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2015 - Adelphi Theatre, London 18 October - REPORTS/PICS/VIDS


crazyaboutmika

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You could have fooled me. Or actually you did fool  me. And then they say we Dutch are direct. I imagined you all sitting behind the computer, like this.

angry1-584x340.jpg

Well there was a little bit of this:

 

:doh:

 

But it's hard to spend more than 10 minutes on the internet without that happening.

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Hello, I'm new here. I joined MFC some months ago but, as I am a rather shy person, I just observed (and enjoyed all the materials, interviews and music from live concerts) without never posting…

It’s probably not a good idea to enter in this discussion, especially since it’s my first post, but in the last few days I kept coming here because I was a bit upset by this “war” that happened after a comment in an interview and that I think many non-English mother tongue fans can’t truly understand. You see, I’m Italian and I really don’t get the problem with listening to a song in another language. I obviously listen to more Italian music, but I usually listen - and like - songs in English, French, Spanish and other languages too. For me, the first and most important thing is the melody. I can’t understand the words in a different language without looking up the written lyrics before. Yes, it’s a bit more difficult, but I think that, if I really like a song or a musician, it’s an effort that I have to do (and can enrich me very much, helping me to learn new languages and discovering new cultures).

About the French songs, I really like them, even the ones not in the album, like “J’ai pas envie”. And I think it’s the same for many Italian fans, and fans all around the world (see the recent Asian tour). Especially I like that Mika seems so happy when he performs them and put so much effort to make them funny and to take down the barrier of language and make all the people dance. He said many times that he is not only British, but also Lebanese, French and American. It’s natural that there could be songs that we don’t like (for example, I’m not crazy about some songs of the second album), but I think we have to accept all parts of his identity, if we like him as a person and as a musician. And I think that’s why he was so hurt (that he felt “refused” somehow) and talked about it in the interview after such a long time. He should probably let it go, but we are all humans and, when something touches us deeply, it’s difficult to forget (especially if in the past you have been harshly criticized, you tend to put up your defences). By the way, in the interview, he put the accent on the touching moment of the flags (that I think all fans participated in, probably even the fan that criticized him) to tell that he shouldn’t have judged the situation so quickly… And he didn’t make the name of the person. Are you sure she’s really the one? That said, I think it’s horrible that someone has written so many bad comments about this person. It’s not in any way justified, but even me, like I said, don’t understand her point of view about listening songs in French or any foreign language… I even think it would be interesting if Mika did a song in Korean, Japanese, Mandarin or another difficult language (I certainly would want to hear that!).

On the other hand, reading your comments I think the issue is perhaps more about Mika not doing shows in UK for a long time and the old fans feeling kind of abandoned. But I don’t know if that’s really his fault or what he wants. I think that his last two albums didn’t sell that well there and he received a lot of bad press and comments too. Perhaps, at the time he accepted X Factor in Italy, he was just trying to find a new market (if it went bad, the consequences wouldn’t have been so horrible). Then it went well and I can’t really fault him for going for the new opportunities that came from it and from The Voice (more freedom for his music and concerts). Perhaps his popularity would return if he did a radio or television show in UK, but I don’t know if he now has offers (or offers that he would like). He said many times that it should be something related to things he knows about and something where he can have freedom to experiment. And probably for the concerts is the same: I think that today they cost a lot of money, even small gigs, and in any part of the world you need to have promoters and people that invest (and that is based on popularity). He said it recently about Australia, and I think that it could be the same for other countries.

Sorry if I offended someone with my opinions in my first post (I know I talked too much…) and sorry for my grammar mistakes. I want to thank all of you for this wonderful place and for all you do for other fans (especially Nina for the touching live videos and stories about gigs, Marina and Eriko for the interviews and materials, and all the subtitling people!). A big hug to all of you!

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You could have fooled me. Or actually you did fool  me. And then they say we Dutch are direct. I imagined you all sitting behind the computer, like this.

angry1-584x340.jpg

I'm slowly getting used to the way of communicating here . It's just a bit confusing that there are so many different ways of doing that on the Forum. But let's say that's a challenge.

