Love Grace Kelly, loved it then and it’s still worth a listen. I was never really taken with much else Mika did though. Love Today in particular felt a bit crap as a follow up.

Absolute genius record, 'Grace Kelly', I heard it loads at the time, played it semi-regularly ever since, and it's never gotten boring. Such a good progression and as you note, all its drama and satire built into the vocals, I think that plays really well with what he was aiming for.

I am a fan, I've kept up with him at times as he became a bit more niche, and there were a few songs that came close to this, but it really is such a perfect combination of factors, a radio dominating track, that's well-performed, and has some interesting and open to interpretation lyrical content. Fantastic #1.

Slight shame he stopped FOB getting a #1 but Grace Kelly is so good I've never really considered it an option.

Grace Kelly would definitely be towards the top for me, it's just so camp and OTT fun that it's really difficult not to like it. I got bored of Mika very quickly and at one point would have said I disliked everything he'd done, but I remember this coming on at a house party a few years after it was out and thinking just how joyous it is and actually not at all irritating as a stand alone track. Rather like Queen who so obviously influenced it, I can only manage listening to such flamboyance in small doses but this track is just the right amount.

"Grace Kelly" is great and would be in my Top 3, eventhough it denied "Starz In Their Eyes" a well-deserved #1. "Starz In Their Eyes" is among my 3 favourite songs of 2007.

2 hours ago, T Boy said:

Love Grace Kelly, loved it then and it’s still worth a listen. I was never really taken with much else Mika did though. Love Today in particular felt a bit crap as a follow up.

'Love Today' is truly hideous 🤢

Grace Kelly was a unique-sounding biggie, loved it at the time, it's still fun, and I found myself liking his run of hits, and loving some of the flops even more. Mika is in my current charts as I speak and he has a Radio 2 playlisting, not to mention his Eurovision sparkling moment in Italy the other year, so lasting 2 decades is rather longer than it might have seemed at the time!

Shine was my No.1 of 2007! I loved it from the moment I got Beautiful World at the end of 2006, love Mark taking the lead and thought this was such a wonderful ELO style single. I think that, Rule The World and The Flood are my Take That top three, all 10/10 songs.

Grace Kelly also got the year off to a similarly theatrical and flamboyant start, absolutely brilliant track and I've followed his career closely since too, he's great. The parent album was brilliant but I didn't like all of the single choices - how did My Interpretation not get a shot!? Also Relax, Take It Easy deserved an earlier full push than it got, as the follow up to Grace Kelly would have been good. The little girl at the start of the video to Grace Kelly is a young Mae Muller.

I remember the first time I heard 'Grace Kelly' while listening to Hit40UK at the time (switched to radio 1 a few months later) and it was chosen as the DJ's song to look out for. An fantastic debut but a massive misstep with the follow up. Agreed on that being rubbish.

5 hours ago, gooddelta said:

The little girl at the start of the video to Grace Kelly is a young Mae Muller.

This makes me feel old but OMG!! Would never have guessed.

'Grace Kelly' was a great quirky stomper as the first new #1 in the era when any download could chart. Now 66 was the last NOW album I bought and this was certainly one of the attractions, being the disc 1 opener. I'm not too keen on either of the songs before it here though. In the original mix of 'Beautiful Liar', I feel like the song and backing don't always go, as if they're on two different chords - and whereas the Freemasons remix irons that out, it loses the atmosphere from it, so I don't get much out of either version. 'Shine' was a good choice of follow-up to 'Patience' to showcase a different side to the newly reformed band, but I'm afraid it grates a little for me, both in the verse lyrics (well-meaning but just a little clunky) and the vocals on the title itself - the Morrisons ads didn't help with that. I like everything that remains in the top 3, but have a clear order of preference, intrigued to see if yours is the same!