Life > September 13, 2007

By Kristen Guth | Staff writer

Mika duly encapsulates a youthful, energetic vibe and a sedated maturity in his premiere album, Life in Cartoon Motion, with a sound that borrows from jazz, rock, pop and classical.

The artist’s catchy beats and insinuating lyrics went platinum twice in the UK shortly after the album was released in February 2007.

Mika also earned a position on Europe’s Top 100 chart-toppers with six songs released as singles.

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, to American parents, Mika has an interesting past over international territory to draw from for his music.

He spent a brief time living in Paris to escape ongoing warfare in Lebanon.

His father, a millionaire businessman, was captured as a hostage in Kuwait, and after his subsequent release, Mika’s family finally settled down in London.

Formal British education in neither the sciences nor the humanities struck Mika’s interest quite as soundly as music caught his ear.

After years of musical training, Mika started his career singing as a boy soprano with a five-octave range in the Royal Opera House at age 15.

In recent interviews, reporters have commented on Mika’s fun personality, marked by eccentricities and oddball characteristics.

Despite his flamboyant performance style, he remains coy about his sexuality – but that hasn’t stopped the gay press from claiming him as one of their own.

Life in Cartoon Motion offers a blend of genre styles, with a vocal concentration on Mika’s pure tone and falsetto reach.

His creative approach to pop music has led him to infuse bits of conversation, movie scenes and everyday sounds, such as dishes clanking or slurping of a drink, into songs throughout the album.

The use of media clips and stage sounds allude to his strong interest in theater and his past stage presence, often as a starring role, in school musicals.

The ultimate manifestation of Mika’s throwback to school days is found in “Lollipop,” which evokes the thought of a school choral group as the song evolves spontaneously from children singing backup vocals and clapping, and the sound of basic piano chords.

Mika’s lyrics, however, are anything but elementary as he describes an edginess to love: “Take a look at the girl next door / she’s a player and a downright whore / Jesus slows up, she wants more / oh bad girls get you down.”

The fun beats and innocence of the children’s voices hide the darker undertone of Mika’s sentiments. The positive beats on Mika’s album have resonated widely with the listening audience.

Radio stations across the US aired his song “Grace Kelly” for a brief period during summer 2007, and even big business couldn’t avoid Mika’s seductive nature.

Verizon chose to use “Love Today” on an advertisement for the Chocolate phone model.

The interlude to “Grace Kelly” is composed of clips from the actress’s movies, and the song’s melody wanders over Mika’s impressive vocal range, juxtaposing a hushed, excited mood with an explosive and colorful sound.

Strong, repetitive beats with acoustic guitar and sexual innuendo make “Love Today” the liveliest on the album.

Mika chooses interesting subjects for songs. The track “Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)” encourages exactly what its title implies, while “Billy Brown” plays out as a ballad without resolution.

Billy Brown, a “victim of the times,” abandons his ordinary life with a nuclear family in pursuit of romantic happiness, but remains unsure of whether his desires lie with men, women or both.

These songs are fantastical with choir and piano and emanate a sense of Broadway showiness.

Powerful, slower songs on the topics of regret or broken love include “Any Other World,” “Erase” and “Happy Ending.”

These melodies make use of longer sustained notes, and culminate with a layering of choral backup, orchestral quartet parts, piano and power chords on electric guitar.

Solo piano and solo singing illuminate the fragility of Mika’s tone, and the repetition of themes allow his messages to be fully absorbed.

Major chords in “Erase” evoke a finality that fights with the unresolved emotional tension created by the lyrics, emphasizing the singer’s own struggle with the end of a relationship.

Mika ponders the vulnerabilities of romance as he espouses, “This the way that we love / like it’s forever / then live the rest of our lives / but not together / This is the way you left me / I’m not pretending.”

The hidden track, “Over My Shoulder,” stands out as the most disturbing and stripped song of the whole album to emulate loneliness with a simple duet and a cautious piano melody.

Mika’s ascent into international stardom at age 24 seems premature for a healthy career, but his artistic ingenuity and classical training provide a fortified foundation for future hits.