontine]

I have to disagree... I think this is his best album so far, and yes, obviously he is richer now than he was in 2006 and he has managed to get more and better producers so it maybe sounds a bit more commercial. But anyway, you just need to read the lyrics to realize it´s still him.

 

LYWID it´s (IMO) a song that would have fitted perfectly in LICM. Overrated it´s taken from an old demo... I didn ´t see anything like this in TBWKTM, and of course, songs like Stardust or Tah Dah... are simply perfect.

 

My opinion anyway

 

No, yea. I completely agree with you! I have listened to and loved all the lyrics of his new album and I know that that part is still him... It's just the sound... I guess I miss the raw vocals and piano - which makes me glad that he included an acoustic version of some songs on the bonus disk. Like, I absolutely adore the acoustic version of LYWID - I get giddy every time I hear it I love all the songs so much!!! So don't get me wrong - the album TOOL was all I would listen to for like, two months I just felt like, while completly amazing and perfect, the sound of the new album was not what I was used to as "uniquely Mika"

[liveforglitter]

TOOL for me is the best album from Mika. I loved LICM and TBWKTM and I do miss 'the old Mika', but this new sound works and I really like it.

 

Yeah, he has to sell records and be on the radio but I don't think that TOOL is that much different. At least I can't imagine that I could ever hear for example Popular song on the radio... (Not that they play Mika at all here in Finland:tears: Sometimes I hear some old songs like Relax or Grace Kelly and once I heard Underwater but that's pretty much it...) But personally I love TOOL and I think it's very Mika. Not the same way like LICM but I mean his voice is always incredible and unique!

I need to agree with that. They don't play enough Mika here. I remember when Grace Kelly came out and i remember that they played it really much. And now, like once a year or maybe once in two months. Celebrate did well with Radio Nova, 1st place in the Week's Top 10 for 3 weeks And The Voice played Celebrate and (don't remember who it was, maybe Ville or someone) they said it was very cheerful and "typical Mika" song. I've heard Underwater too and Kids once

Mika has changed through the years, but he is still the same guy whose music we all fell in love with.

[Tuittu]

TOOL for me is the best album from Mika. I loved LICM and TBWKTM and I do miss 'the old Mika', but this new sound works and I really like it.

 

 

I need to agree with that. They don't play enough Mika here. I remember when Grace Kelly came out and i remember that they played it really much. And now, like once a year or maybe once in two months. Celebrate did well with Radio Nova, 1st place in the Week's Top 10 for 3 weeks And The Voice played Celebrate and (don't remember who it was, maybe Ville or someone) they said it was very cheerful and "typical Mika" song. I've heard Underwater too and Kids once

Mika has changed through the years, but he is still the same guy whose music we all fell in love with.

 

Oh no! I totally missed that 1st place on Radio Nova! Well, I never listen to it so maybe that's it... I think that they play Mika's music most on Radio X3M, so apparently Swedish-speaking Finns have a good taste in music:thumb_yello:

[Julia Welcomes]

I have to add smth:

 

Mika is not played enough on any radio.....In Russia (where I live) you will hardly hear his new songs broadcasting.....It seems to me that very few people noticed TOOL though it was officially released by Universal Russia and had some kind of advertisement ))

 

I rule my Mika fan-group in the most popular Russian social network "vk.com" (it is very similar to Facebook but has an easier interface). So I asked group members what do they think of this situation, what`s the reason, what should we do to lift his popularity , etc.

 

The poll showed these results:

 

- Mika is a very elite, exclusive and "not-for-everybody" musician. So, even the simpler sound of TOOL can`t make him understandable ( accessible) for a wider audience.

- Mika needs no suggestions from us to help his career\popularity . He remains that exclusive, with not so huge( but stable) fanbase.

 

Therefore an easier sound or Mika`s any effort to get back to LICM (TBWKTM) music won`t change a situation dramatically.

 

Why do I write it here? Because I tend to idea that his audience has narrowed but has become more firm after TOOL was released. TOOL hasn`t changed our attitude and Mika`s uniqueness as well.

[mamiam]

I have to add smth:

 

Mika is not played enough on any radio.....In Russia (where I live) you will hardly hear his new songs broadcasting.....It seems to me that very few people noticed TOOL though it was officially released by Universal Russia and had some kind of advertisement ))

 

I rule my Mika fan-group in the most popular Russian social network "vk.com" (it is very similar to Facebook but has an easier interface). So I asked group members what do they think of this situation, what`s the reason, what should we do to lift his popularity , etc.

 

The poll showed these results:

 

- Mika is a very elite, exclusive and "not-for-everybody" musician. So, even the simpler sound of TOOL can`t make him understandable ( accessible) for a wider audience.

- Mika needs no suggestions from us to help his career\popularity . He remains that exclusive, with not so huge( but stable) fanbase.

 

Therefore an easier sound or Mika`s any effort to get back to LICM (TBWKTM) music won`t change a situation dramatically.

 

Why do I write it here? Because I tend to idea that his audience has narrowed but has become more firm after TOOL was released. TOOL hasn`t changed our attitude and Mika`s uniqueness as well.

 

Thank you! You've made a very interesting research

 

Love,love

me

[Ellenowl]

I'm lying in bed looking at my mika display of albums. The first two are wonderfully busy cartoons of all the characters featured in the songs. The 3rd is a black and white picture of mika's face. One of the more common things about TOOL is that there are no quirky creatures/characters featured in the songs, he just sings about love as a feeling. I think (and he might have hinted at this in interviews), since the first two albums (and coming out), he is able to write about himself, rather than 'turning himself into other characters'.

