Mikasounds, Twitter and Facebook updates - Part 12

[Lucrezia]

There's even an english translation about what he said yesterday at Bocconi:

 

http://revolart.it/in-honour-of-a-miami-prostitute-this-is-not-a-story-about-a-hooker-this-is-a-story-about-mika-and-life/

[mellody]

There's even an english translation about what he said yesterday at Bocconi:

 

http://revolart.it/in-honour-of-a-miami-prostitute-this-is-not-a-story-about-a-hooker-this-is-a-story-about-mika-and-life/

 

fab,thank you! makes much more sense now than with google translate.

i so would have loved to have heard this live from him!

[mamiam]

There's even an english translation about what he said yesterday at Bocconi:

 

http://revolart.it/in-honour-of-a-miami-prostitute-this-is-not-a-story-about-a-hooker-this-is-a-story-about-mika-and-life/

 

Grazie mille !!! Oh "my MIKA" - you make me sooo proud to be your fan - what a wonderful and wise speech you gave here!!!

 

And now I do hope that this doubt about new music coming - and this critisism about his money use will stop !! Come on guys, MIKA is a grown up man now - he lived in his parents celler appartment much longer than my kids, at the same age as he is, stayed at home with us, their parents! It's in due time that he can have his own house(s) which might be the best money investment He can earn, and spend his money, just the way he wants, it's really none of our business, and when did he complain that he can't afford making new albums !? I really don't understand what you're talking about here ...

 

Love,love

me

[RayaBadran]

There's even an english translation about what he said yesterday at Bocconi:

 

http://revolart.it/in-honour-of-a-miami-prostitute-this-is-not-a-story-about-a-hooker-this-is-a-story-about-mika-and-life/

 

Wow. Amazing speech. Hats down Mika, probably one of the best... Speeches/interviews he could have done. Inspiring.

[RainbowGirl]

Grazie mille !!! Oh "my MIKA" - you make me sooo proud to be your fan - what a wonderful and wise speech you gave here!!!

 

And now I do hope that this doubt about new music coming - and this critisism about his money use will stop !! Come on guys, MIKA is a grown up man now - he lived in his parents celler appartment much longer than my kids, at the same age as he is, stayed at home with us, their parents! It's in due time that he can have his own house(s) which might be the best money investment He can earn, and spend his money, just the way he wants, it's really none of our business, and when did he complain that he can't afford making new albums !? I really don't understand what you're talking about here ...

 

Love,love

me

 

I agree with above. None of us criticise each other for the money we spend. If we work in the arts and want to save and spend our earned money on designer handbags or save for a house, what business is it of anyone else's? No one is being hurt through purchases and that is the important thing. If Mika was spending this money he has earned on something that is going to hurt or cause damage to someone or something then yes, maybe we should be discussing it in depth. But he is not.

He is first and formally a musician and he has always been a musician and always will be a musician but it is not the be all and end all of his life and career. If I had the opportunities he has to write and speak and create in all manner of things from watches to tv shows then i would take it with both hands and hang on for dear life, especially if this would help fund the musician I was. Clearly, there has been a paradox between lack of promo from Universal and TOOL which has encouraged Mika to find his own funding and promotion himself.

And complaining that he is not releasing an album as quickly as you want it to be is in my opinion slightly selfish. Of course I want new music but it doesn't just happen overnight. And when it is done and he has decided that it is ready it will be released.

 

I hope i covered everything I wanted to... Now off to read this speech

 

(I never mean anything harmful to you but i felt i had to write something )

Edited December 12, 2013 by RainbowGirl

[Marilyn Mastin]

There's even an english translation about what he said yesterday at Bocconi:

 

http://revolart.it/in-honour-of-a-miami-prostitute-this-is-not-a-story-about-a-hooker-this-is-a-story-about-mika-and-life/

I love it! This just goes to show we haven't lost Mika, he's just older and wiser now. I always thought he shouldn't close himself off like he did at first. It was very naïve and although many fans came to him because they felt he was selective in what he did, and a purist with his music, I always thought he needn't compromise his music by being more commercial. I don't think he has done, not one iota. But to remain famous people do need to put themselves out there, and he's started doing that now.

I do agree with him about being unfairly handled by his record company. My advice to him would be, "promote yourself in future, since they can't be bothered."

