Global pop phenomenon MIKA releases his second album ‘The Boy Who Knew Too Much’ through Casablanca/Island Records. This new album follows up his debut, ‘Life in Cartoon Motion’ which has sold nearly 6 million copies around the world and gone 5 x platinum in the UK for sales of over 1.5 million, as well as winning him BRIT, Ivor Novello and MTV Awards.
The brand new single ‘We Are Golden’ acts as a perfect opening track for an album that is written by Mika and co-produced by himself and Greg Wells. The album was recorded between London and Los Angeles over the last two years, and other guests include The Seawind Horns (Thriller, Off The Wall), Imogen Heap, Owen Pallet from Final Fantasy/Arcade Fire and Stuart Price.
Fizzing with influences from big pop albums of the 80’s and 90’s through to Kurt Weill, 50’s singer Patti Page and 70’s singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, Mika describes the record as more grown up than it’s precedessor. “‘Life in Cartoon Motion’ contained a lot of childhood references. The new album is more adolescent. I thought ‘where do I go back to? Before all this happened, what made me start writing songs?’ I loved that feeling of being 17/18 years old and I wanted to return to that period”. The album is bristling with teenage possibilities and OMM describe is as ‘bursting with melodies and sounding dazzlingly carefree’.
Other new tracks include “Blame It On the Girls” which marries skittering percussion with floor-stomping piano and a swoon-worthy chorus, while “Rain” – featuring droplets of violin plucks from Owen Pallett and additional programming by Stuart Price – is a bona fide dancefloor anthem, Mika’s stunning voice floating effortlessly over pillows of synths. Indeed, from stirring ballads to candy-coated choruses, the new album retains a breadth of vision that speaks not only to Mika’s extraordinary melodic sensibilities, but also to the incredible stories he tells within his songs.