"I can be hurtful I can be purple I can be anything you like" sang Mika on his breakthrough hit Grace Kelly, but if you're looking for him to be anything except more of the same on his second album you're going to be a little disappointed. Mika: "a falsetto to rival Barry Gibb" Mika is an interesting character in the world of pop music. He writes some incredibly catchy and also some supremely annoying tunes (sometimes they're the same song). His first album, Life in Cartoon Motion should by all rights have flopped. A flamboyant, Lebanon born singer with a falsetto to rival Barry Gibb's peddling the lyrics "sucking to hard on your lollipop, oh love's gonna get you down" doesn't really fit anywhere into the charts. But on the back of Grace Kelly he topped charts internationally and sold six million copies of the subsequent album. He's now back with his second offering The Boy Who Knew Too Much, and it's more of the same. A style that I can only describe as 'pop-music pantomime'. The most obvious example of this is first single We Are Golden. An overblown production which as at once the best and worst thing on this album. Mika's voice yoyo's through the verses, hitting his mind-numbing falsetto without warning until the chorus kicks in, and as hard as you fight it, you'll find yourself humming along... and then looking around to make sure no one heard you doing so. Like so many of his tunes, it throws so many things that just shouldn't work together (including a wince-inducing pronounciation of the word 'golden'), but end up being more than the sum of their parts. Thankfully from here on it the uber-flamboyance is toned down a little, however I stress the 'little'. Second track and follow-up single Blame It On The Girls has been described by Mika as sounding like No Doubt - and as such he owes Gwen Stefani an apology. It coasts along on a throbbing drum and hand claps that will have you tapping your feet. The lyrics here, like much of the album, are disposable fluff, and you often get the impression that Mika is singing about himself. Rain starts in a nicely subdued manner, a welcome contrast to the first two tracks, but brings back that falsetto for the chorus. It's not unpleasant, and it's another clear example that Mika has a gift for finding a hook that worms its way into your brain and stays there. He's just not so adept at how to use it once he's got it. Dr John finds Mika channelling The Beatles (don't hate on me, I didn't say he succeeds). It swings away on a repetitive lyric and is not altogether unpleasant. I See You takes Mika completely out of his novelty act persona and into his 'I'm a serious artist' persona with a sincere love song. Mika's vocals are a little more reserved though the production isn't, despite having a more mature lean. And therein lies the biggest problem with Mika and the album as a whole. Subtlety is clearly not a word that is in Mika's vocabulary and after twelve songs that are all overblown to the extreme you have the urge to direct him to a dictionary to look it up. Good Gone Girl and Touches You are the sonic equivalent of a circus, all flashiness and fun but with no relation to reality at all. Toy Boy follows on from the first album's Billy Brown with its homosexual themes. When Mika is singing lyrics such as "but your momma thought there was something wrong/ didn't want you sleeping with a boy too long/ it's a serious thing in a grown-up world/ maybe you'd be better with a barbie girl" it's no wonder that his sexuality has been questioned since his first single (it was only recently that he admitted to being bisexual). It's not easy to sum up this album. Musically it's a bit of a mess. Mika is like a kid in a candy store in his approach to his songs and needs to learn that sometimes too much really is too much. But despite that, the album is fun. If you hated his first one, this one is only going to make you hate him more. But if you can sit back and just let go without reading anything into it, you'll find an enjoyable album here and just like a bag of candy, it's a guilty pleasure. Hear Mika's new album here, and the video for We Are Golden appears below. Andrew Grear - 18th October 2009