 

I had fun too. At least people are reacting to my posts in this thread. :thumb_yello:

And a lot of this  :lol3:   and a bit of this  :boxed:

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I dislike it precisely because I can understand it and I find it ridiculous. :naughty:

But we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. As abealma says he doesn't care what any of us think so it is neither here nor there. And if I know Mika, BBB will be on the setlist in June, along with some more French songs. Because although he sucks up to the locals in every single city he plays in, it seems his attitude towards the UK is always "f*ck you".

Let's agree to disagree about that too.

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I didn't here anyone booing BBB at the Adelphi. It was a great gig. 

 

Exactly. That is why I was totally taken aback by his comments on the 'intolerant' reaction. There was no sign of intolerance witnessed by me, either.

 

 

It´s not worth writing more about this issue.

...

 

I don´t know why here we can´t stop turning it over and over again.

 

This is no longer about the 'issue', actually, just general discussion. I haven't checked when you joined but this type of conversation used to be the norm on MFC, whether the topic was a song, a gig, whether the colour of his jacket was blue or purple..etc - anything. :teehee:

I believe many of us actually enjoy it but no worries, it will soon turn peace and quiet again as Mika is pretty inactive outside France and Italy, so not much to talk about - not for me, at least.

Edited by suzie
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Exactly. That is why I was totally taken aback by his comments on the 'intolerant' reaction. There was no sign of intolerance witnessed by me, either.

 

 

 

This is no longer about the 'issue', actually, just general discussion. I haven't checked when you joined but this type of conversation used to be the norm on MFC, whether the topic was a song, a gig, whether the colour of his jacket was blue or purple..etc - anything. :teehee:

I believe many of us actually enjoy it but no worries, it will soon turn peace and quiet again as Mika is pretty inactive outside France and Italy, so not much to talk about - not for me, at least.

Yeah, we will all go away for another few years.

You are right though, this place used to full of lively debate and argument. And more interesting for it IMO.

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Hello, I'm new here. I joined MFC some months ago but, as I am a rather shy person, I just observed (and enjoyed all the materials, interviews and music from live concerts) without never posting…

It’s probably not a good idea to enter in this discussion, especially since it’s my first post, but in the last few days I kept coming here because I was a bit upset by this “war” that happened after a comment in an interview and that I think many non-English mother tongue fans can’t truly understand. You see, I’m Italian and I really don’t get the problem with listening to a song in another language. I obviously listen to more Italian music, but I usually listen - and like - songs in English, French, Spanish and other languages too. For me, the first and most important thing is the melody. I can’t understand the words in a different language without looking up the written lyrics before. Yes, it’s a bit more difficult, but I think that, if I really like a song or a musician, it’s an effort that I have to do (and can enrich me very much, helping me to learn new languages and discovering new cultures).

About the French songs, I really like them, even the ones not in the album, like “J’ai pas envie”. And I think it’s the same for many Italian fans, and fans all around the world (see the recent Asian tour). Especially I like that Mika seems so happy when he performs them and put so much effort to make them funny and to take down the barrier of language and make all the people dance. He said many times that he is not only British, but also Lebanese, French and American. It’s natural that there could be songs that we don’t like (for example, I’m not crazy about some songs of the second album), but I think we have to accept all parts of his identity, if we like him as a person and as a musician. And I think that’s why he was so hurt (that he felt “refused” somehow) and talked about it in the interview after such a long time. He should probably let it go, but we are all humans and, when something touches us deeply, it’s difficult to forget (especially if in the past you have been harshly criticized, you tend to put up your defences). By the way, in the interview, he put the accent on the touching moment of the flags (that I think all fans participated in, probably even the fan that criticized him) to tell that he shouldn’t have judged the situation so quickly… And he didn’t make the name of the person. Are you sure she’s really the one? That said, I think it’s horrible that someone has written so many bad comments about this person. It’s not in any way justified, but even me, like I said, don’t understand her point of view about listening songs in French or any foreign language… I even think it would be interesting if Mika did a song in Korean, Japanese, Mandarin or another difficult language (I certainly would want to hear that!).

