- Label
- Casablanca/Island
- Release date
- 21st September 2009
- Genre
- Rock
- Buy this album
- Order CD
Falsetto? Check. Huge choruses? Check. Children’s choirs? Check. Let’s go…
Michael Holbrook Penniman is routinely accused of cynicism and arch calculation. This charge is bizarre: on the evidence of The Boy Who Knew Too Much, the man better known as Mika is violently, wantonly, insatiably in love with pop music.
Like its predecessor, 2007’s six-million-selling Life In Cartoon Motion, this is an exuberant riot of hyperventilating camp-pop, extravagant kitsch and knowing helium falsettos. The tone is set by album opener and lead single We Are Golden, a Queen-like bombastic glam stomp celebrating the joys of life when you are “young and you want some”.
Elsewhere, tracks like Blame It On The Girls prove that Mika has a surefire handle on winningly frenzied, absurdly catchy radio-friendly anthems while Rain, with Madonna collaborator Stuart Price, shows he can even do gently affecting. What is more, Mika retains his trump card: he is fantastic fun. Good on him.
More to try:
Scissor Sisters – Scissor Sisters
Queen – A Night At The Opera
Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position
