your-guide-to-music

[your-guide-to-music]

Next guide is going to be on David Bowie, this one is gonna take a while but it’ll probably be up tomorrow or the day after👨‍🎤

[your-guide-to-music]

Your guide to: George Michael

Welcome to your guide to: George Michael! This guide is designed to help anyone looking to explore his music with getting started. The guide covers his background and history surrounding both Wham! And his solo career, and also the music produced during these periods. It is a long guide, as is every guide that will go on this blog but it’s meant to give a very in depth view of the artist and help new fans get to know who they really are. I may update this in the future so if you have anything you want added or have any questions, just let me know!

Background and history

So first off, just like the last guide, I’m going to give a bit of background info on who George Michael is - George was a British pop star who found fame in the early 1980’s as part of a duo with Andrew Ridgeley, a friend he met during his teenage years. He was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in East Finchley, London in 1963 and moved to Hertfordshire in his early teens.

To date, George has had a combined 9 studio & compilation albums go to #1 within Wham! and his solo career. His first two albums inside Wham! - Fantastic and Make It Big both hit the top spot in the UK and although these are the only albums released in the UK, there is a third album called Music From the Edge of Heaven. Music From The Edge of heaven was not released in the UK, but it was in North America and Japan, where it’s peak position landed at #10. The album includes tracks such as the hit ‘I’m Your Man’ and ‘Edge of Heaven’ which both hit #1 in the UK.

In terms of his solo work, these are all his albums to go to #1. LWP Vol.1 actually hit the top spot twice after its reissue in 2017.

The Wham! Era (1981-1986) - Wham were a pop duo formed by friends George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. The group began in 1981 and initially signed to Innervision records after the boys sent a homemade tape to record labels. George acted as Lead Vocalist, Composer and Producer with Andrew primarily acting as guitarist and backing vocalist.

Alongside the duo were backing dancers Shirley Holliman (Who would go on to become Shirley Kemp, the wife of Spandau Ballet’s Martin Kemp) and Dee C. Lee, though Lee left early on to work as part of the group ‘The Style Council’ with Paul Weller, and was replaced by Helen ‘Pepsi’ DeMacque. After Wham!’s split in 1986, the girls would go on to form their own duo called Pepsi and Shirley, spanning songs such as Heartache and Goodbye Stranger.

The first record released by Wham! was the upbeat ‘Wham Rap (Enjoy What You Do)’ in August 1982, reaching #8 on the UK charts, it is arguably one of the band’s most well-known songs. The next single was Young Guns (Go For It), released in October 1982 and reaching #3 in the UK charts. This forecast further success for Wham! and in June 1983, they released their debut album - Fantastic. The album hit #1 and things only went up from there. Other hit singles from this album include the ever memorable Club Tropicana and Bad Boys which hit #4 and #2 respectively.

The second album released by Wham! was Make It Big, by this time they had moved to Epic Records after disputes with Innervision. The album was released in November 1984 and was accompanied by 3 #1 singles - Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Freedom and Careless Whisper (That last one is actually a George Michael solo song as you all probably know but it is credited to Wham! featuring George Michael. George put Andrew on the writing credits so he wouldn’t have to worry about money as he’d always get royalties from that song.) They almost had a Christmas #1 in 1984 with their classic ‘Last Christmas’, but were beat to the top spot by Band Aid, a venture George was also a part of. The royalties from LC went to the Ethiopian Famine Appeal to coincide with the fund-raising efforts of Band Aid.

In 1985, Wham! became the first western group to have a 10 day visit to China on their world tour. They played a concert at the People’s Gymnasium in Beijing for 12,000 people and a further concert in Canton for 5,000 people. Footage from their tour was featured in the video for Freedom and the tour attracted mass media attention, keeping Wham! at the height of success.

In 1986, George released a second solo song - A Different Corner. This song is always bittersweet to listen to for me, and it was a big success just like Careless Whisper was 2 years earlier. It was around this time that breakup rumours began to circle and Wham! officially announced their disbandment after the release of Music From the Edge of Heaven and a compilation album of their singles called ‘The Final’. A sell-out 8 hour farewell concert by the same name of the compilation album followed and the last Wham! single ‘Edge of Heaven’ reached #1 in June 1986.

The solo years (1987-2016) - In January 1987, a duet between George and Aretha Franklin - I Knew You Were Waiting (for me) - was released. The song was another success for George and it hit #1 in both UK and US charts. This was the third solo #1 he’d had before his debut album was even released.

His debut album, Faith, was released in the UK on October 30th. The album has now well-known classics of George’s discography such as Faith, I Want Your Sex, Father Figure and One More Try. This album spent 12 weeks at #1 in the US and stayed in the UK charts for 92 consecutive weeks. Furthering it’s success, Faith won the Grammy for Album of The Year in 1989 and George embarked on a world tour in support.

