MIKA

Visit the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8ATwgpuXY

The album ‘Life in Cartoon Motion’ by Mika, is easily shown through the colourful imagery of the album cover and gives the feeling of happiness. If we look closely at the album cover though, it is possible to see a female in the bottom right hand corner that links in with one of the videos – ‘Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)’. Moreover, slightly above that image, is a little girl holding a lollipop, which ties in with another song of the album, ‘Lollipop’. Most of this ideology fits in with numerous other songs such as ‘Relax (Take It Easy)’ as we can see a man relaxing on the sofa. Furthermore, most posters are the same image as the album cover to promote it further by having the same image floating around in people’s minds. This Mika poster though is slightly different as even though the main image is the same from the album cover, the imagery from the left of it has changed and Mika has moved into one of the main attractions in the poster. This could be quite a good idea, as if you have two completely different album covers and posters, it could become quite easy to confuse people over what is actually out and what to look out for. This idea is quite unique, and in my eyes a good idea because people are less likely to get confused, but the albums promoted well.

Also, another clever idea is the use of a different name for the album cover than any of the songs, as most artists use one of their song titles as their album name.

‘Life in Cartoon Motion’ can not only be shown through the imagery on the album cover but also in the music videos, however, due to the album cover title not being an actual song, I decided to analyse the video ‘Love Today’ which only confirms the intertextuality between all the ‘Life in Cartoon Motion’ products. In the video, much like the album cover and poster, there are a lot of bright colours in the background that are made animated on a screen, objects associated with happiness – stars and swirls. Additionally, the backing dancers are often in bright colours too, and in silly costumes for certain situations e.g. ravers 80s outfits in a café. It generally consists of medium shots and long shots, so you see a bigger picture and also the repetition within the video. This is not only carried out by the performance in the video but also within the lyrics, the title of the song ‘Love Today’ is repeated many a time, as is common in most songs. Furthermore though, these are not the only lyrics that are repeated and due to the fact there is more repetition, makes it easier for the audience (of all ranges) to sing along and enjoy the song. This then helps it to become more popular, attracting more media attention for the album and also the artist. Most of the choreography is unlikely to be seen in normal situations so makes the song become a bit more like fantasy, sending it back round in a loop hole to the cartoon situation.