I hope he has some plans for self-promotion in the UK. "Bring it on Mika."

[IngievV]

It's very intersting, thank you Karin. He's a little bit rude to his record company but I agree with him.

I really can't wait that the university shares the video about the conference!

 

There won't be a video. They weren't allowed to film apparently.

[Julia Welcomes]

I love it! This just goes to show we haven't lost Mika, he's just older and wiser now. I always thought he shouldn't close himself off like he did at first. It was very naïve and although many fans came to him because they felt he was selective in what he did, and a purist with his music, I always thought he needn't compromise his music by being more commercial. I don't think he has done, not one iota. But to remain famous people do need to put themselves out there, and he's started doing that now.

I do agree with him about being unfairly handled by his record company. My advice to him would be, "promote yourself in future, since they can't be bothered."

I hope he has some plans for self-promotion in the UK. "Bring it on Mika."

 

Though I `m always worried about Mika recording new albums and making music, I agree here - Mika`s current activities in Italy have brought him many new fans . It`s good for him after all, for his further career and recognition by new fans, no matter how long they intend to be mikafans.

[Christine]

I am not criticizing Mika for the things he spends his money on. I don't care if he wants to brush his teeth with champagne and caviar and wipe him bum with gold toilet paper. What I object to is his insistence that he needs to market himself in these whorish ways in order to make music. It's just not believable and it's manipulative. Anyone can make music. It doesn't cost millions and millions of pounds. Yes it's very expensive to promote it on a large scale, but why does it need to be promoted on a large scale? For fame and fortune, not to continue writing songs and recording them.

 

I appreciate that he is now admitting clearly that he is prostituting himself but do not call me your pimp. I am not the one who asked him to go on a TV show and stand around for hours signing autographs on a weekly basis to sell product. If Mika wants to make an album in his basement I will buy it. What I am not buying now are these songs that are artistic compromises - duets with Ariana Grande and Chiara that are inferior to the originals. Songs written by Doriand that are inferior to Mika's songs, etc. I don't want any of that. Obviously it doesn't matter what I want. But don't call me your pimp to justify your acts of prostitution.

[mellody]

@mamiam and rainbowgirl:

this whole money discussion seems to take a completely new direction now. :rolls_eyes: in case you're refering to my posts, i never criticized mika for spending too much or anything like that, it was simply about chris' statement that he deserves a lot more money than he earns, and the comparison with bieber and rihanna. and the reason why i disagree with that statement is in my last post about this topic (which btw was much less about mika than my general opinion about excessively rich people who are indeed wasting their money for diamond-studded outfits for their dogs and stuff like that). if it came across differently, i'm sorry, but i did say in both of my posts that it's up to him what he spends his money on. and well, he *did* complain about no one wanting to finance his documentaries.

[mer]

There's even an english translation about what he said yesterday at Bocconi:

 

http://revolart.it/in-honour-of-a-miami-prostitute-this-is-not-a-story-about-a-hooker-this-is-a-story-about-mika-and-life/

Thks Mile Lucrezia the speech of a University...

Currently I’m a judge at the Italian X Factor, I’m also a coach of the Voice at the same time in France and I’ve a design company which I started with my sister 8 years ago: it’s a lot of stuff, and strangely I’ve never been more exited to go in a studio and making a record. At the beginning of my career, I did the opposite of what you are supposed to do, I was very closed and I had my own vision of a purist marketing strategy, to preserve me from the eyes of the media and of the public, I thought that this was going to give me some kind of freedom. Now I’ve realized I was completely wrong, this isolation that I thought was protecting my music, actually came close to hurt me. I became far more reliant to the manipulations of my record company. I think is very important for a marketer to protect and preserve a person that is going through a transition from becoming unknown to commercial. My first album was realised in 2007, but my singing career stated at 11 years old. I’ve been expelled through school and after a year doing nothing but training with a Russian singing teacher, who was hitting me when I wasn’t doing things properly, I got a job.