On the other hand, reading your comments I think the issue is perhaps more about Mika not doing shows in UK for a long time and the old fans feeling kind of abandoned. But I don’t know if that’s really his fault or what he wants. I think that his last two albums didn’t sell that well there and he received a lot of bad press and comments too. Perhaps, at the time he accepted X Factor in Italy, he was just trying to find a new market (if it went bad, the consequences wouldn’t have been so horrible). Then it went well and I can’t really fault him for going for the new opportunities that came from it and from The Voice (more freedom for his music and concerts). Perhaps his popularity would return if he did a radio or television show in UK, but I don’t know if he now has offers (or offers that he would like). He said many times that it should be something related to things he knows about and something where he can have freedom to experiment. And probably for the concerts is the same: I think that today they cost a lot of money, even small gigs, and in any part of the world you need to have promoters and people that invest (and that is based on popularity). He said it recently about Australia, and I think that it could be the same for other countries.

Sorry if I offended someone with my opinions in my first post (I know I talked too much…) and sorry for my grammar mistakes. I want to thank all of you for this wonderful place and for all you do for other fans (especially Nina for the touching live videos and stories about gigs, Marina and Eriko for the interviews and materials, and all the subtitling people!). A big hug to all of you!

 

This is one of the best first posts I've seen on this forum  :thumb_yello: I quite agree with your point of view (I put some of your words in bold because it is the same for me) and want to thank you for sharing it  :wink2:

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You see, I’m Italian and I really don’t get the problem with listening to a song in another language. I obviously listen to more Italian music, but I usually listen - and like - songs in English, French, Spanish and other languages too. For me, the first and most important thing is the melody. I can’t understand the words in a different language without looking up the written lyrics before. Yes, it’s a bit more difficult, but I think that, if I really like a song or a musician, it’s an effort that I have to do (and can enrich me very much, helping me to learn new languages and discovering new cultures).

 

I think I've been annoying Nectar with too many generalizations about UK fans ( :naughty:) but let me talk about myself and Canada. I looked at the top songs in Italy a few weeks ago and there were 5 songs by Canadian artists in the top 10. I don't think there will ever be a time when there is even one Italian song on the Canadian charts. Of course we have some exposure to Italian through opera but there has never been and will never be Italian pop music in the mainstream here. The English speaking entertainment industry and culture in general is massive. I do not have enough time in the day to consume everything that is out there - Canadian, American, British, Australian, Irish. It is just not part of my culture to seek out foreign language entertainment unless it is something extraordinary that captures the entire world's attention (Amelie, Gangnam Style, etc). You can call it lazy but it seems absurd to me to spend the extra time struggling to learn some foreign lyrics when there are literally millions of other songs I could be listening to that are of the same quality and appeal to me in terms of the melody, rhythm, etc.

 

When people say they "don't understand it" and especially when Mika calls it intolerant, you are judging something that is unfair to judge and imposing your worldview on people who have no reason to share it. It is obvious to me that the culture in Italy is to listen to English pop music and it is not the culture in (English) Canada at all to listen to Italian music. You can't compare your individual interest in foreign language music to mine. It is not an analogous situation. I live in a culture where we just don't do that. My tastes in music are based on my life experiences. My life experience includes having almost zero exposure to foreign pop music while I was growing up and acquiring my tastes.

 

No one needs to understand it, but people should at least accept that a lot of people who have spent their lives immersed in English language culture have other reasons for finding foreign pop music unappealing beyond being intolerant,

Edited by Christine
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That's exactly what I've been wondering for 3 days...

In the video he says someone "started insulting [him]", that it was "intolerant" "mean" and "judgemental".

Jemma said "because it's in f*** French!"

Why do people think he was talking about her? I don't see the connection...

Did I miss something?

Maybe he did hear someone being rude/aggressive?

 

Imo Jemma had every right to express herself, she did nothing wrong. And I'm very impressed you had the courage to do this video to explain how you feel Jemma :thumb_yello: . Even if I don't agree with everything you said, I respect your opinion. It's such a shame some "fans" can't understand that and insult you. I hope you find a bit of comfort knowing there are people here who support you :wink2:

 

I find it interesting to see different opinions about setlists and Mika's behaviour.

 

I don't think he wanted to hurt anyone with what he said at the concerts. As someone already said Mika won't be hurt by the words written in this thread because he'll never see them. In the same way, he probably never thought the fan he talks about would hear his little speech. I saw a few videos and the tone was rather cheerful, I really think and hope he just wanted to entertain the audience. Moreover the expression "needing more BBB" doesn't sound like an insult to me but that may be because I'm French. This phrase is sometimes used as a joke between friends. It's not really elegant of course and I wouldn't say it. But my point is that I don't think he hurt Jemma/the person he is talking about on purpose.

