I love Mika the way I haven’t loved any musician since Freddie Mercury. There are similarities here; the level of talent, the classical piano training, the Arab ancestry (Mika is half American too though raised in England and France, Freddie Mercury was Indian of Arabic descent, raised in England), the swarthy and somewhat pretty good looks, the balletic physique, the love of theatrics, the voice that caresses the ear like a lover’s whisper. Freddie had a secret dark side though and Mika (real name Mika Penniman) wears his dark side on his sleeve.  Hi songs are wistful perhaps and sometimes sad and deal with dark subjects with a cartoonists deft hand. For the most part Mika is kawaii, dancerific and relentlessly positive in that he embraces the ugliness of the world by accepting it.  You know, he’s actually very Buddhist in a lot of ways which makes a Buddhist like me relate pretty well.

His art is definitely kawaii ( oh you know he would absolutely love Gloomy Bear for instance!) and he works on the designs of his CD’s and shows with his talented artist sister Yasmine (his family is very involved in his musical career). He is talented beyond his years (he is 26 years old) and has just released his second album called “The Boy Who Knew Too Much”. I love the title of this album since it reflects experience that Mika has gained since his last record 2 years ago called “Life in Cartoon Motion”. That was a fresh-faced look at pop music and “Boy”  is more mature, more theatrical and discusses love, loss, sex and sexual identity.

Sometimes I feel like I’m hearing Freddie Mercury’s falsetto, especially on the tune, “Pick Up Off the Floor” which is a torch song reminiscent of Freddie’s tour de force on “News of the World” called “My Melancholy Blues”.

There have been comparisons to Scissor Sisters front man Jake Shears but he has nowhere near the vocal range and quality of Mika (or Freddie Mercury) though he  is also talented in his way but  not as accessible as Mika. Jake is always openly gay and Freddie Mercury was only so in later in life and Mika has said he is bisexual(actually he didn’t really SAY he was bizexual, rather that others could refer to him as bisexual if they liked) recently to a Dutch magazine though he prefers not to label himself or others.

Another Queen song tie-in is Mika’s “Lover Boy” which is terribly  like Queen’s “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy” from “A Day at the Races”.  It’s like Freddie has been resurrected and he’s young and fresh and well – not Freddie anymore really – he’s Mika, he’s a completely different take on a similar theme and for me it is dream come true.

My favorite song on the new album is “I See You”; that is heartbreak in a song. And yet you don’t feel destroyed at the end, just that you have acknowledged something you could no longer deny. Somehow Mika captures beauty in the fact that there is no hope.

This song is one of the most sad on the record, for the most part Mika makes you want to sing and dance with shameless abandon, even if some of the lyrics have a razor sharp edge and are slightly macabre.

Mika himself is mercurial (take that how you want), tormented to a certain degree and yet filled with what can only be called the unbearable lightness of being. He is one of a kind, even with comparisons to others (you will hear The Beatles, Queen, Scissor Sisters and Billie Holiday influencing his tracks); he is truthfully more like water than reflection. His music flows and transforms that which it flows over turning stones into art and parched earth into life.

We need Mika. We need to lay back in his musical waters and float toward the promise of hope, understanding and the deep chords of love that vibrate through his transformative beat.