''Life in Cartoon Motion'' is the debut album released by British recording artist
Mika
Mika is a given name, a nickname and a surname. Notable people and fictional characters with the name include:
People known just as Mika
* Mika (singer) (born 1983), Lebanese-born British singer-songwriter Michael Penniman, Jr.
* Mika (footbal ...
. The album was produced by
Greg Wells
Greg Wells is a Canadian musician, record producer, songwriter and audio engineer. Wells has songs on over 130 million albums sold. He has worked with John Legend, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ariana Grande, Jazmine Sullivan, Kid Cudi, Adele, Rufus Wai ...
, mixed by Wells, with co-production on two songs by Jodi Marr and John Merchant. The album was released via
Casablanca Records
Casablanca Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Republic Records. Under its founder Neil Bogart, Casablanca was most successful during the disco era of the mid to late 1970s. The label currently f ...
on 5 February 2007 in the United Kingdom, and on 27 March 2007 in the United States.
''Life in Cartoon Motion'' was the #9 top selling album in the world in 2007. The album's lead single, "
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956.
Kelly ...
", stayed at number one on the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
for five consecutive weeks and became a worldwide number-one hit.
Background
Prior to obtaining his record deal, Mika sent demos to many record companies in Britain, but was never signed. One record label in particular claimed that Mika had a good voice, but insisted he write more conventional songs like
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, and achieved commercial success after launching a solo career in 1996. His debut stud ...
in order to become more commercial. Mika rejected this advice.
The song "Grace Kelly" was inspired by these problems. In 2006 Mika signed with
Island Records
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...
and began recording his debut album. His musical influences are based in classical music.
[Miriam Zendl]
Interview with Mika
''Digital Spy''. 16 October 2006. Retrieved 13 April 2008. Before Mika released his debut album, he promised the media that "It was a magical world that you could live in. A parallel universe for people that is illusory and enchanting and amazing." Some songs on the album are sexually ambiguous, which prompted some questioning regarding Mika's sexuality. On this, Mika commented that he has no taboos about what he can use to tell a story or what stories he can actually tell, and said that while he believes that sexualising music is great, politically sexualising music and making the artist's sexuality the defining point of someone's music is "boring".
He said about his own sexuality: "laying myself out on the table to almost a tabloid level and kind of sharing my entire personal life, I'm really not into that."
The songs on the album have different subjects. "Grace Kelly", as stated before, is about the struggle of getting a record deal. Mika stated that the song is important because "it's a flagpole for the record in terms of lyrical content and the whole pop vision I wanted to get across."
The cover for the album and booklet were designed by Mika's sister, Yasmine, who works under the pen name DaWack, Richard Hogg and Mika himself.
In March 2007 the album was released in the United States. Before its release there was much publicity about the album, mainly due to its success in Europe. Mika commented on the hype by saying: "I think I'm lucky. Hype can be good and hype can be bad. The good thing that's happening to me is that the hype is about the project, it's about the music ... I'm not the son of anyone famous, I haven't really slept with anyone particularly well-known ... it's really just about music, and that's something I think is very healthy."
[Q&A: Mika, the latest singing sensation from across the pond](_blank)
''Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
''. 5 April 2007. Retrieved 13 April 2008.
Reception
Initial critical response to ''Life in Cartoon Motion'' was generally mixed. On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a
normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...
score of 55, based on 23 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
In January 2007, Mika was considered the best new talent in the BBC's Sound of 2007 music poll. About 130 music critics and broadcasters from the UK agreed that Mika was the sound of 2007.
[Mika's Rise and Shine](_blank)
''OhMyNews.com''. Retrieved 14 February 2007.
The album received highly polarised reviews, earning one star from ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''
and four stars in the London ''
Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
''. The album received a score of 1 out of 10 from the ''
Drowned in Sound
''Drowned in Sound'', sometimes abbreviated to ''DiS'', is a UK-based music webzine financed by artist management company Silentway. Founded by editor Sean Adams, the site features reviews, news, interviews, and discussion forums.
History
''D ...
'' website, which prompted
Brian May
Brian Harold May (born 19 July 1947) is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and astrophysicist, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. May was a co-founder of Queen with lead singer Freddie Mercury and ...
of
Queen
Queen or QUEEN may refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom
** List of queens regnant
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
, a fan of Mika, to criticise the website for making unnecessary personal attacks on Mika.
Release
The original version of the album, released in the United Kingdom and Europe on 5 February 2007, contains a total of 12 tracks, including the hidden track "Over My Shoulder" and the bonus track "Ring Ring". It also includes an enhanced section, with links to music videos and live performances, as well as other exclusive content. The version released via the
iTunes Store
The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...
in Europe features three additional acoustic recordings as bonus tracks. The American version of the album, released on 27 March 2007, is essentially the same as the British release, however, it includes the exclusive bonus track "Erase", not included on the original release. American versions of the album bought at
Best Buy
Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebra ...
stores also carry two exclusive bonus tracks - acoustic versions of "Love Today" and "Satellite", while the American iTunes Store version also includes an exclusive acoustic version of "Grace Kelly". The version of the album released in Japan is essentially the same as the original British release, however, it also includes the American exclusive track "Erase", as well as the Japanese exclusive track "Your Sympathy", and an enhanced element containing the music video for "Grace Kelly".