I was and I’m still a very very dyslexic dropout, who is unable to read music. As a boy performer I had two specialties, I used to perform and record unlistenable contemporary music and on the other I was a specialist in very quickly recording the worse advertising jingles you have ever heard, and they were **** trust me! In the same day I was getting out from school and then I was recording Japanese song with two different orchestras, and then a jingle for a milk ad or for British Airways or Orbit Chewing gum. The fact that I couldn’t read music at the end means that I am focused in doing both things in the same way; they were just two jobs. I was making some money, and you there is nothing dirty in making some money, while you are having fun, only people with way too much money tell you it’s dirty to make money.

Eventually my voice broke, **** happens, thank god it happens! In a couple of weeks my job was gone, so I decided to fix the problem by writing songs and sending out demos like a maniac. Not surprisingly I was completely turned down, so then I said “I’ll be an Opera singer” then I was doing auditions for every music college and I was rejected by every single one at pretty much the first audition, so very upset at the end I got a place at the London School of Economics and I went on my first day I had my first lecture and I spent 495 Pounds for my text books, they were all in front of me and I knew it was the end of this life I had since the age of 11, my dream of staying in the music was ending, I had a moment of panic and after two hours I left the books on the table and I left the LSE and I’ve never returned again. I run at Royal School of Music where I stood outside for four hours and I’ve waited the head of the vocal studies that had turned me down. I followed him at his car and then I begged him, almost crying for a second audition. I needed it! I told him I had left the LSE, I was all dressed up because I thought people where dressing well their first day of college, but actually no one was dressed up: I was the only one with a suit and a tie, thinking this was normal people do when they go to university but they only thought I was a freak. He finally gave me another audition probably because I was so weird and at the end they gave me a one-year trial. That’s when I started having a music role, as soon as I got my one-year trial. I found any possible way to not go away, so I started doing my research and I found out that government was protecting people with disabilities. Dyslexia is not something you can make up and you can prove that is true, so I got my report I took it to the head of the royal college and said “Here you cannot expel me, because I gave you an explanation”. They didn’t kicked me out but I failed all my theoretical exams, and with this bursary I got I actually didn’t payed my fees for a year and a half and I’ve used them to get myself to Miami.

Over there there was a woman that was willing to work with me making my music and she was named Jody. In Miami Jody and I were bagging and borrowing studio houses and in exchange we where landing our voices. Jody was translating lyrics. At the end Jody and I were prostituting ourselves for studio time. Money wasn’t really existing so we where going in the studio from 8 pm to 3 in the morning. I wasn’t able to drive so we made a deal with Jody who was picking me up, and dropping me off at a gas station in North Miami on the corner of the street that it’s not very pretty at 3 am.

This is where I met Carolina. She was a prostitute in her mid-fifties and she was there pretty much all night waiting for customers but actually she wasn’t getting many. I became fascinated by her, but mostly I was fascinated by her incredible strength. One day she disappeared and I’ve never saw her again. I wrote several songs dedicated to her, one of those was Love Today. A couple of years later I was getting a Grammy nomination for a song that was written upon a hooker. But this is not a funny thing, is a sincere thing. The truth was that Jody and I were prostituting our voices and minds to terrible companies. We hated it but it was for studio time. The difference between my life and Carolina’s was that I was at the start of my journey and Carolina was clearly at the end. Carolina for me represents my first years.

I came back to London prepared for battle with new demos and a sense of confidence, shamelessness. I was sick of being rejected for not having the right look or too different sound, I’ve decided do take control and with my sister Jasmine I’ve created a distinctive visual world. My thought was simple: if the problem was that I wasn’t fitting into people current world, I’ll just create my own and invite them into it, and this is still the aesthetic I work with today.

What is happening now is that majors are expanding exponentially and the number of artists that could have the opportunity to have a prior marketing roll-out are an handful. I’m now an artist in a minority within an industry in crisis. I depend on radio plays and sells all over the world: I’m a sum of all my markets. And without a serious international roll-out I’m seriously jeopardize my potential.

Last years I did a joyful album called The Origin of Love that wasn’t really good for radios but I didn’t care, as I know that careers are not made by chasing radios 100% of the time. Without radio my international promotion schedule from Universal started fading out and disappear. I quickly started my own promotion, I searched sponsors from a toothpaste in Indonesia to radio logos on my tickets in Europe.

 

I decided the best thing I could do was climbing Himalaya at -20°C. During one sleepless night, in the freezing cold, I made a decision that actually changed my 2013: I promised myself not to be pushed aside and working very hard because I was proud of the music I made.