I hope I'm right.

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Just putting my two cents in, even though I have no business here sorry, but why do you guys have to focus so much on this negative stuff that all spiraled from one song choice and the chain reaction from him performing it?

 

You guys are just privileged enough to be able to see him live! I am not saying anyone's opinion is less valid than mine, but i'm just super jealous that you guys get to see him and you complain about one song choice instead of thinking of how lucky you were able to be there!

 

Obviously feelings have been hurt on both Mika and the fans' side, which is extremely unfortunate and things shouldn't have gone the way they did. I just wish people could share their opinions and move on without trying to put down someone else's opinion or turning this into some kind of war.

 

Sorry if I offended anyone, I'm just trying to just say my opinion as someone who has never experienced the joy of seeing Mika live.

 

Thanks

 

Thanks for reminding of this, so true! And there's no need to apologize anything! Everyone is welcome to post and many fans are your age. I hope you will have your possibility to see a Mika show! 

 

 

...

After three years gig absence from London, except from the short performance in Hyde Park four months earlier, both MIKA and his fans surely had very high expectations to this evening, but unfortunately something went wrong  :( It's all very sad,  especially for  :thumb_yello:the persons directly involved  :( Now we just have to hope that things will get better, without any drama - when MIKA again will visit his hometown, with a new show  at the iconic London Palladium, in less than three months!    :)  

...

 

It's good to remember that no matter how he felt before or during the Adelphi show and especially after the response to BBB he still did a great show. He is a professional and experienced stage performer already and now also used to regular live television show pressure. I can still well remember how nervous he used to look in the beginning of some important London shows and now there was no sign of it in Adelphi. Hundreds of fans (at least more than ever before this) had come to this particular gig and the place was full of love (like he finally realized when he saw the flags). There's no reason why Palladium wouldn't be a fantastic event as well  :wink2:

 

 

Set lists are part of the creative process and shouldn't be dictated by some pseudo-scientific statistical nonsense. I'm not saying he shouldn't play hits - that would be silly - but there should always be room for something new or different to be included.

 

I like the bolded definition  :thumb_yello:

 

Hello, I'm new here. I joined MFC some months ago but, as I am a rather shy person, I just observed (and enjoyed all the materials, interviews and music from live concerts) without never posting…

It’s probably not a good idea to enter in this discussion, especially since it’s my first post, but in the last few days I kept coming here because I was a bit upset by this “war” that happened after a comment in an interview and that I think many non-English mother tongue fans can’t truly understand. You see, I’m Italian and I really don’t get the problem with listening to a song in another language. I obviously listen to more Italian music, but I usually listen - and like - songs in English, French, Spanish and other languages too. For me, the first and most important thing is the melody. I can’t understand the words in a different language without looking up the written lyrics before. Yes, it’s a bit more difficult, but I think that, if I really like a song or a musician, it’s an effort that I have to do (and can enrich me very much, helping me to learn new languages and discovering new cultures).

About the French songs, I really like them, even the ones not in the album, like “J’ai pas envie”. And I think it’s the same for many Italian fans, and fans all around the world (see the recent Asian tour). Especially I like that Mika seems so happy when he performs them and put so much effort to make them funny and to take down the barrier of language and make all the people dance. He said many times that he is not only British, but also Lebanese, French and American. It’s natural that there could be songs that we don’t like (for example, I’m not crazy about some songs of the second album), but I think we have to accept all parts of his identity, if we like him as a person and as a musician. And I think that’s why he was so hurt (that he felt “refused” somehow) and talked about it in the interview after such a long time. He should probably let it go, but we are all humans and, when something touches us deeply, it’s difficult to forget (especially if in the past you have been harshly criticized, you tend to put up your defences). By the way, in the interview, he put the accent on the touching moment of the flags (that I think all fans participated in, probably even the fan that criticized him) to tell that he shouldn’t have judged the situation so quickly… And he didn’t make the name of the person. Are you sure she’s really the one? That said, I think it’s horrible that someone has written so many bad comments about this person. It’s not in any way justified, but even me, like I said, don’t understand her point of view about listening songs in French or any foreign language… I even think it would be interesting if Mika did a song in Korean, Japanese, Mandarin or another difficult language (I certainly would want to hear that!).

