The Boy Who Knew Too Much

Mika's gloriously over the top debut single "Grace Kelly" suggested the Lebanese-American Londoner was destined to be a fondly-remembered one-hit-wonder: it could easily have been the White Town's "Your Woman" of the 2000s. Happily, it turns out that The Boy Who Knew Too Much is a significant improvement over the spotty Life In Cartoon Motion. The album kicks off with a trio of absolutely spectacular singles: "We Are Golden" is refreshingly unironic in its use of classic anthemic pop tropes, right down to the use of a gospel choir in the fists-in-the-air chorus; the summery, Latin-tinged power-of-positive-thinking sermon "Blame It on the Girls" suggests a fantasy collaboration between George Michael and Pet Shop Boys circa 1988; "Rain," the most subtle but perhaps the best of the lot, features a gorgeously melancholy falsetto chorus and sequencer-driven pulse that suggests the protagonist of Bronski Beat's downbeat 1984 coming out anthem "Smalltown Boy" found solace in dancefloors and Ecstasy. But the album gets even more interesting once the singles are out of the way, exploring less chart-friendly but more intriguing influences like vintage Queen (flamboyant shuffle "Dr. John"), glam-era Sparks (tongue-twisty "Good Gone Girl") and Kurt Weill (the barely-veiled allegory of "Toy Boy," set to a deliberately sugary string-orchestra waltz). The arrangements are exquisitely layered and impressively varied, and Mika's impressive pipes are showcased throughout. It's a shame a pop record so perfectly realized was largely ignored upon its US release.