HIS debut album isn’t due out until February but already Mika isbeing hailed as the face and the voice of 2007. The face bit iseasy: the 23-year-old, Beirut-born, London- based singer is tofront fashion designer Paul Smith’s new clothing range. The voicebit is easy too - he’s one of the most distinctive vocalists toemerge in the last 10 years.
Easy comparisons would be Freddie Mercury or, at a push, ScissorSisters, but Mika's soaring operatic voice is a truly originalsound. And he can talk the talk: "I'm a reaction to corporate 1990spop and the snobbery of the indie scene."
The son of a Lebanese father and an American mother, Mika wasbrought up in Paris and London. Bullied at school for hisandrogynous looks, he ran away to join London's Royal Opera Schooland gave his first public performance aged 11 at the Royal OperaHouse.
What's interesting about Mika is that, although he's been signedby Universal Records as a pop act, he grew up knowing next tonothing about the genre and has had to unlearn all his classicalmusic knowledge. The only pop music he did hear consisted ofvarious greatest hits collections, which perhaps accounts for hispenchant for killer hooks.
Mika doesn't see any contradiction between his past and presentmusical leanings. "I can listen to the trashiest piece of pop," hesays, "and think it's genius, and then listen to Shostakovitch andthink that that's genius, too." His first single, Relax, Take ItEasy, was released last October as a download-only affair, but wassoon picking up radio play. The first DJs to play the song allremarked on the fact that listeners would ring/text in asking formore details about "the guy with the amazing voice". The "newFreddie Mercury" plaudits started arriving soon after.
If the idea with Mika was to somehow cast him in the same"striking vocalist" light as Kate Bush, his people aren't doing abad job. It's a very "now" thing to sound "unique", as JoannaNewsom would no doubt happily tell you.
It's also very now to have an idiosyncratic sound. Whether it bePatrick Wolf or CSS, the niche is expanding as the hordes turnstheir attention away from identikit indie bands and lumpen rockers.Mika is not particularly innovative in his music - it's a pop/dancemix - but the lush production and off-kilter arrangements surehelp.
The beautiful thing about Mika is that you can't see thestitches between his constant portrayal of himself as a sort ofmale ingenue and his cleverly managed marketing campaign. Even hisname (he won't reveal his surname) sounds like, as someone put it,"a single-word, global- fame-friendly brand that will be easy tosay in 15 languages".
But as much as Mika has been styled for the big-hooked, middle-of-the-road pop market, he does try and do "serious". Relax, TakeIt Easy was about the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings in London. Onhis debut album, Life in Cartoon Motion, the song Big Girl (You AreBeautiful) is an attack on size zero women, while Grace Kelly is,in part, a reaction to a suit at his record company telling him hewas going to be "the new Craig David".
In advance of the release of his Life in Cartoon Motion, expectto be bombarded by a series of bespoke animated cartoons that Mikadesigned himself. The cartoons will be distributed viauser-generated sites (MySpace et al) over the next few weeks.
It looks like Mika has all the ducks in a row: interestingbackground/classical training/ fashion billboard good looks/"thoughtful" songs/potential mass pan-generational appeal/the hugevoice.
And if it all goes tits up for him, there's always the leadvocalist role in We Will Rock You.
