MIKA (2007) | Childhood Nostalgia

MIKA’s Grace Kelly and my Guilty Pleasure

Considering how well my last one went, what better way to continue the saga with MIKA?

I think everyone and the next door’s cat grew up on some sort of MIKA, right? I can’t speak for everyone of course, but ever since his popular single, Grace Kelly graced our airwaves way back when in 2007, the magical multi-octave French singer went on to become my guilty pleasure.

Introducing Myself to the Debut: Life in Cartoon Motion

With singles, Love Today, Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) and Stuck in the Middle, Mika’s 2007 debut of Life in Cartoon Motion was my first ever CD I bought from the local HMV. When CDs were formally the rage and evidently took up the majority of the chart sales – with no vinyl actually in sight throughout the shop, mind – I scanned under “M” for Mika and Grace Kelly, and stayed for its enjoyable cover design.

Soon after the introduction of popular music and MIKA, I went through a faze of listening to chart music on repeat and became the chart savvy among the household, and tuning intently every Sunday for BBC Radio 1’s Chart Show – even my older brother didn’t do that. Above all else though, this was the one thing that I had to listen before the week of school started the following Monday.

MIKA’S *The Boy Who Knew Too Much* (2009)

Coming Back For The Sequel: The Boy Who Knew Too Much

It was so good to me, in fact, that I stayed around for MIKA’s second attempt with, The Boy Who Knew Too Much two years later in 2009. A perfect pair, these two albums fitted so well with one another – lyrically and musically depicting the same flurry of MIKA magic.

Damn, does that mean that I listened to MIKA for a successive two years? All I know now, is that these two albums are amazing to me, my music taste and my childhood. I am not ashamed to play these now, blast out to some good ol’ teenage pop and have a boogie.

Now, this music not only has played a part in how I’ve grown up and has been ingrained into my adolescence, but has also allowed me to overcome some boy struggles too, such as betrayal and heartbreak. And for that, I’m truly grateful. There was no better therapy than belting out the words, “Ah, ah, ah, is there anybody home?
Who wants to have me just to love me?” to 2007s Stuck in the Middle. Amazing.

Of course, his new material is a bit lost on me now as I haven’t tuned into for a while – ever since my music taste turned toward more alternative, radical flavours of the industry. But I hear he is doing just as well with collaboration hits with Ariana Grande in 2012, (Popular Song) and his most recent release, My Name is Michael Holbrook in 2019.

I’m sure I’m not the only one with a guilty pleasure – who’s was yours?