Mika Hyperlove album review: ‘His first English-language album in six years is a triumph’
"Even if Mika never really went away, it feels great to have him back," says Nick Levine
By Nick Levine
When Mika co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2022, it felt a little like bumping into an old friend you’d lost touch with. The Beirut-born, Paris- and London-raised singer-songwriter was inescapable in the late 2000s, when he reeled off five UK top-ten hits, including the witty chart-topper ‘Grace Kelly’. But during the subsequent decade, he seemed to retreat from view. Mika came out as gay in 2012, but confided in a recent interview that press speculation about his sexuality before then was “kind of brutal”.
In reality, Mika’s apparent retreat was a smart pivot to markets where he felt more comfortable and wasn’t viewed with suspicion and a hint of homophobia – he’s also spoken eloquently about being branded “brazen” in early reviews and profiles. He remained especially popular in Italy, where he served as an X Factor judge for five seasons, and France, where his French-language album Que ta tête fleurisse toujours cracked the top five in 2023. But now, after appearing as a judge on three series of Channel 4’s classy music show The Piano, co-hosting last year’s Attitude Awards, to even appearing alongside Holly Johnson on Attitude’s January/February cover, Mika seems ready to rekindle his love affair with the UK.
“Hyperlove is a vibrant, lightly psychedelic electro-pop album”
Crucially, his first English-language album in six years is a triumph. Co-produced with Nick Littlemore of left-field dance acts Pnau and Empire of the Sun, Hyperlove is a vibrant, lightly psychedelic electro-pop album on which Mika reminds us of his vivid imagination. The lovely, guitar-flecked ‘Take Your Problems with You’ sounds like a breezy evening in Nice, while the slinky synth-pop mid-tempo ‘Science Fiction Lover’ features the mildly ridiculous line “Shakespeare would be jealous”. Elsewhere, ‘Modern Love’ is a homoerotic stomper that references an Egyptian sun deity and the street-hustler boys celebrated by Italian writer-director Pier Paolo Pasolini. It’s all stitched together by deliciously camp spoken-word interludes from cult filmmaker John Waters, who invites us to call him our “sugar grandaddy”.
“Even if Mika never really went away, it feels great to have him back”
Not every track is a sparkling new Mika classic like recent single ‘Immortal Love’, but nothing interrupts the album’s warm, life-affirming, charmingly idiosyncratic vibe. If ‘Excuses for Love’ wasn’t written as a queer-coded anthem, it certainly feels like one. “Why do we have to make excuses for love? We keep on hiding like we’re not good enough,” Mika sings over a beat that sounds like ABBA on edibles. The delirious disco of ‘Spinning Out’ captures all the confusion of life right now and offers some eminently sensible advice: “Take comfort in the sound.” Even if Mika didn’t ever go away – not really – it feels great to have him back.
Hyperlove is available to stream now across various platforms.
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