The demo version of the album, issued to media journalists and critics, has a very different track listing than any of the main versions of the albums. It does not include the tracks "Lollipop", "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)" and "Over My Shoulder", but does include the Japanese only bonus track "Your Sympathy", as well as including "
Gave It All Away", Mika's original version of the track, before it was given to
Boyzone
Boyzone were an Irish boy band, created in 1993 by talent manager Louis Walsh. Before even recording any material, Boyzone made an appearance on RTÉ's '' The Late Late Show''. Their most successful line-up was composed of Keith Duffy, Steph ...
. Mika's version had never appeared on any other release, until the release of the Asian Tour Edition in March 2008, which includes the eleven standard tracks from the British album, the European bonus track "Ring Ring", "Gave It All Away" from the demo version, "Erase" from the American version, "Your Sympathy" from the Japanese edition, and the B-side recordings "Satellite", "Only Lonely One" and "Instant Martyr". The album was also packed with a bonus disc, including six acoustic recordings, four live recordings, and the single mix of "Happy Ending".
Chart performance
The album had significant success in Europe, with the album achieving 1.65 million certified sales in the United Kingdom and 1.45 million in France. The album was certified five-times platinum in Belgium and two-times platinum in Switzerland, and three-times platinum in Ireland, also achieving gold and/or platinum status in Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Greece. The album also charted in the Czech Republic and was certified in Japan. In Oceania, the album was certified two-times platinum in Australia and gold in New Zealand. In North America, the album was certified two-times platinum in Canada.
Track listing
Personnel
*
Mika
Mika is a given name, a nickname and a surname. Notable people and fictional characters with the name include:
People known just as Mika
* Mika (singer) (born 1983), Lebanese-born British singer-songwriter Michael Penniman, Jr.
* Mika (footbal ...
– lead vocals, piano, keyboards, guitar, backing vocals, percussion, programming
*
Greg Wells
Greg Wells is a Canadian musician, record producer, songwriter and audio engineer. Wells has songs on over 130 million albums sold. He has worked with John Legend, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ariana Grande, Jazmine Sullivan, Kid Cudi, Adele, Rufus Wai ...
– producer, mixer, guitar, bass, drums, programming, percussion, keyboards
*
Tim Pierce
Tim Pierce (born 1959 in Albuquerque) is an American session guitarist. He has worked for artists such as Joe Cocker, Crowded House, Goo Goo Dolls, Michael Jackson, Beth Hart, Roger Waters, Alice Cooper, Johnny Hallyday, Phil Collins, and the ...
– guitar
* Dylan Schiavone – guitar
*
Lyle Workman
Lyle Dean Workman is an American guitarist, composer, session and touring musician, and music producer. His music has been widely distributed since his debut on the eponymous '' Bourgeois Tagg'' album in 1986, and is known for his work as compos ...
– guitar
* Dan Rothchild – bass
*
Matt Chamberlain
Matthew Chamberlain (born April 17, 1967) is an American session musician, drummer, producer and songwriter.
Biography
Life and career
Chamberlain was born in San Pedro, California on April 17, 1967. He began learning how to play the drums ...
– drums
* Derek Cintron – percussion
* Fabien-Waltmann – programming
* Backing vocals by: Zuleika Penniman, Paloma Penniman, Fortuné Penniman, Audrey Moukataff, Alexander Millar and Ida Falk Winland
Orchestra
* Larry Corbett – cello
* Lee Thornburg – horns
* The Spoon Orchestra of Chiswick – orchestra
* Studio Gospel Choir – backing vocals
* Maxi Anderson – choir leader
*
Paul Buckmaster – string arrangement
* Jerry Hey – brass arrangement
Production
* Jodi Marr – producer, percussion
* John Merchant – producer, recording engineer
* Joe Zook – recording engineer
* Carlos Alvarez – recording engineer
*
Joe Chiccarelli
Joe or JOE may refer to:
Arts
Film and television
* ''Joe'' (1970 film), starring Peter Boyle
* ''Joe'' (2013 film), starring Nicolas Cage
* ''Joe'' (TV series), a British TV series airing from 1966 to 1971
* ''Joe'', a 2002 Canadian animated ...
– recording engineer
* Chris Nicoladies – recording engineer
* Drew Pearson – recording engineer
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
Certifications
References
External links
Mika's official websiteGreg WellsInterview with Greg Wells about producing the albumJodi Marr
{{DEFAULTSORT:Life In Cartoon Motion
Mika (singer) albums
2007 debut albums
Festival Records albums
Mushroom Records albums
Casablanca Records albums
Albums produced by Greg Wells