Devil's Wink

[smhh]

MIKA once said in an interview 'everything I do has to have that devil's wink' ...what examples of a 'devil's wink' have you guys noticed in MIKA's music and videos?

[Mikasister]

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[Kumazzz]

Mika mentioned devil’s wink in these interviews.

 

 

Metro US

https://www.metro.us/mika-bares-it-all/

Posted on April 27, 2015

 

Mika bares it all

 

Mika may have churned out bubblegum hits like “Love Today” and “Popular” in the past, but his new album, “No Place In Heaven” (out this June) is melodious while exploring deeper, darker issues. Mika opens up to us about emerging from complete isolation to share the personal issues that matter the most to him.

 

“I became afraid of what people think”
It’s been three years since Mika’s last album, “The Origin of Love” and he says for most of that time, he purposely disappeared. “I went into almost complete isolation in my daily life and in my professional choices,” he says.

 

“I became afraid of what people would think of my work. I isolated myself which was so stupid because I realize now that as soon as you become preoccupied with worrying what people think about protecting yourself, it’s like a creative cancer.”

 

Taking chances
On New Year’s Eve, he decided to change that, making a promise to himself that he would say yes to the next offer that came his way, no matter what. He got more than he bargained for when he was asked to be a judge on “The X-Factor” in Italy. But Mika followed through, learning Italian in two months. As a result of that, he landed a deal doing “The Voice” in France.

 

Reemerging helped him get back to a place of honesty in his music. “I stopped that false protection, which was just getting in the way. When you hear the album, it’s got such a devil’s wink in it and the subjects I deal with are truly hard and very intimate, but when combined with joyful pop melodies, it resonates,” he says.

 

Daring to be brave
One of those songs is “Last Party,” about Freddie Mercury coping with his HIV positive diagnosis by throwing a three-day long rager in a nightclub. “There’s also a song called ‘Good Guys’ which provokes a lot of questions, but I wrote it to myself,” Mika says. “I [wanted to] dare to be like all the people who inspired me when I was younger and who didn’t think about the consequences, even if it put them in danger.”

 

Mika recorded the bulk of the album alone in his LA home, which he says helped him get to a place of deep intimacy. “When you’re singing and writing a song, you’re showing more than a full nude striptease. You’re going all out and hiding nothing,” he says. “When something is intimate and it’s very personal, it’s really powerful. People are craving intimacy.”

 

PRESTIGE ( Hong Kong )

https://www.prestigeonline.com/hk/people-events/cover-story-mika/

29 Apr 2016

 

....

Is “sophisticated play” how you would describe your music? Or how you’d describe your approach to your music?

 

I think so. Me and Pierpaolo always call it “serious fun”, which is the same thing. It’s so much more powerful, there’s so much more gasoline in things when there’s an element of play – even if it’s the saddest thing you’ve ever done in the world, it’s more fun when there’s that devil’s wink. Everything I do has to have that devil’s wink.

 

My tendency is to do really commercial things and then really, completely non-commercial things, where my record company kind of stops breathing for a while. But we never know what’s going to work – I did a symphonic project that was haemorrhaging money but critically is one of the best things I’ve done. I have fun in what I do, but I do it every minute of the day, so it’s a lot of work. I think everyone who does what they like feels the need to justify that privilege.

 

....

[mellody]

17 hours ago, smhh said:

MIKA once said in an interview 'everything I do has to have that devil's wink' ...what examples of a 'devil's wink' have you guys noticed in MIKA's music and videos?

 

I think it's probably a different way to express what he means by being an "enfant terrible" - which is something he also said quite often. There's a lot of examples for this, often coming from the context. Like when he sings a song about gay love in a country where gay love is prohibited. Or when he sings about "stupid Adam and Eve". Or his FU to the music industry, with Grace Kelly. The Sanremo video. Popular Song, the song and the video. As he says, it's in pretty much everything he does. A little bit of rebellion against the old white men (or others) who think they know everything, whether it's in politics, church, society or the industry - but not an open rebellion, more like hidden meanings that not everyone will understand. As Mika used to say in old interviews, things that would make people angry if you told them to their face, but if you put the same things in a song, they will sing along and admire you.