Life in Cartoon Motion
| Life in Cartoon Motion | ||||
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| Studio album by Mika | ||||
| Released | 5 February 2007 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 46:16 | |||
| Label |
Island (United Kingdom) Casablanca (United States) FMR Warner Bros. (Australasia) |
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| Producer | ||||
| Mika chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Life in Cartoon Motion | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    |
| Drowned in Sound | (1/10) |
| Entertainment Weekly | B+ |
| The Guardian | |
| Observer Music Monthly | |
| Pitchfork Media | (1.5/10) |
| Robert Christgau |  |
| Slant Magazine | |
| Stylus | D− |
| Rolling Stone | |
Life in Cartoon Motion is the debut album released by British recording artist Mika. The album was produced by Greg Wells and Mika himself, mixed by Wells, with co-production on two songs by Jodi Marr and John Merchant. The album was released via Island Records on 5 February 2007 in the United Kingdom, and via Casablanca Records on 27 March 2007 in the United States. The album's lead single, "Grace Kelly", stayed at number one on the UK Singles Chart for five weeks straight and became a number-one hit in many countries.
The album debuted at number 1 in the United Kingdom, selling 7.8 million copies worldwide since its release. The Life in Cartoon Motion album cover has since been used in a commercial for the iPod Touch. It was the fifth-best-selling album in the world during 2007.
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 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 and began recording his debut album. His musical influences are based in classical music. 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, prompting some questioning regarding Mika's sexuality. On this, Mika comments that he has no taboos about what he can use to tell a story or what stories he can actually tell. He believes that sexualizing music is great, but politically sexualizing music and making the artist's sexuality the defining point of someone's music is "boring". He says 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 a very important song on the album mostly 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 was 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."
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