October 26, 2009
Episode 57: Mika -- Before And During
This week, we're listening in on music from The Cramps, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Thalía, Tito El Bambino, Gloria Estefan, Mika, and Michael Bublé.
While we were extolling the many virtues of his new album The Boy Who Knew Too Much we took a shot at describing Mika's sound by referencing Queen, George Michael, Elton John, and ABBA, but we weren't being precise enough. Each of these artists has lengthy careers and the accompanying artistic growth that comes with the territory. So we'll be more specific.
When we mention Queen, we're talking about the early glitter-era Queen (the first four albums) that brought you "Killer Queen" (as opposed to the arena rock Queen of "We Will Rock You"). We'll use our George Michael reference as an excuse to talk up the virtues of Wham!, unfairly denigrated as another teen bubblegum band (and what's wrong with that, by the way?) and call attention to their follow-up to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go": the mid-sized (but mostly forgotten) hit "Freedom," the best song that Holland-Dozier-Holland never wrote, that the Four Tops never recorded. Our Elton John reference is meant to point you to his first rush of mass popularity when he was also flirtatious with glitter à la "Bennie And The Jets."
Finally, our ABBA reference shouldn't imply the Euro-disco of "Dancing Queen" or the chipper "Take A Chance On Me" but instead point you to their early rock-inspired sides like "Waterloo" or, more specifically, their first single, "Ring Ring." Put them all together and you have the sound of Mika's first two albums. Well, not exactly. . . he's much more than an amalgamation of his predecessors. But this is something you need to find out for yourselves by catching his current tour in support of The Boy Who Knew Too Much, possibly the best pure/pop celebratory album of the year.