On the other hand, reading your comments I think the issue is perhaps more about Mika not doing shows in UK for a long time and the old fans feeling kind of abandoned. But I don’t know if that’s really his fault or what he wants. I think that his last two albums didn’t sell that well there and he received a lot of bad press and comments too. Perhaps, at the time he accepted X Factor in Italy, he was just trying to find a new market (if it went bad, the consequences wouldn’t have been so horrible). Then it went well and I can’t really fault him for going for the new opportunities that came from it and from The Voice (more freedom for his music and concerts). Perhaps his popularity would return if he did a radio or television show in UK, but I don’t know if he now has offers (or offers that he would like). He said many times that it should be something related to things he knows about and something where he can have freedom to experiment. And probably for the concerts is the same: I think that today they cost a lot of money, even small gigs, and in any part of the world you need to have promoters and people that invest (and that is based on popularity). He said it recently about Australia, and I think that it could be the same for other countries.

Sorry if I offended someone with my opinions in my first post (I know I talked too much…) and sorry for my grammar mistakes. I want to thank all of you for this wonderful place and for all you do for other fans (especially Nina for the touching live videos and stories about gigs, Marina and Eriko for the interviews and materials, and all the subtitling people!). A big hug to all of you!

 

This is a great first post indeed, thanks for sharing it! I share your views and enjoy French songs as well.  Your English is excellent in my eyes, don't worry about it at all. 

Edited by tiibet
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Ok, so obviously my post did not make it obvious why I was using the words I did, so let me give it one more try and explain the background....

 

When I started to read this thread I found a string of funny comments by you, posting from the US and asking a native speaker not to use words you don't understand. I also found you engaged in some utterly ridiculous conversation about the meaning of a phase unknown to you that you tried to understand with the help of Google pictures ... At that point I was about to step in and recommend you refer to a dictionary or an online Thesaurus to figure out meanings of words rather than sticking to your interpretation that was based on some cartoon.

In the end, I didn't do that but checked your MFC posts in the news section to see who is the group (the  'WE')  you are talking in the name of. I did not get closer to the answer but the picure captions I saw from you did make me draw my conclusions. However, most certainly I would not have not pointed it out had I not witnessed a conversation on this thread in which you practically wanted other members to adjust their English to the level you understand.

 

I hope it is clear now. Any learner of a second language gets my appreciation by default (I am one as well) but preaching native speakers about the vocabulary they are meant to use when you also  have significant gaps calls for nothing but the urgent need for a reality check.   

 

Thanks a lot for your explaination.

 

Let me explain why I stuck with Christine back then for these phrases. For a lot English words/phrases they can be interpreted more than one way. And by the first time of reading we would not know we misunderstand. You may or may not noticed here that but a lot times non-native speakers saying some posts are rude/mean and some find they're obvious not.  As I have pointed out before, one reason for this is because we can not hear the tougue of speaking, another reason is that these phrases can really easy to be misinterpreted in another way.

 

I've lived in US for three years, I can speak relatively fluent English with an Asian accent, because I also need to teach marketing in English. Besides communicating with my students I also talk with my colleges, friends, advisors everyday in English. I do not know the language difference between the places we live, because during the past three years I can't recall one time there're some words/phrases spoken by others are something like these phrases. It's not that they do not use similar words, but normally they use these words to describe the people they really dislike ( trust me, I hear "s**k up" a lot from my advisor when he describe someone in a really "I dont like that guy" tongue, Drump for example,we talked about politics a lot every Tuesday when he bought us pizza, he kept saying someone "s**k up" Drump, and he despised both sides in that phrase). I remember hearing people around me use "yapping" too, to describe someone ( let's call him A) talking too much or talking in an annoying way, again in that case the speaker really dislike the A, otherwise he would just say A talk too much instead of using the word "yapping" . Yet I remember one ( I dont remember who he/she is) MFCer here saying mika is "yapping" at the UK gig.

 

I hope you see the points here, a lot phrases used here are not neutral to me, these phrases in my understanding are normally used on people you dislike. The reason I picked these words to Christine, in the begining was to explain her why I was in a defensive mode for mika, since she said she did not know why the fans felt protective and defensive for mika.

