Current mood: PEDICURED
Category: PEDICURED Music
(I know some of you have read this before and that it's not the best piece I've ever done. I also know my new material's been thin on the ground this last week - But this week there will be loads of everything, so here's an old and recycled starter for ten...)
Mika is a phenomena in waiting...
At least this is the hype.
So when I found out he was to appear on my weekly free lig, BBC2's The Culture Show, I was well pleased with my luck. Yes boss, there's nothing more likely to enable the shrewd appraisal of a musical phenomena than catching them in person and on stage before the hype and the hoohaa gets so far out of hand obtaining a real view is impossible...
Mika the Innocent
Innocence - This is how so many people enter the music business. They have the innocence and the naivety that says their golden and creative soul is going to triumph over the world!!! That their creative genes are to be roundly lauded and loved into the history books forever and a day...
Mika arrived on the Annex set with a record company retinue: There was a man who's job it was to fluff his afro, a woman to maintain his makeup. There were 3 tall and instituionally, yet cleverly pretty PR girls and a few others who milled about and watched and answered phones and made plans for world domination...
Mika himself was smiling in light blue jeans. He was confident, calm and assured. He knew his moment was now - that everybody was talking about him and pointing 'There he is!' He knew he was about to perfom Grace Kelly, the song he'd written about how he'd been shunned by the very people that were now queueing up to love him. Better still, he knew he was to perform it via the medium of TV to the kind of culture vultures who could make him credible as well as a popular success...In short: Mika knew he was on a great big fucking wave.
And with all this weighing his shoulders, Mika appeared to be a complete sweetheart. He had the joy of performing and the excitement of doing exactly what he'd always wanted to do flowing through his veins. He knew he'd proved the doubters wrong and that he was about to start rubbing their faces in it. He didn't need the vice, depression and drugs of the seasonned hit maker, he was clean and fresh and running off endorphins and bright blue reality..
Once at the piano, Mika was the consumate performer. He had time for banter with the sound guys, time for banter with the audience and time for banter with the presenter.
You see innocence doesn't mean inadequacy or gormlessness. No, Mike had a savvy and a definite knowing about dealing with the questions posed in the pre-playing interview. He had the anecdotes about when Simon Cowell had rejected him ready. He also knew that allying or comparing himself with any former melodic and operatic forerunnner like Freddie Mercury would be used a s a noose for his own neck.
He either knew or had been schooled in these things.
When he got down to playing, the acoustic version of Grace Kelly worked well. It was the first time I'd heard the song and since hearing it more or less everywhere since it has my full support as a number one..
But is Mika good enough to be a phenomena?? Is he innovative and ground breaking??
Well, it's a few months since I saw him live and since then I've listened through the album Life in Cartoon Motion 7 or 8 times and I can't say I hear much that's phenomenal. His output thus far is far too cabaret and just a little contrived for my liking. Indeed, with the exception of Grace Kelly there aren't really any stand out tracks at all on the LP. Furthermore sickly sweet sacharine tracks like Lollipop
are the sort of musical crime that makes you want to become a regular viewer of the Christian TV program Songs of Praise...
Life in Cartoon Motion will certainly sell by the crate load, because when the music biz decides it has a phenomena, it keeps on rattling on about it until the records have sold and the artist appears grinning in photos with Elton John and is said to be loved by the surviving members of Queen. But whether Mika is and will last as a musical and creative force remains to be seen.
As far as i can see, though he might be talented, clever, well promoted and make millions, Mika's doing musically is exciting or raw, new or vital. Furthermore it's just too plain and fluffy.
There's that saying that a country gets the politicians it deserves. Well, I reckon a country most likely gets the pop music it deserves too and Mika is right on the nail of that. We live in a time completely owned and overrun by banks, plastic gayness and celebrity love. Mika is a cabaret singer son of a banker. Lollipop is plastic gayness at it's absolute peak and Mika is gonna be a star....
 | Currently listening : Spinout/Double Trouble By Elvis Presley Release date: By 14 June, 1994  |
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 | mark   |
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| Paul GIOVANNI 3RD a.k.a The Pop Pope  |
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| MollyCoddle  |
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| michelle  |
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| Paul GIOVANNI 3RD a.k.a The Pop Pope |
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| Paul GIOVANNI 3RD a.k.a The Pop Pope |
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