It’s no secret (now) that George was unhappy during this time, and in fact at future various times of his career too. The very execution of Faith, including the promotion and touring for it, left him exhausted. At the same time, George was battling with his sexuality and had been for some time which only contributed to his opposement to promotion and the press in general in the future.

In 1990, his second album - Listen Without Prejudice Vol.1 - was released. This album is personally my favourite, George had moved away from the cute little teen idol image he was in Wham! and was starting to pursue a more serious image. The album includes notable tracks such as Freedom ‘90 and Praying For Time and George refused to do any promotion for it.

Freedom ‘90 is particularly notable for its music video, which featured some of the biggest supermodels in the world at the time. He didn’t appear in the music video at all and instead had Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford and Tatjana Patitz lip-syncing to the song, inspired by this photo from the cover of Vogue Magazine. George would work with Linda Evangelista again for the video of ‘Too Funky’, as well as other supermodels such as Tyra Banks.

The 90’s brought a lot of struggles with it for George, he entered a long battle with Sony over his rights as an artist and he lost his partner, Anselmo Feleppa, as well as his mother.

The battle with Sony was tough to say the least. George argued that Sony had failed to promote his latest album LWP Vol.1 properly as punishment for his choice to downplay his sex symbol image. Sony, on the other hand, argued that it was George’s refusal to appear in promotion for the album that caused the poor performance compared to Faith.

Sony ultimately won the lawsuit and George remained trapped in his contract, something he referred to as ‘professional slavery’. It wasn’t until 1995 that Sony sold George’s contract to Virgin Records and DreamWorks Records, freeing him from the confinements he detested so heavily.

In 1991, George performed Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me at his Wembley Arena show with Elton again, this version was recorded and released, reaching #1 in the UK and US.

That same year we sadly lost one of the best musicians I personally think we’ve ever seen. Freddie Mercury was an incredible man on and off stage, and in 1992 a tribute concert was held in his memory. George attended this concert as a performer and sang queen hits such as Somebody To Love and These Are The Days of Our Lives with Lisa Stansfield.

It was during this time that George discovered Anselmo had been diagnosed with AIDS, the same thing that took Freddie from us, and was feeling not only the hurt from losing one of his idols, but also distraught from understanding he was potentially going to lose his partner.

Anselmo died in March 1993 after a long battle with AIDS. This severely hurt George and led him further into a state of depression and grief. Because of the battle going on with Sony, George wouldn’t release another album until 1996.

Older is, arguably, his best work. After all the pain he had experienced and the struggles he had gone through in recent years, he came back with a strong album that included the hit song ‘Jesus To a Child’, dedicated to Anselmo. Other songs such as Spinning The Wheel and Fastlove Pt. 1 highlights the danger of AIDS and explore the notion of love without commitment.

Looking back, I think it is relatively easy to see the real messages in the music. I think back when these albums were released it probably wasn’t as widely considered and so few were looking for the real messages, just looking at the music but not observing.

In 1997, George also lost his mother to cancer, just 4 years after losing his Partner. I have to say, George created some amazing music during this decade and I believe he came out stronger for going through these things but it’s hard to deny that this was an incredibly difficult time for him and I often wonder how he did it.

1998 was the year George’s sexuality was finally revealed in a more than subtle way. He was arrested in Beverly Hills in April of that year for ‘Engaging in a lewd act’ in a public restroom located at the Will Rogers Memorial Park. The arrest was part of a sting operation using ‘Pretty Police’, the arresting officer involved in the incident was Marcelo Rodríguez and as a result of the publicity, it was soon known that George was gay (not that it was any of our business anyway).

1998 also saw the release of his first solo greatest hits album entitled ‘Ladies and Gentlemen: the best of George Michael’. The album included some new songs such as ‘Outside’, the first single which made fun of his April arrest, and a duet with Mary J Blige singing a cover of Stevie Wonder’s ‘As’. The album had to be released through Sony as per the contract severance terms from 1995 and the album reached #1 in the UK, staying there for 8 weeks and making it one of the best selling albums of all time in the UK.

George’s next album came a year later - Songs From The Last Century. This album was completely covers with no original work, songs such as Roxanne (originally performed by The Police) and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (originally performed by Peggy Seeger) and hit #2 in the UK charts.

Now we’re getting into the 2000’s, the decade in which some of my favourite George Michael songs came to life. I’m 2000 he recorded a duet with Whitney Houston which was going to feature Michael Jackson instead of her at first. He began working on his 5th studio album this year and it was released in 2003.

