- Artist
- Mika
- Label
- Island
- Release date
- 5th February 2007
- Genre
- Pop
First, there was Guilty Pleasures - the Sean Rowley radio show that made it OK to admit liking rubbish MOR rock and disposable pop. Then came the Scissor Sisters, allowing the cool kids to like what is essentially Elton John disco and power balladry by numbers.
You can just imagine the saccharine, Freddie-Mercury-on-helium pop singer Mika in 2006, clapping his hands with glee and devilishly declaring "At last! They're ready for me!" His evil plot is rapidly working. We're told by I-D magazine and Rob Da Bank that Mika is a pop saviour and, so far, Joe Public agrees, with the Lebanon-born Londoner's twee debut single, Grace Kelly, hitting number one.
Life In Cartoon Motion - an enormously gooey, sugary dollop of ten songs - is where the whole thing has to stop. Each track is perfectly crafted, beautifully produced, brilliantly sung (you can almost hear him cackling at the glory of his own falsetto) - and utterly flaccid. Where the likes of the Sisters and Lily Allen bring wit, sass and sex to their pop, Mika lacks the rough edges, talent for a cheeky lyric and, well, rampant libido that give such artists their charm and appeal.
There's no doubt Mika can write - as you'd expect if you'd done time at the Royal College of Music - and has a great set of pipes on him - Freddie Mercury, George Michael, The Bee Gees and, ahem, Leo Sayer, all appear in his larynx. But if he's not ripping off Laura by Scissor Sisters, as on Stuck In The Middle, or pretending to be Robbie Williams, as on My Interpretation, he's pummelling every track into a soulless orgy of safe orchestration and melodramatic vocal gymnastics. The one song, Billy Brown, where Mika gets slightly interesting lyrically ("then Billy Brown fell in love with another man"), is let down by its "show-toon" accompaniment and flippant delivery - you can almost imagine the cross-dressing chorus line, arm in arm, kicking out to the beat.
Of course, Life In Cartoon Motion will sell in droves, dominate radio playlists and probably conquer America. You know who's to blame. Meanwhile, indulge in your own guilty pleasure of turning off Radio 2 and boycotting this annoying, cheesy nonsense and putting the Klaxons on.
