I have a
lot of love for MIKA’s fourth studio album.
In addition to the catchy melodies, exuberance, and emotional honesty
that I expect from him, it’s also the first album he made after coming out, and
many of its songs touch on his sexuality in thoughtful ways. Here are my favorites from the album.
“Talk About You” – The first number on
the album starts off the proceedings with a bounce and a bang. This insanely-catchy earworm is a joyous
exultation of love, relishing in the kind of happiness that fills your head and
heart and crowds out everything else.
The song wonderfully captures that joy, in melody as well as lyrics.
Best
lyric: “Walk through the city like
stupid people do. / A million faces, but all I’m seeing is you.”
“All She Wants” – I really like this
song. In addition to, again, its
wonderfully-catchy melody, it tells an interesting story. The speaker (MIKA? It’s hard to say exactly how autobiographical
a lot of these numbers are) looks at the “arrangement” he’s made to maintain a
wife he never wanted, describing the fantasy it allows both his mother and his
wife to live out, with him playing a
part but not fully being part of it himself.
Best
lyric: “All she wants / Is another
little special arrangement, / A peculiar engagement. / Got a trophy wife that’s
respectable / To avoid any spectacle.”
“Good Guys” – Lovely number. It’s a tribute to gay figures of the past,
those MIKA has looked up to and drawn strength from. I like the heroes he name-drops, and I love
the use of the Oscar Wilde quote – “We are all in the gutter, but some of us
are looking at the stars” – for the chorus.
Best
lyrics: “To my heroes that were dressed
up in gold, / Only hoping one day I could be so bold.”
“No Place in Heaven” – This song, and the
album it represents as a whole, really continues the theme MIKA set up with the
title track on The Origin of Love. But while that song mostly stuck to religious
imagery, this song gets in the weeds of MIKA’s religious upbringing, his
sexuality, and what he thinks about his relationship with God. Here, he pleads with the Almighty, wanting to
know “if there’s room in Heaven” for him.
Best
lyric: “In between those words we dare
not say, / Do You think that You could learn to love me anyway?”
“Promiseland” – More religious ideas and
imagery. This bonus track ponders the
effort MIKA’s put into “doing everything right” and still feeling like it’s
been deemed not good enough. The lyrics
are excellent, and I adore the driving beat, especially the one that kicks in
at the tail-end of the chorus.
Best
lyric: “Don’t occupy my throne - / Give
me the crown I own.”
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