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MIKA, I
should tell you, is a British/Lebanese singer-songwriter. From what I can tell, he’s far more famous in
Europe than he is in the U.S., but that’s a shame, because he’s tons of
fun. His infectiously upbeat pop-rock,
not normally my style, makes me all kinds of happy, and I like his quirky
sensibility as an artist – his music videos are creative and colorful, and his
CD liners are amusingly illustrated.
Life in Cartoon Motion is his debut
album. It’s where “Grace Kelly” hails
from, a ridiculously catchy number that playfully explores the nature of
fame. In it, the tongue-in-cheek MIKA
begs to be told how to improve his marketability, offering to be wholesome or
loathsome, hurtful or purple. He toys
with imitation, from Grace Kelly to Freddie Mercury, and forever asks why we
don’t like him.
The
albums features other bouncy, lighthearted fare, like “Big Girl (You are
Beautiful),” MIKA’s answer to “Fat-Bottomed Girls.” As with so many musicians, relationship woes
loom large in his work. Some maintain
the same peppy pop beats (I just love the driving piano line on “Stuck in the
Middle,”) while others, like the gorgeous “Happy Ending,” are a bit slower and
more thoughtful. MIKA himself has an
engaging singing style that flits in and out of falsetto like a game of
keep-away. Again, it’s not something I’d
ordinarily go for, but he just works
for me.
I like
the way that even the sadder songs aren’t entirely devoid of the joy that pulses
through MIKA’s work. “Happy Ending,”
with its understated verses and its mournful chorus of “I feel as if I’m
wasting, / And I’m wasting everyday,” gains an exuberant gospel choir in the
second half. The introspective “Any
Other World” is soft and gentle whenever MIKA is singing, but an almost
triumphant string section floods the instrumental segments.
The
album’s not perfect by any means.
There’s an unfortunate tendency towards repetition in both the music and
the lyrics (“Lollipop” is especially thin,) and a few numbers veer a little too
close to The Bee Gees for my taste.
Inevitable, I suppose, when you favor falsetto and danceable beats. Still, I really adore Life in Cartoon Motion, and putting it on is a great way to infuse
my day with a little melodic whimsy.
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