This is my first year where I’m not waiting for Universal to tell me that I can go on and promote my record.

I want to dedicate this speech to the strength that Carolina had, which translated into something very positive in my life: courage, shamelessness, consumption, creativity, popular and credible. These words are not opposites they can co-exist, and If you wanna call me a prostitute, than I’m fine but then you are all pimps.

Prostitutes have always been muses for artists, from la Traviata to Roxanne. They all talk about the same thing. Freddy Mercury says we are all musical prostitutes and I completely agree, but the best prostitution quote actually comes from Winston Churchill. He was to a cocktail party and asked a lady about prostitution: “If I say I’ll give you 5milions pounds to sleep with me would you say yes?” And she says “Well, for 5milions pounds the terms could be discussed” and then he goes “If give you 5 pounds would you sleep with me?” and then she says “what kind of woman do you think I am?!” and so Winston Churchill replies “we have already established the kind of woman you are, we are just talking about the price”

The comments for me out of place...

appreciate that he is now admitting clearly that he is prostituting himself but do not call me your pimp. I am not the one who asked him to go on a TV show and stand around for hours signing autographs on a weekly basis to sell product. If Mika wants to make an album in his basement I will buy it. What I am not buying now are these songs that are artistic compromises - duets with Ariana Grande and Chiara that are inferior to the originals. Songs written by Doriand that are inferior to Mika's songs, etc. I don't want any of that. Obviously it doesn't matter what I want. But don't call me your pimp to justify your acts of prostitution.

are nävïe. you are hooker. Looking back at the struggles:mikasweat:AREVOLART pERIODICO THE DIFUSION CULTURAL.wHY IS IT? ONLY IS REFERED TO THE tITLE..

In honour of a Miami Prostitute: this is not a story about a hooker, this is a story about Mika and life

iF THIS IS REAL for me very interesting article , opposite the point view Gay...

for me the best this parthWhat is happening now is that majors are expanding exponentially and the number of artists that could have the opportunity to have a prior marketing roll-out are an handful. I’m now an artist in a minority within an industry in crisis. I depend on radio plays and sells all over the world: I’m a sum of all my markets. And without a serious international roll-out I’m seriously jeopardize my potential.

Last years I did a joyful album called The Origin of Love that wasn’t really good for radios but I didn’t care, as I know that careers are not made by chasing radios 100% of the time. Without radio my international promotion schedule from Universal started fading out and disappear. I quickly started my own promotion, I searched sponsors from a toothpaste in Indonesia to radio logos on my tickets in Europe

picture by – Vukobratovic Natasa ,cause MIka go more far away .. He is critizing himself..

tHER REST ARTICLE IS ROMANTIC AND ABOUT HIS LIFE THT IF iT´S REALIT´S AMAZING...

3O1_3zBUKM8

Edited December 12, 2013 by mer

[mellody]

I am not criticizing Mika for the things he spends his money on. I don't care if he wants to brush his teeth with champagne and caviar and wipe him bum with gold toilet paper. What I object to is his insistence that he needs to market himself in these whorish ways in order to make music. It's just not believable and it's manipulative. Anyone can make music. It doesn't cost millions and millions of pounds. Yes it's very expensive to promote it on a large scale, but why does it need to be promoted on a large scale? For fame and fortune, not to continue writing songs and recording them.

 

studio time costs money. good producers and good musicians cost money. and well, if that's in LA he needs a place to stay too, which surely won't be a cheap motel. so maybe it's not millions, but saying you can make an album with a mac isn't the truth either, anyway not for good quality music. and well, if he prefers to prostitute himself by doing casting shows to prostituting himself by lending his voice to cheap latino songs, like it was the case for his first album, it's understandable. the first gets him much more money, and the latter would be under his level meanwhile.

 

i do understand your point about not being his pimp, i'm also not happy with that statement of his. maybe what he means is that we only know about him because he prostitutes himself. even more true now for those who know him only because of x-factor. but if he wasn't with a big label like universal, who had massively promoted him in 2007, even we might still have no idea who he is - because seriously, *i* don't look online every day for new interesting artists, i admit they have to hit me in the face with it, with radioplay or advertising or at least a mention in an article that i'd read anyway (which is also known as PR, so not much different from advertising really ). sure, *now* i'd buy every piece of music by mika, and i'm always keeping updated about what he's doing, so i wouldn't miss any new music. but let's be fair, it's only a very small number of people who do that, probably not enough to earn him a living *and* finance his albums, if he doesn't do any serious promotion.

