Mika: "Grace Kelly"

Why now, brown cow? Why -- as the credits to The Hills roll and I ponder Heidi’s no-doubt-doomed future with Spencer or Lauren’s supposedly mast-like “meat curtains” -- am I blindsided by the obvious, lifted from my nest by the smell of neon gruel? I’m behind the curve, after all; Mika’s garish rise has happened, snapped, and happened again, but probably should have existed, say, in 1975 when castrati (supporting fat bulges) roamed the land like buffalo. Restraint, subtlety? Pshaw…such nuance has no footing in the mono bleats of my thirteen-inch. Even if I could make out the organ wash from the synthesized power chords and bass chomps on every predictable upbeat, could discern Captain Fantastic twinkles from the million Brown Dirt Cowboys ooh-ing and suffocating behind the singer’s every syllable, I’d still only stop for Mika’s voice. There’s no shame in admitting that I like “Grace Kelly” because of the way Mika says “purple.”

And for all the posturing Mika does (singing about being a chameleon, comparing his colors to the sky with limited palette, comparing not to Grace Kelly because Grace Kelly’s too sad but to Freddie Mercury because only Mr. Farenheit’s got the right flounce) Mika can’t make his music really exist. Every rollicking step of the song is one more shade closer to nothing, not predictable, something more blatantly instinctual. Like ducking when a rock’s hurled at your head. Will I lose my mind celebrating and getting behind another mass consumption of nostalgia in wheeling voice and style that’s already too old to be some fascinating kitsch? Am I killing my neurons? And then it’s over, three minutes barely breached by some fading organ (“ka-cheeng”), and Lauren’s having wine and pizza with Aubrey.