Life In Cartoon Motion

As well as writing about my Favourite Music Of 2006 selections, I’ve been keeping an eye on what the music press and blogs are predicting for 2007. A few things have impressed me already, but none more so than Mika. I’ve been listening to a couple of his singles over the last week and also a marvellous Napster live session. I’m very impressed. Always wary of hype, I’m delighted to find an artist whose energetic material is accomplished and compulsive.
It seems that I’m not the only one. His latest single, Grace Kelly, entered the UK single chart at number 3 yesterday evening on the basis of downloads alone. (The CD version is released in a fortnight.) I was really pleased to hear this, but not terribly surprised. If I’d written this post yesterday before hearing the news, I’d have been telling you that it would be a crime if this guy wasn’t a superstar in a few months’ time.
The album Life In Cartoon Motion will be released at the start of February and I think it’s going to become the first of this year’s essential listening choices. Bold, brash and confident, its collection of hummable, jaunty earworms is likely to grab your attention whether you like it or not. If you become hooked, as I am, you’ll find yourself able to sing most of the lyrics after two or three plays.
His website has plenty of audio for you to investigate further, but if I was going to give you a soundbite I’d be describing something like Scissor Sisters confronted by a hyperactive Freddie Mercury. That’s not to imply any lack of imagination on Mika’s part. Quite the opposite: his genius is in the way he sounds simultaneously like half the artists you’ve ever loved, yet always absolutely like his own man.
Grace Kelly is a rousing singalong that flits like a butterfly, Lollipop out-Gwens Ms Stefani, My Interpretation wouldn’t sound out of place on the latest Take That album, Love Today should be THE big smash hit of the spring/summer (Comfortably Numb and I Don’t Feel Like Dancing squished together), Billy Brown is the falsetto track that Lou Reed left off Transformer and Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) makes the rockin’ world go round.
In a recent interview, Mika recounts how he came to popular music relatively late in his adolescence and got himself up to speed on a musical diet of greatest hits collections. Imagine how high that set the bar for his own material. Amazingly, I think he’s risen to the challenge. The only potential danger I can see is that an overdose of these songs might lead to them becoming cloying and sickly, but at the moment my money’s on that not happening.
The album’s cover art is a pretty good guide to the tone of the contents within. It’s a perfect antidote to the post-Christmas blues and I’m going to be playing it loudly and frequently.