There are album titles that are elusive, hazy, and others that are clear and clear about the artist’s intention. With his most recent record, popular pop artist Mika falls into the second category. His new collection of songs is called May your head always bloom and carries two key information: these danceable pieces are in French in the text, in addition to calling on the listener not to give in to grayness or immobility despite the passing years.
The singer spent large parts of his life in the United States and made most of his career in English, with a few notable exceptions, such as the hit She tells me. But the new forty-year-old, whose real name is Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr., was born in Lebanon and spent the first years of his life in France. The one who also collaborated with Pierre Lapointe therefore has excellent French, delivered with his very personal touch.
“It’s the Mika English ! he says laughing, immediately making fun of his use of the English formula. What I always say is that I didn’t want to pretend to be French. It was more this idea of being French-speaking, that these different identities, this idea of being a “passenger” through many different cultures, was not a weakness, but a strength. »
And like Chilly Gonzales, who recently also turned French, Mika rises to the challenge of writing songs in the language of Molière, opting for a “candid” approach “without using allegories”, in no longer use the rhythm of words.
He gives the example of the play Sweety Banana, where he clicks the consonants: “Coco on my lips / a caramel heart / in broken arms”. “It’s very faithful to my writing in general,” he explains. Without too many pirouettes, but which tells something very deep, therefore simple on the outside, deep on the inside. »
The musician who rose to fame early in his career with titles like Grace Kelly And Lollipop also had the desire to explore new creative territories with this French record. “I wanted to feel like I didn’t know what was going to happen, how I was going to cope. And newness is a very important thing, especially for someone like me, who just turned 40. It was good to feel like there was something new. »
The creative process was not painful, says Mika, but it took almost two and a half years for him to feel that he had achieved his goal, which was to deliver an album “really full of melodies, of ‘stories and colors’.
This is where the meaning of the title May your head always bloom takes shape. This endangerment that Mika has imposed on himself, he also brings it into the background of his new titles. They are imbued with freedom, letting go, “carpe diem” tattooed on the skin, risk-taking, openness, whatever.
“It’s this idea of resisting the gravity of life. I mean, I like life to be serious, but not the way we get turned off by life from time to time. We must grow and age without losing our colors, and consciously accentuate them, exaggerate them, cultivate them, make them evolve. »
What he rather observes about society is that it wants us to become duller with the years, it leads us to age “gently, silently”. On the room That’s lifeMika may say that “aging is a disaster”, he still calls on listeners to remain creative, “to have more empathy for the world around” and to “stay dynamic”.
Dynamic, the music of May your head always bloom are, and from the first piece, Get moving, a title that commands the action. “We’re in a club, in Amsterdam, at three in the morning, with a surrealist text! » he illustrates. The overall approach is rather varied. Here he evokes a “1960s Anglo-Saxon approach”, different from the tunes “kissed by an island, African or more tropical sun”. With the constant that “it does not seek to be defined by the fashion of the moment”, maintains Mika.
Speaking of fashion, the designer is also very involved in all the visual aspects of this project, for which he collaborated with Quebec talents, including photographer Royal Gilbert. Mika even set up her own sewing workshop a year ago, which ensures that her creations are unique and adapted to the music.
Mika promises to come and present his new songs in Quebec, and promotes his show by calling it “crazy stuff”. “I mix visual theater, technology, animation with art objects, there are almost operatic settings, all that mixed together. Even the prints on my costumes are linked to the songs! » Obviously, it blooms abundantly in Mika’s head.