MIKA: The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009)

Really, once you take a shine to MIKA, a single album isn’t going to be enough.  Not long after I bought Life in Cartoon Motion, I moved on to his sophomore release.  New album, same story:  delightful earbugs, joyous beats, and playful lyrics.  It’s made frequent appearances in my car’s CD player ever since I got it, and I will admit to some entirely ridiculous, coordination-less dancing in my apartment with the blinds shut.

 

You’ve already heard my rundown on MIKA and what he’s about, so I won’t spend much time rehashing.  As much as I love Life in Cartoon Motion, I have to say, I think The Boy Who Knew Too Much is even stronger.  It’s a more mature album without some of the roughness of MIKA’s previous outing.  While a few numbers on the first album had to grow on me, pretty much every track on this one grabbed me right out of the gate.

 

Things get off to a big, celebratory start with “We Are Golden.”  The opening chorus immediately jumps out of the speaker and grabs your attention, anthemic as it is catchy.  MIKA’s vocals are perhaps at their most audacious here, leaping into falsetto at the drop of a hat and sailing back down just as easily.  The song brims with energy and commotion, and a boisterous children’s choir adds extra enthusiasm to the title line.  Plus, there’s the lyric “Looking for treasure / In the things that you threw – / Like a magpie, / I live for glitter, not you,” which is just fantastic.

 

And we’re off!  There’s the sleekly syncopated “Blame It on the Girls,” the sing-along “Dr. John,” and the cathartic “One Foot Boy.”  As with Life in Cartoon Motion, there are a few slower numbers, most notably “I See You.”  The song tells the story of someone who’s loved from afar, afraid to take a chance and risk breaking the illusion.  Its gentle, wistful melody builds as the song reaches its ultimate conclusion of “I’m standing across from you. / I’ve dreamt alone, now dreams won’t do.”  Another especially interesting piece is “Toy Boy.”  The light, jaunty tune belies the sad story of its lyrics, about a wind-up toy mourning his lost love.  The toy “had a boy once who loved [him],” but his boy’s “mama thought there was something wrong” with it and surmised that he’d “be better with a Barbie girl.”

 

Far and away, though, my favorite song on the album is “Good Gone Girl.”  It’s the cautionary tale of a fresh-faced “good girl” who went to California in searching of the big time and ended up chasing the company of anyone who’d provide for her.  Asking how she could’ve come to this, MIKA encourages her to remember where she came from, and to “dance to the life you wanted / When you were only seventeen / with your good-girl dream.”  By all accounts, it’s an unhappy story, but the music is so ridiculously catchy that I literally have a hard time moving on from it; when I’m listening to the album, I usually repeat this one at least a couple times before I make it to the next track.

 

All in all, the album is just put together splendidly.  There’s no dead weight, it’s full of engaging, danceable tunes, and despite its more polished feel, it maintains the playfulness of MIKA’s debut.  Just a top-notch follow-up; I love it!