Laura Marling
Once I Was An Eagle
When Mika exploded with debut single Grace Kelly in 2007, he looked set to dominate British pop for years.
It hasn't quite worked out like that. Although his magnificently histrionic first album Life In Cartoon Motion hit number one and went five-times platinum here, its equally OTT follow-up The Boy Who Knew Too Much sold less than a fifth as many copies.
Why was this? Probably because it lacked a big agenda setting, attention-grabbing single, and the same problem is very likely to beset The Origin Of Love, his make-or-break follow-up.
This would be a big shame, because Mika is a fantastic pop star. Kitsch, effervescent and irreverent, he throws everything and the kitchen (kitsch-en?) sink here at frenzied tracks like Make You Happy and Underwater, but few of them have a killer chorus to snag in the memory: Love You When I'm Drunk is a great title in search of a tune.
There are delicious one-liners: Popular finds him berating a former school bitch and queen bee, who now finds herself working in a cinema "selling popular corn". Mika remains a spectacular force for good: whether this will translate into sales this time around is another question entirely.
