Mika

Will the pop prince's second album blow away some of the mysteries of Mika?

In today's musical climate Mika is a rare artist; his unabashed pop anthems are gloriously over the top, his stage persona and flamboyant style unapologetic and beneath it all is a serious young man with a single pointed determination and intelligence. His songs have been at once personal (his first album detailed childhood experiences while new album The Boy Who Knew Too Much looks at his adolescence) yet unrevealing.

Meeting the tall, Beirut born star with operatic training at his record label offices in West London, we talk about his new record, using pop as a cloaking device and boxing.

A direct follow up to Life In Cartoon Motion, The Boy Who Knew Too Much is remarkably similar in its musical delivery, which can be attributed to the producer of both records, Greg Wells.

“He will make the record with me rather than make the record that he thinks I should make,” says Mika of his decision to use Wells again. “Like if I went and saw other producers, they'd be like 'oh your first album was great, I really want to work with you BUT...' And I think now is not the time for buts, it's the time for moving on and developing yourself without apologizing for your success or what got you there. For the next one, who knows, I might do it with some Inuits, it worked for Björk.”

Mika's occasional sparks of humour pepper the interview, though for every piece of insight or opinion he offers, he seems also to give nothing away. In a world where fans want to own their favourite pop stars, Mika seems to weave together a fabrication of his self, permitting glimpses of his thoughts and emotions through his songs without ever completely opening up. The songs that made up Life In Cartoon Motion deal with such issues as being alone and drunk and a man leaving his wife and having a homosexual affair. Mika admits though that despite his albums being drawn from experience the songs are not necessarily autobiographical.

“I tend to use pop as a backdrop to approach subject matters that aren't typically dealt with in pop music,” relates the singer. “I wouldn't say it's a crutch. It's more of a tool really, two sides of the same coin. It stems from as a teenager and a child I was a loser. I was a loner, I dressed stupidly, I didn't understand why nobody liked me, I didn't have the confidence to confront anybody and I just watched. I was like the man in Rear Window, I just watched all the time. And I thought I knew everything about everyone because I was always the one watching. And it's true I did know a lot more than the others because when you watch you become a lot more perceptive. So when it came to my songs that was the only place I could put a little bit of confrontation, where I could put my honesty. It was where I could put everything I didn't have the guts to say otherwise.”

Mika does let on though that The Boy Who Knew Too Much is written more from the first person and talks about all the usual foibles of adolescence; identity, sex, behaviour, self-abuse, joy, hate, love, jealousy. Drawing on his formative teenage years for inspiration on his latest effort I get the feeling we may have to wait for Mika's next album before we get a true account of who he is, though something he says before we part makes me question whether we'll even then be let into the private world of Mika.

“To me the stage is a boxing ring and everything else is the changing room. So I'll only fight or I'll only truly be myself when I'm on stage.”