Mika - Life in Cartoon Motion
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CD Details
Artist: MikaEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-03-27
Music Label: Casablanca
Soundtracks:
- Grace Kelly
- Lollipop
- My Interpretation
- Love Today
- Relax (Take It Easy)
- Ring Ring
- Any Other World
- Billy Brown
- Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)
- Stuck In The Middle
- Erase
- Happy Ending
Music reviews of Life in Cartoon Motion
Music Review: Debut album (you are beautiful)
Rating: 5 Stars
I am not much of a pop fan. Okay, I'll admit that I have some on my computer and it is really catchy, but in general pop isn't my first choice of what to listen to. Nevertheless...
A couple weeks ago, someone linked me to the music video of Lollipop. I was addicted instantly. After checking out some of Mika's other music videos, I knew I just had to get this CD. That investment paid off - I'm not entirely sure just what it is that makes almost every track on this album so irresistable, but Mika's got it down to an art.
Most of the tracks are bouncy, catchy fare, although they're far from being meaningless fluff. For instance, "Grace Kelly" apparently talks about Mika's frustration with the music industry's attempts at creating his image for him, "Lollipop" is a message from Mika to his little sister about love, and "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)" reminds women that big can be beautiful - Mika again draws on personal experience here, as his mother was a larger woman and he saw the way people treated her based on her weight.
My main problem with the album is that Mika, like so many other artists, can't resist throwing some slow songs into an otherwise energetic, fast-paced album. Thankfully, his slow songs aren't bad, but I'm still not a fan of artists insisting on throwing slow songs into an album when they're really not needed.
Description of Life in Cartoon Motion
`Historic', `sensational', `flamboyant' and `without-any-doubt original' are just some of the adjectives being thrown around by critics in praise of 22 year-old UK newcomer, Mika's eclectic debut album, Life In Cartoon Motion.Fun, smart, musically adventurous and thematically provocative, the songs on Life In Cartoon Motion, all of them written and produced by Mika, combine euphoric rushes of melody with darker unexpected elements. They range from bright daytime melodramas to night-time tales of love, loss, abandonment, hope and happiness. Each is a splendid blend of fresh imagination and deft pop craftsmanship.
Album gems such as "Grace Kelly," "Lollipop," Billy Brown," and "Relax And Take It Easy," display Mika's innovative wordplay. `I've always respected people who make great records to their own vision,' writes the quixotic Mika. Mission accomplished!
The pop world might be all cooing 'n' cross-eyed over this flamboyant elfin with extended tail-feathers, as if it were shaken suddenly from a slumber, but the arrival of such a character was in fact always inevitable. He's an unlikely but traceable amalgamation of random pop culture explosions from the past few years--two parts Paulo Nutini, one part Kemal from Big Brother, a dash of Daphne & Celeste, a barrel measure of Scissor Sisters, and another pinch of post-ironic dancing to Elton John at the Students' Union gone midnight. It's no secret that the UK has a weakness for pretty-boy singer songwriters either--he fits in there too, in that he's about to stick its index finger in the socket and pour it a drink.
Give it 12 months and you might be taking out a restraining order--Mika will split opinion--but his quasi-soul falsetto is unbelievable, that much is immediately obvious. There are moments nearing syrupy Feeling-esque normalcy (take "My Interpretation"), but those aside it's high camp insatiability all the way. There's a hint of Freddie Mercury's theatricality in the voice, and in "Big Girl" he's even written a modern day "Fat Bottomed Girls". "Lollipop" is Jake Shears leading the Jackson 5, "Love Today" is the missing link between the Bee Gees and Village People and "Relax, Take It Easy" is a chilled Pet Shop Boys in gold lam?. Too cheesy to be a classic, perhaps, but this is just the brand of subversive eccentricity Robbie has failed miserably to achieve over his past few albums. --James Berry
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