[Lucrezia]

There won't be a video. They weren't allowed to film apparently.

 

Radio Bocconi told me that there will be a podcast soon so I'll wait patiently for news

 

If it isn't a video, at least, we'll know exactly what he said

Edited December 12, 2013 by Lucrezia

[Christine]

studio time costs money. good producers and good musicians cost money. and well, if that's in LA he needs a place to stay too, which surely won't be a cheap motel.

 

Mika is the one who said he made Lola in a hotel room with some kid he found on the internet...I think it was? He doesn't need to record famous choirs at Capitol Studios anymore. Is WAG better than Lola? Not because of the songwriting but because of the record production? That's debatable IMO.

 

Anyway we'll see what happens. I think the involvement of all these collaborators to pander to local markets is creating inferior music and is making it less and less accessible to the international audience who bought millions and millions of copies of his previous albums. But I guess it remains to be seen.

[sarik31]

There's even an english translation about what he said yesterday at Bocconi:

 

http://revolart.it/in-honour-of-a-miami-prostitute-this-is-not-a-story-about-a-hooker-this-is-a-story-about-mika-and-life/

 

I read twice in Italian an in English and it seems a genuine confession of a very clever young man that has struggled to find his way and finally found . He is now focus on his goals

 

"I could have been a mess but I never went wrong" he is true.

 

The mix between brain and heart is the most energy wasting thing but in the end helps = right decision

 

If being a judge in my country, a coach in France mean "earning money" and helps him "to be free" I am with you boy and I am glad that you have learned earlier then me

In a way I feel sometime an hooker but this kind of human being are strong.

 

He quoted " la Traviata" but Violetta is not the victim she is the heroine

 

Anyway I am sure that the next album will be magical

 

Ps sorry

[nas]

 

Yes the specifics of Mika's purchases are no one's business. But when someone is asking you to buy their product and to understand their non artistic choices and believe that they are doing it for their music/art...I think it is relevant. As I said you don't need millions to make an album, but you do need them to buy houses all over the world.

 

 

 

Mika deserves everything he has and more. There is no question about that. I just don't think it is right to spin all of this as a devotion to music when there are surely other factors playing into these decisions. Every year it's more houses and less music so it's just not credible anymore. I think I would have been more understanding of all of this a long time ago if I felt there wasn't a manipulation in his messaging about what he's doing and why.

 

The bolded parts basically summarize what i think on this topic...I think yes, the side projects help fund his musical endeavors in some ways sure but also it seems to me he's doing them because he LIKES them. why is it so hard for him to just come out and say that without all the confuscation and justifying?

i mean we as fans don't have to like it and we can moan about it and disect it but at the end of the day he WILL do whatever he wants...so why not just say yea 'i do these things because i like to, i like designing, i like being a judge'...we can appreciate honesty and it's obvious the music takes a back seat during those times - we're not blind

 

i guess the bottom line of what i'm trying to say is that i don't think (insert emphasis on *my opinion* ) he's so much prostituting himself (entirely) for his music but merely finding s**t that pays and he likes doing, and that's ok..he should own his actions

[Alireine]

There's even an english translation about what he said yesterday at Bocconi:

 

http://revolart.it/in-honour-of-a-miami-prostitute-this-is-not-a-story-about-a-hooker-this-is-a-story-about-mika-and-life/

 

thank you!

 

 

 

i do understand your point about not being his pimp, i'm also not happy with that statement of his. maybe what he means is that we only know about him because he prostitutes himself. even more true now for those who know him only because of x-factor. but if he wasn't with a big label like universal, who had massively promoted him in 2007, even we might still have no idea who he is - because seriously, *i* don't look online every day for new interesting artists, i admit they have to hit me in the face with it, with radioplay or advertising or at least a mention in an article that i'd read anyway (which is also known as PR, so not much different from advertising really ). sure, *now* i'd buy every piece of music by mika, and i'm always keeping updated about what he's doing, so i wouldn't miss any new music. but let's be fair, it's only a very small number of people who do that, probably not enough to earn him a living *and* finance his albums, if he doesn't do any serious promotion.

