Of Grace Kelly and Ice Cream Sodas

Guess what I'm humming these days? A super-successful single by a Lebanese-born, London-based, curly-haired, Freddy-Mercury-and-Queen-inspired, sexually amorphic singer with dyslexia, training in opera, and a high note that could fracture glass. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Mika. His real name is Mica Penniman, which he changed for (justified) fears of the massacre that would ensue if the general public were allowed to pronounce it. His first single? 'Relax, Take it Easy.' Followed by 'Grace Kelly'. In January 2007, he came top of BBC News's Sound of 2007 poll. In March 2007 he appeared on the Jay Leno. In April, the Guardian decided they were intrigued by him, and that is how we met.
Mika is unadulterated pop. He is the essence of Freddy, Queen, Bowie, the Scissor Sisters, and various other dramatic pop icons distilled into one dimunitive mop-haired singer wearing tight jeans. (and this probably explains why all his songs sound vaguely like something you've heard before.)His songs are this close to being over-the-top, and generally parodies of themselves, but somehow he pulls back at the last minute. Maybe its because they're not cynical, his songs. They may belong to a genre (intelligent pop) that has been given over to cynicism and self-parody, but somehow he brings freshness to a brand of songs that never had it to begin with.
Take 'Grace Kelly'. This is a song about identity or the lack of it. The melody is apparently based on 'The Barber of Seville' (I don't know, haven't heard it yet, though I will soon). The song is about people who reinvent themselves to be popular (sound familiar yet) and I for one, found it a deeply distubing little molotov cocktail wrapped up in an ice-cream soda. 'I could be wholesome/I could be loathsome/I guess I'm a little bit shy/Why dont you like me?Why dont you like me without making me try?' Here's what the Guardian said about this little jewel of a song. 'The song asks two basic questions - who am I, and what do I have to do to be successful? It could be a knowing song about ambition and the music industry, it could be a song of straightforward desperation, it could be both. Like most things about Mika, it means what you want it to mean.'
Still here? Watch the video. And welcome to the world of earworm. Oh, and don't forget to let me know what you think.