 

I also believe these phrases mean bad things to a lot non-native speaker and even some native speakers. They asked me why some MFCers here talked about MIKA like he was our enemy, we discussed and we did not know why. Because obiviously these MFCers are also fans, they like MIKA, don't they?

 

The reason I showed these pics, which to you seemed ridiculous, is because the definition of "suck up" in dictionary is neutral, yet you can tell from these pics some people consider this phrase to really despisable behavior and only use this word to people they dislike. I do not think all of these people are non-native speakers.

 

I am not asking you to change your way of writing/speaking, that would be really hard I understand. I am simply explaining the situations here and why these phrases have pinched my nerve, as well as the nerves of people similar to me in some sense.  

 

I like to really consider my wording before I write it down, because I know people can not hear my tougue and all the motions in the words would be exaggerated. But this is only my habit. It's completely your freedom to do similar thing or not.

Edited by yang
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Let me rephrase that - he doesn't respect what we think. Unless of course you simply echo his own thoughts, tastes, interests and worldview back to him.

Don't we all do that? When was the last time you did something because someone told you to, when it didn't match your own "thoughts, tastes, interests and worldview" Unless it was your boss or your mother doing the telling :teehee:

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@mariafrancy

I really liked your post, perhaps because I can totally relate to your point of view: if I were your age and a fan just joining, I would most likely have the same view and understanding of events as well as what Mika is all about.

I also have the same perspective on songs in other languages ( I do like them and to me it makes no real difference) but with a note that usually it is non-English native speakers who write pop songs in their own language. They do so partly because that is the best way they can express themselves and partly because their lingustic and cultural background will influence the rythm and the structure of the music itself. The way I perceive Mika's French songs is that they are essentially English pop songs with a French guy, Doriand, writing the lyrics. That  could pretty much be the reason they don't appeal to me as I can see no point in listening to a Latin-rhythm song in French and especially not at a concert with a predominently English speaking audience. Naturally, Mika has all the right to sing that song anywhere and in a way he did his best to explain it all in his own cheeky manner, so as far as I am concerned, it fitted the setlist.

 

Sorry if I offended someone with my opinions in my first post (I know I talked too much…) and sorry for my grammar mistakes. 

Opinions can't hurt anyone, no need to apologise for that. Long posts are welcome, especially if they make sense like yours :)

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Let me rephrase that - he doesn't respect what we think. Unless of course you simply echo his own thoughts, tastes, interests and worldview back to him.

Well, that's a general human quality IMO. Don't we all do that usually? It's rather difficult to step out of your own worldview.

 

edit: I just read Naectegales post. Why say anything anyway. It's all been said and done before  :floor:  :bed:  .

Edited by Pascale
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When people say they "don't understand it" and especially when Mika calls it intolerant, you are judging something that is unfair to judge and imposing your worldview on people who have no reason to share it. It is obvious to me that the culture in Italy is to listen to English pop music and it is not the culture in (English) Canada at all to listen to Italian music. You can't compare your individual interest in foreign language music to mine. It is not an analogous situation. I live in a culture where we just don't do that. My tastes in music are based on my life experiences. My life experience includes having almost zero exposure to foreign pop music while I was growing up and acquiring my tastes.

 

I understand that the UK (or other English speaking) audience doesn't find French songs generally appealing and the reasons behind it, I've learnt about it during some previous MFC discussions. French music is simply not a part of the UK music culture or taste. What I find harder to understand and where I pay attention as a foreigner (coming from a not English speaking country) is the unconditional tone. It has not been a part of the music culture so far so it can't ever be that. Why not some day in the future? Why not give it a chance? 

 

Mika learnt to love France when growing up and it's now a big part of his life. Maybe he hoped he could introduce that side of himself to the UK audience in small amounts (making one French song more familiar to people) and feels now hurt because he doesn't seem to get a chance to do it :dunno: I'm not asking any of these questions to argue, just genuinely trying to understand. 

 

Edit: Corrected some spelling errors. How useful it is to say anything if you make such bad spelling errors no one can take it seriously.  :aah: So sorry about my English! Oh well.  

