Official Chart Flashback 2007: Mika - Grace Kelly

15 years ago this week, Mika scored his first Number 1 with the single Grace Kelly.

Grace Kelly was the second release - but first chart entry - from Mika’s debut album Life In Cartoon Motion, following the debut single Relax, Take It Easy. Grace Kelly became the second single ever – following Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy the year before – to top the charts on downloads alone.

Mika’s cheery Freddie Mercury-referencing confection Grace Kelly first entered the Official Singles Chart at Number 3 on January 14, 2007 before booting X Factor winner Leona Lewis’ A Moment Like This off the top spot a week later. It went on to spend an impressive five weeks at Number 1 and selling over 604,000 copies and becoming the third biggest-selling single of 2007, and spookily enough, the accompanying album – Life In Cartoon Motion – was the third biggest-seller of the year in the UK too, going on to sell 5.6 million worldwide.

Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr. (Mika’s non-showbiz handle) is a Lebanese-born British singer-songwriter. He won the BBC’s Sound of 2007 poll beating such turns as Klaxons and The Twang to the top spot. He’d been diligently sending out demos to labels in the UK, but was informed by one that while he had a good voice, he should try and write songs more akin to Robbie Williams. This quandary was what inspired him to compose Grace Kelly, wherein he detailed his frustration at trying to fit into a pop hitmaker mode.

In addition to Grace Kelly, Mika achieved five other Top 40 singles such as Love Today, Big Girl (You Are Beautiful), Happy Ending and his last to date being 2009’s Number 4 hit, We Are Golden.

MORE: All of Mika's hit songs and albums in the UK

Mika’s first album, Life In Cartoon Motion, was also an enormous success, reaching Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart, and spending 94 weeks on the Top 100. He earned three further Top 40 albums, including the Number 4-peaking The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009)

Since that giddy period, Mika has been both a coach on The Voice of France and a judge on X Factor Italy, as well as creating his own variety show Stasera Casa Mika in Italy.

The rest of the chart that week saw a Top 3 of other acts obtaining their career-best chart positions alongside Mika. Up from last week’s 4 to 2 was Camden-based rapper Just Jack with Starz In Their Eyes, and at 3 were Scottish indie act The View whose Same Jeans shot up from Number 11.

At 4 was Jojo, whose major hit Too Little Too Late had reached its peak, and rounding off the Top Five was Eric Prydz Vs Floyd, which saw the Swedish DJ rework Pink Floyd’s 1979 Number 1 Another Brick In The Wall for rave-up purposes.

The previous week's – and 2006’s Christmas chart-topper no less – Number 1, Leona Lewis’ A Moment Like This, was down from 1 to 6. Up to 7 from 22 were The Ordinary Boys with I Luv U. Another previous Number 1, Take That’s 2006 comeback Patience, slid from 5 to 8. At 9, up from 40 was Jamie T and Calm Down Dearest, and rounding off the Top 10 was Booty Luv’s Boogie 2Nite, down from 7.

Other hits of note that week was Mason’s banger Exceeder up from 78 to 11, a Chris Moyles-campaign led to a re-entry of Billie’s Honey To The Bee at 17. Damon Albarn’s The Good The Bad & The Queen project’s Kingdom Of Doom was new at 20 and The Fray’s How To Save A Life opened at 29.

Check out the full Official Singles Chart from this week in 2007 here.

Listen to the UK Top 40 from this week in 2007 on Spotify below. Also available on Apple Music | Deezer