Londonist Introduces... Mika

By Talia Last edited 208 months ago
Londonist Introduces... Mika

mika

Last week we went out to watch a man from Beirut with colourful trousers and big hair, sing songs about fat girls, gay affairs, and lollipops. Tonight, we think you should do the same.

Mika was born in the middle of a warzone in 1983 (yes, we realise that makes him disgustingly young), moved to Paris and spent most of his youth in London. What you need to know is that he's Universal Records great hope for 2007. If you like the Scissor Sisters then you're pretty much guaranteed to like this boy and his impressive vocal range. He's tall, good looking, very colourful and seem to be channelling the voice of Freddie Mercury.

His first single, the I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight sound-a-like Relax, Take It Easy was released during the summer and is brilliant. In fact if we'd not got the album sampler for the forthcoming Life in Colour Motion, which is destined to be the accompaniment to your dinner parties as well as your discos, we'd be claiming he'd peaked before we'd even heard an album. As it is, we can agree with a fellow pop pundit, who when leaving his secret gig at Ronnie Scott's, declared "Bloody Hell, that sounded like a greatest hits set."

Mika

Mika sang 5 fabulous songs (and 1 bizarre one), including the aforementioned Relax. Amazingly everything is this good. Love Today goes all Beck on our asses with Mika chatting away before it turns into a big stomping chorus, Grace Kelly talks about his love of the great screen legend and features the best Freddie impression we've ever heard; Billy Brown is a cute, tear-worthy tale of a man who gets married but has a secret gay lover and the gigantic Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) sings about his love for the non skinnies among us and is destined to end up a dancefloor classic. Oh, and the bizarre one? Well it was a song called Lollipop which wouldn't seem out of place if sung by Gwen Stefani accompanied by part of a musical. We've tried to forget it but it seems to have carved a nagging hole in our brain.

We also like this boy a lot because he says things like this

"After I started singing as a boy I started to get jobs everywhere. With the help of a terrifyingly tough Russian singing teacher, I got to be really good at professional gigs. I did everything from recordings with the Royal Opera House to the Orbit Chewing gum jingle. I'll never forget calling up British Airways to get a ticket, only to be placed in a line, listening to my own voice. That was a painful 8 minutes. I think the other main reason for getting so much work was that I was insanely cheap! My mother and I had no idea what i was supposed to get paid, and no one was in a hurry to educate us. Looking back on it, i think 45 quid for the Orbit chewing gum jingle, could have been a little too cheap.”

Tee, hee.

Mika plays at Dingwalls in Camden tonight, and Union Chapel with the amazing Amy Winehouse on November 24.

In the meantime...

Check out his Myspace

Download Relax and Grace Kelly

and use this funky music player to

listen to two acoustic tracks from forthcoming EP Dodgy Holiday

Last Updated 21 November 2006