Edited by tiibet
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I think I've been annoying Nectar with too many generalizations about UK fans ( :naughty:)

 

:yeah:

 

:bleh:

 

I am a bit surprised that you don't hear French songs in Canada? or aren't the French Canadians allowed out of Quebec? :aah:

 

Are you culturally segregated? I ask only because I don't know :aah: Is Canada so big that you can have separate industries with their own charts and for things never to cross over?

Edited by Naectegale
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Thanks a lot for your explaination.

 

Let me explain why I stuck with Christine back then for these phrases. For a lot English words/phrases they can be interpreted more than one way. And by the first time of reading we would not know we misunderstand. You may or may not noticed here that but a lot times non-native speakers saying some posts are rude/mean and some find they're obvious not.  As I have pointed out before, one reason for this is because we can not hear the tougue of speaking, another reason is that these phrases can really easy to be misinterpreted in another way.

 

I've lived in US for three years, I can speak relatively fluent English with an Asian accent, because I also need to teach marketing in English. Besides communicating with my students I also talk with my colleges, friends, advisors everyday in English. I do not know the language difference between the places we live, because during the past three years I can't recall one time there're some words/phrases spoken by others are something like these phrases. It's not that they do not use similar words, but normally they use these words to describe the people they really dislike ( trust me, I hear "s**k up" a lot from my advisor when he describe someone in a really "I dont like that guy" tongue, Drump for example,we talked about politics a lot every Tuesday when he bought us pizza, he kept saying someone "s**k up" Drump, and he despised both sides in that phrase). I remember hearing people around me use "yapping" too, to describe someone ( let's call him A) talking too much or talking in an annoying way, again in that case the speaker really dislike the A, otherwise he would just say A talk too much instead of using the word "yapping" . Yet I remember one ( I dont remember who he/she is) MFCer here saying mika is "yapping" at the UK gig.

 

I hope you see the points here, a lot phrases used here are not neutral to me, these phrases in my understanding are normally used on people you dislike. The reason I picked these words to Christine, in the begining was to explain her why I was in a defensive mode for mika, since she said she did not know why the fans felt protective and defensive for mika.

 

I also believe these phrases mean bad things to a lot non-native speaker and even some native speakers. They asked me why some MFCers here talked about MIKA like he was our enemy, we discussed and we did not know why. Because obiviously these MFCers are also fans, they like MIKA, don't they?

 

The reason I showed these pics, which to you seemed ridiculous, is because the definition of "suck up" in dictionary is neutral, yet you can tell from these pics some people consider this phrase to really despisable behavior and only use this word to people they dislike. I do not think all of these people are non-native speakers.

 

I am not asking you to change your way of writing/speaking, that would be really hard I understand. I am simply explaining the situations here and why these phrases have pinched my nerve, as well as the nerves of people similar to me in some sense.  

 

I like to really consider my wording before I write it down, because I know people can not hear my tougue and all the motions in the words would be exaggerated. But this is only my habit. It's completely your freedom to do similar thing or not.

 

 

:thumb_yello:

Hi Yang,

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. I must admit I jumped to a conclusion too soon - I literally only checked posts from you for a few minutes when I 'jumped in' - also in someone's defence. I am really sorry for that. I understand your point now and also your explanation that it pinched a nerve. I often end up in similar situation and it happened to me as well this time: I have seen many similar debates on this forum with similar argumentation with Christine / a group of 'old fans' on one side and  another group who felt they were somehow excluded on the other.

I do believe no-one is excluded here by default. This is an ideal forum where any fan from anywhere in the world can find their safe place: we have topics for those who love to discuss music / lyrics, separate threads for concert discussions, pieces of news, artwork, foreign language threads...etc. A real diverse place.

When I first joined I remember I  felt that fans who did not know me hardly ever answered my posts and it was also a bit difficult for me to find friends. However, I did not give up and followed the conversation of the very talkative native speakers and just by reading those posts I understood a lot and eventually I made friends with a lot of people here. So if you could help make fans who currently feel excluded make understand that essentially all these talks actually are FOR Mika and not against him, that would be great...

I know it does sound like one big debate with some people slashing him but everyone on this forum likes him and we are just analysing his actions without even hoping anything will ever change. If we didn't care, we would visit this site.

Edited by suzie
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Yeah, we will all go away for another few years.