 

Maybe this makes his songs more meaningful, but I quite like the old style. I think that is (was) one of the things that makes mika's music unique.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Ellenowl

[Christine]

- Mika is a very elite, exclusive and "not-for-everybody" musician. So, even the simpler sound of TOOL can`t make him understandable ( accessible) for a wider audience.

 

I think this is very unfortunate because as someone pointed out in another thread when Mika came on the scene he gave off an air of inclusivity, not exclusivity. He had enough of an exotic background to add a bit of glamour and he was certainly quirky but otherwise he came across like a down to earth boy who just wanted to have fun. He came from a wealthy background but rejected designer fashions in favour of what everyone was wearing on the streets of London at that time (yet at the same time had a very distinctive style about him). He was skinny but he embraced big girls. He was young and beautiful but made older people feel young again. His music was clever enough to appeal to adults but children loved the happy melodies.

 

A couple of years later he was wearing bespoke $10,000 shoes - a different pair for every day of the month it seems. Instead of having a record release party with people in the music industry, performers and fans as he had done with LICM, he had an exclusive release party for Songs For Sorrow with clothes and shoe designers and the EP was only available from his site or a clothes designer's shop.

 

His music went from being fun to being quite dark. Personally I found it interesting because I was very curious about Mika and wanted to see him open up and let the world see something beyond his 2-dimensional public image. But as was also pointed out in the other thread this was a lot less relateable for most people. When you read what fans feel they have in common with Mika now so much of it is problems - bullying, learning disabilities, feeling like an outsider. I think the average person does not really relate to this because most people are fairly social and at least when I was in school relentless bullying was very rare. Not rare in the sense that it rarely happened but that it was only ever 1 or 2 kids out of hundreds who were the victims.

 

I relate to Mika as I do to all musicians, with a mutual love of music. I want to hear their take on adult experiences since we are adults. I am not interested in angsty teen songs anymore and never related to feeling like an outsider. Since Mika was 25 years old and not Justin Bieber it wasn't really what you'd expect from him anyway. There is this rewriting of history to try to paint LICM as an album about childhood but it wasn't. It was about getting laid, a married man having a gay affair, men with big girl fetishes, Mika's struggles with the music industry, fear and struggles in the face of war.

 

To start writing about your miserable teen years several years later seems like a bit of a regression and self-indulgent. And it's something that most adults do not relate to or find an emotional connection with. Even if my teen years were miserable it's not something I would want to dwell on by listening to angsty teen songs.

 

I can understand why he chose love as a theme for TOOL and talks about joy now instead of darkness. Love is a universal thing and most fans of pop music want to hear joyous songs. Sadly it is mostly just the exclusive audience who is listening now.

[snowli]

- Mika is a very elite, exclusive and "not-for-everybody" musician. So, even the simpler sound of TOOL can`t make him understandable ( accessible) for a wider audience.

.

 

yeah this is an album about himself,people who don't know about him surely can't understand the meaning of the lyrics and why the melody shounds like that.

[lemontine]

I think this is very unfortunate because as someone pointed out in another thread when Mika came on the scene he gave off an air of inclusivity, not exclusivity. He had enough of an exotic background to add a bit of glamour and he was certainly quirky but otherwise he came across like a down to earth boy who just wanted to have fun. He came from a wealthy background but rejected designer fashions in favour of what everyone was wearing on the streets of London at that time (yet at the same time had a very distinctive style about him). He was skinny but he embraced big girls. He was young and beautiful but made older people feel young again. His music was clever enough to appeal to adults but children loved the happy melodies.

 

A couple of years later he was wearing bespoke $10,000 shoes - a different pair for every day of the month it seems. Instead of having a record release party with people in the music industry, performers and fans as he had done with LICM, he had an exclusive release party for Songs For Sorrow with clothes and shoe designers and the EP was only available from his site or a clothes designer's shop.

 

His music went from being fun to being quite dark. Personally I found it interesting because I was very curious about Mika and wanted to see him open up and let the world see something beyond his 2-dimensional public image. But as was also pointed out in the other thread this was a lot less relateable for most people. When you read what fans feel they have in common with Mika now so much of it is problems - bullying, learning disabilities, feeling like an outsider. I think the average person does not really relate to this because most people are fairly social and at least when I was in school relentless bullying was very rare. Not rare in the sense that it rarely happened but that it was only ever 1 or 2 kids out of hundreds who were the victims.

 

I relate to Mika as I do to all musicians, with a mutual love of music. I want to hear their take on adult experiences since we are adults. I am not interested in angsty teen songs anymore and never related to feeling like an outsider. Since Mika was 25 years old and not Justin Bieber it wasn't really what you'd expect from him anyway. There is this rewriting of history to try to paint LICM as an album about childhood but it wasn't. It was about getting laid, a married man having a gay affair, men with big girl fetishes, Mika's struggles with the music industry, fear and struggles in the face of war.

 

To start writing about your miserable teen years several years later seems like a bit of a regression and self-indulgent. And it's something that most adults do not relate to or find an emotional connection with. Even if my teen years were miserable it's not something I would want to dwell on by listening to angsty teen songs.

 

I can understand why he chose love as a theme for TOOL and talks about joy now instead of darkness. Love is a universal thing and most fans of pop music want to hear joyous songs. Sadly it is mostly just the exclusive audience who is listening now.

 

wow, thank you for the insight. I completly agree with you.