 

 

Radio Bocconi told me that there will be a podcast soon so I'll wait patiently for news

 

If it isn't a video, at least, we'll know exactly what he said

 

yes, even if we don't get a video, a podcast would be fine

 

 

I read the English translation, all I can say is that for me it is very interesting. First because I learned new things about him and the start of his career.

Second because the topic is a great one and Mika shows well how he has always in a way or another "prostituted" himself for freedom and creation, and that he is not ashamed about that. (and IMO there is nothing to be ashamed of, in what he did until now). I find his way of explaining it very mature and clever. You can feel that he thought about this subject a lot, and that's what I love.

He is a clever man and I'm proud of him

[camille*]

Yesterday when I saw he gave a lecture at the university I seriously wondered what had happened to the singer I started becoming obsessed with 4 years ago (even if to be honest I've been doubting every now and then for some time now)

 

I waited to know more about what he said of course; now I've read it and I admire his honesty and I always like to know more about his life before he became famous, but I can't help but feeling a bit sad about all this. What he says about his 'vision' in 2007 is the vision I liked, not so much the one from 2013... even if he is a victim there. Like him my heart and mind are in some kind of battle; I'm really not so happy to know he's 'prostituting' himself on TV shows, yet I've been to see him at the recording of The Voice for example. I'm more and more doubting about his way to handle his career and at the same time I know I continue to support him. It's a very strange situation. I think it shows that I'm an unconditional fan for now, but how long will this last?

[Alireine]

The bolded parts basically summarize what i think on this topic...I think yes, the side projects help fund his musical endeavors in some ways sure but also it seems to me he's doing them because he LIKES them. why is it so hard for him to just come out and say that without all the confuscation and justifying?

i mean we as fans don't have to like it and we can moan about it and disect it but at the end of the day he WILL do whatever he wants...so why not just say yea 'i do these things because i like to, i like designing, i like being a judge'...we can appreciate honesty and it's obvious the music takes a back seat during those times - we're not blind

 

i guess the bottom line of what i'm trying to say is that i don't think (insert emphasis on *my opinion* ) he's so much prostituting himself (entirely) for his music but merely finding s**t that pays and he likes doing, and that's ok..he should own his actions

 

I understand what you say, and I think he likes these side projects too, but I don't understand why it is for you an opposition to what he said in the lecture?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think he never said that he doesn't like these side projects, right?

What I mean is, he needs to promote himself and he chosed to "prostitue" himself with XF, the Voice and everything else (meaning here that he needs to do things less artistic and not in his musical values), so why not chosing side projects that are fun for him?

 

I think he is taking the best from this situation, trying to enjoy things he thinks he needs to do, instead of being a victim and complaining about it. I would say he prefers to look on the bright sides of things

And I love people like that

[mellody]

btw, i just noticed that the point when he started promoting himself is similar to the point from which we started getting really regular facebook and twitter updates... well done to him for that!

[tiibet]

Radio Bocconi told me that there will be a podcast soon so I'll wait patiently for news

 

If it isn't a video, at least, we'll know exactly what he said

 

Very good news, cant wait!

 

Second because the topic is a great one and Mika shows well how he has always in a way or another "prostituted" himself for freedom and creation, and that he is not ashamed about that. (and IMO there is nothing to be ashamed of, in what he did until now). I find his way of explaining it very mature and clever. You can feel that he thought about this subject a lot, and that's what I love.

He is a clever man and I'm proud of him

 

I have very similar thoughts. I understand why he is talking about prostituting - he is doing things to get money for his music or to promote his music. At the same time I can see he has thought this trough and decided it needs to be done and he works hard. I'm proud of him too and happy he makes it clear he wants to make music.

[IngievV]

Am I the only one feeling like I missed out on a lot of money being his pimp and all?

[mellody]

Am I the only one feeling like I missed out on a lot of money being his pimp and all?

 

good point.

[Alireine]

Am I the only one feeling like I missed out on a lot of money being his pimp and all?

 

[smokesignal]

Mika made the conference at the university in english. Here's a short vid

 

 

Wondering why he reads it from a piece of paper. This particular part of the speech sounds extremely familiar...

 

I have yet to read the rest, no opinion about that yet...