You are right though, this place used to full of lively debate and argument. And more interesting for it IMO.

Well, you could learn/ perfect your French/Italian and watch the Voice/X-factor so we can talk about that. ;)  

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:yeah:

 

:bleh:

 

I am a bit surprised that you don't hear French songs in Canada? or aren't the French Canadians allowed out of Quebec? :aah:

 

Are you culturally segregated? I ask only because I don't know :aah: Is Canada so big that you can have separate industries with their own charts and for things never to cross over?

I can give you a crash course on this later...

 

The short answer is: it's pretty separate.

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I think I've been annoying Nectar with too many generalizations about UK fans ( :naughty:) but let me talk about myself and Canada. I looked at the top songs in Italy a few weeks ago and there were 5 songs by Canadian artists in the top 10. I don't think there will ever be a time when there is even one Italian song on the Canadian charts. Of course we have some exposure to Italian through opera but there has never been and will never be Italian pop music in the mainstream here. The English speaking entertainment industry and culture in general is massive. I do not have enough time in the day to consume everything that is out there - Canadian, American, British, Australian, Irish. It is just not part of my culture to seek out foreign language entertainment unless it is something extraordinary that captures the entire world's attention (Amelie, Gangnam Style, etc). You can call it lazy but it seems absurd to me to spend the extra time struggling to learn some foreign lyrics when there are literally millions of other songs I could be listening to that are of the same quality and appeal to me in terms of the melody, rhythm, etc.

 

When people say they "don't understand it" and especially when Mika calls it intolerant, you are judging something that is unfair to judge and imposing your worldview on people who have no reason to share it. It is obvious to me that the culture in Italy is to listen to English pop music and it is not the culture in (English) Canada at all to listen to Italian music. You can't compare your individual interest in foreign language music to mine. It is not an analogous situation. I live in a culture where we just don't do that. My tastes in music are based on my life experiences. My life experience includes having almost zero exposure to foreign pop music while I was growing up and acquiring my tastes.

 

No one needs to understand it, but people should at least accept that a lot of people who have spent their lives immersed in English language culture have other reasons for finding foreign pop music unappealing beyond being intolerant,

 

 

Yes, I understand what you are saying about different backgrounds and exposure to a certain kind of music since your childhood and I wouldn’t certainly judge anyone if his or her tastes are different from mine! But why don’t give it a try if you already really like the other songs of an artist? I think that Mika in the last few years made many discoveries too, listening to Italian and French music for his television shows and probably that influenced a bit even his new English songs (I don’t know if you like "Talk about you", but part of the inspiration came from an old Italian song, that I love and is in the credits).

And, to tell the truth, I was probably a bit in your situation when I was a kid: since my parents (like many older people in Italy) don’t understand a word of English, I mostly listened to Italian songs, with just a bit of classical music and French oldies. It was only in high school, but especially University and after, that I really started to discover music in English and other languages. Now, in recent years, it’s so easy to find new music on YouTube! And you can make interesting discovers too. Probably it’s also a question of temperament, since I am quite curious… But I’ll tell you a funny thing: I made my parents listen to Mika last album (the double one with the symphonic concert) and they loved the songs! Especially Any other world, Grace Kelly, Promiseland and Ordinary Man. They obviously can’t sing them, but my mother even went to google to find an Italian translation of the lyrics (and that’s never happened for another English artist). It’s really true that Mika can be liked by every generation, from kids to older people…

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Well, that's a general human quality IMO. Don't we all do that usually? It's rather difficult to step out of your own worldview.

 

edit: I just read Naectegales post. Why say anything anyway. It's all been said and done before  :floor:  :bed:  .

Great minds think alike :wink2:

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I can give you a crash course on this later...

 

The short answer is: it's pretty separate.

b.b.but..hang on a bit -  you live in Quebec - how do you manage to avoid French songs in Quebec? :aah:

 

Sorry to bang on about it - it's well :ot: I know - but I'd never thought about it before :teehee:

 

Edit: In my excitement I confused you with Christine :doh:  so maybe it's English songs you have to seek out?

Edited by Naectegale
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It’s probably not a good idea to enter in this discussion, especially since it’s my first post

 

 

 

 

I think this is the best first post I've ever read it here  :clap:

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