The album, ‘Patience’, had its first single released in March 2002 and what a single it was. Titled ‘Freeek!’, the song was far, far away from the usual wham! Sound. Georgie had grown up and we were not allowed to forget it. Unfortunately I’ve hit the photo limit for this post but I suggest you watch the music video below if you want an idea of what I’m talking about.

https://youtu.be/VLnYPXTs9LY

The next single was quite controversial, it’s called Shoot The Dog and the lyrics criticise UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush in the run up to the 2003 Iraq invasion. He also recorded a version of Don McLean’s ‘The Grave’ and performed it on various music programmes, gaining further controversy but praise from Don.

In 2003, George resigned to Sony despite the history between them. Patience was released in 2004 and became one of the fastest selling albums in the UK, selling over 200,000 copies in its first week alone. A number of other singles were released from this album including Amazing, Flawless, Round Here and John and Elvis Are Dead.

The next piece of work from George came in 2006 titled simply ‘Twenty Five’. It marked George’s 25th year in the music world from the time Wham! begun and debuted at #1 in the UK. It was a compilation album, much like the greatest hits from 1998 but this time it included songs from Wham! as well as his solo work. It also debuted some new songs such as An Easier Affair and a new version of Heal The Pain featuring Paul McCartney.

To celebrate the album, George also went on a tour titled The 25 Live tour. The tour consisted of 80 shows and was watched by approximately 1.3M fans. A tour DVD was released featuring his shows at Earl’s Court, London and I definitely suggest watching it, it’s a very good show.

In 2008, George released what is considered to be his first Christmas song since recording Last Christmas with Wham! 24 years earlier. December Song was released to the fans free of charge with George hoping the fans would make a donation instead to a charity.

Now we enter the 2010’s, some of the last years of George’s life. He started his Symphonica tour in August 2011, singing mainly songs from his album Patience and Songs From The Last Century.

In November, the rest of the tour was rescheduled as he became dreadfully ill with Pneumonia whilst in Vienna, even going comatose at one point. Thankfully, he pulled through and even made an appearance at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympics.

On August 25th 2012, George released a song called ‘White Light’, inspired by his battle with pneumonia and near-death experience during it. The song got it’s live debut at the 2012 olympics closing ceremony and reached #15 on the UK charts.

The Symphonica tour resumed and finished in October 2012 at Earl’s Court, marking George’s last ever concert.

Symphonica got released as a live album in March 2014 and became George’s 7th #1 solo album in the UK. George’s team announced in November 2016 that there was a documentary titled ‘Freedom’ that would be released in March 2017 but due to the sudden death of George, it was pushed back to October 2017 instead. I really suggest you watch this documentary as it’s very informative about his journey.

LWP got a reissue at the same time and Freedom ‘90 was released as a 7” single in limited numbers to coincide with the documentary and reissue. September 2017 saw the release of a new version of Fantasy featuring Nile Rodgers. At this time, we’ve not had any more new music but have been advised there is some coming. Georgie’s family and estate update us from time to time (see link below, this where all updates are usually posted)

In 2017 I and countless other Lovelies spent a week straight streaming and buying the Last Christmas single, we wanted to get it to #1 for George as it had been a year since he passed but unfortunately somehow despite our efforts, the song was a non-mover and stayed at #3. To this day I’m suspicious about that as there were so many of us streaming and buying etc. That I don’t understand how it could possibly have not moved. But anyway, we tried and George would be proud of us even if it didn’t work.

The music

Okay, well... that was the history of George Michael. Now all we really have left to do is go through the albums (I’m omitting compilation albums though, and giving special mentions to songs not on studio albums instead) and pick out some underrated and favourite songs. I’m going to include his Wham! days in this as it seems only right to, he was a brilliant solo artist but it’s important we recognise where he started.

Fantastic - Bad Boys, Wham Rap (Enjoy What You Do), Club Tropicana and Young Guns (Go For It!)

Make it big - Freedom, Credit Card Baby, Everything She Wants, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

Music From The Edge of Heaven - I’m Your Man, Edge of Heaven, Where Did Your Heart go?, A Different Corner, Blue

Faith - Monkey, One More Try, Father Figure, Hand To Mouth, Faith, Kissing a Fool

LWP Vol.1 - Praying For Time, They Won’t Go When I Go, Cowboys and Angels, Freedom ‘90, Mother’s Pride

Older - Spinning The Wheel, You Have Been Loved, Star People, The Strangest Thing

Songs From The Last Century - Secret Love, My Baby Just Cares For Me, Roxanne, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Patience - Freeek! ‘04, My Mother Had a Brother, Amazing, Flawless (Go To The City), Shoot The Dog

Special mentions: An Easier Affair, White Light, Outside, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me (with Elton John, I can’t make you love me, Killer/Papa was a rolling stone, Somebody To Love (From the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert 1992)

And we’re finished! That was your guide to George Michael, if you have any questions or want me to add/correct anything then please let me know. Like I said I’ll probably update this in future so it’s worth checking back from time to time. Thank you for reading this far, if you have!