George Micheal, at left, with Andrew Ridgley, on the cover of their breakthrough and iconic album, "Make it Big" |
That’s entertainment
“Entertainment Tonight” was a show week days that featured all the
latest music, TV, and movies. They always ended an episode with a music video
of some song making waves on the Billboard charts.
The show was hosted by Mary Hart and Robb Weller when I tuned in. The
show ended with Mary Hart introducing, very deliberately, a song that was making
its way up the charts. She said it deliberately, and with wide eyes, because
the song was called, “Wake me up before you go go”. Hart said “Go go” slowly,
with a combination of questioning whether that was the name of the song or just
a typo, and outright disbelief.
That was my introduction to Wham!, the band that made George Michael a
star and a household name.
“Wake me up before you go go” rocketed all the way to number one on
the Billboard Hot 100. It was a song you just couldn’t get out of your head.
They followed that up with a ballad, the heart wrenching “Careless Whisper.”
Now, however, I noticed they were introducing the act as “Wham! Featuring
George Michael”. That too went all the way to number one as did the band’s
third single, “Everything She Wants.” It was the first time three singles from the same album went to number one on Billboard. The singles were all from the band’s
album entitled, “Make it Big”.
And indeed they had done exactly that.
Cultural impact
Wham! Made its mark at Kate Andrews High School in Coaldale too. I was
in Grade 10, so 1984-1985. We had a student teacher in Accounting 10-20 who
dressed just like George Michael with that “Choose Life” white t-shirt, in the
“Wake me up before you go go” video. That was first semester. I was taking Biology 10 in second semester, and one day spotted a classmate wearing a Wham! concert
shirt. My best friend Chris Vining asked her about it, and I said I had seen
Wham! on TV and was trying to remember their names.
“You mean George?” she said.
“No,” I responded.
“Andrew?” she continued.
I laughed because she spoke like she knew them personally. I was also
puzzled how both my student teacher and classmate could find these shirts on
TV. I never saw anything like that at Eaton’s, or Simpson Sears, or
Woolworth’s.
Only Wham! can go to China
It was that same second semester of Grade 10 that I heard on LA-107 FM
that Wham! was going to China. That was a big deal back then, even bigger than
now, because China was a closed country that largely shunned western culture.
Yet, there were George and Andrew dancing atop the Great Wall.
They even captured images for the whole world to see by knitting
concert footage from the tour into the video the band made to promote their song “Freedom”.
Whether intentional or not, performing “Freedom” in a
Communist country was a profound political statement.
Helping others
The depth of feeling he sang with, like so many of the other popular
performers on that record, showed he was more than an artist for the teeny
bopper set. Moreover, participating in that project proved he had a social
conscience and it would not be the last time he sang for a cause bigger than
himself.
He would also take up Geldof on his invitation to perform in Live Aid,
the subsequent concert for famine relief held at Wembley Stadium in London (and
concurrently at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia). Michael performed a duet with
Elton John, the heartfelt single, “Don’t Let the Son Go Down on me”.
That would not be the last time Michael tugged at the heartstrings
with that song at an emotional time.
Duet, part one
George Michael also appeared with Elton John on his single, “Wrap Her
Up”, which was part of a successful comeback by Elton John. That was also part
of a trend where renowned artists sang backing vocals for each other.
Other examples were Sting backing Dire Straits on “Money for Nothing” and Phil
Collins on “Long Way to Go”, and Bryan Adams backing Roger Daltrey on “Let Me Down
Easy”.
End of an era
The next time I heard new Wham! was in the fall of 1985, with another
catchy tune entitled, “I’m Your Man.” It did not seem to be part of an album
though. It was not on “Make it Big”, which had run its course, nor connected to
any other album. Research reveals it was just an isolated single.
It was at this time as well, George Michael was itching to move on. He
had also experienced a lot of success with another ballad, entitled, “A
Different Corner”. It went all the way to number seven on the Billboard Hot
100.
So, George Michael and Andrew Ridgley decided to bring Wham! to an
end. They recorded a farewell single, entitled, “The Edge of Heaven”, and a
farewell album called, “The Final”, which was released in North America,
although altered as “Music from the Edge of Heaven”.
They held a farewell concert at Wembley Stadium on June 28, 1986,
bringing the curtain down on one of the most successful bands of the 1980s.
They had sold 28 million records and 15 million singles in five years.
But George Michael was just getting started.
His solo career began with the duet, “I Knew You Were Waiting” with
Aretha Franklin. According to Wikipedia, Michael realized his ambition of
singing with one of his favourite artists, and the song rocketed to the top of
the Billboard Hot 100, hitting number one on April 18, 1987. It was a catchy
tune, that capitalized on the strength of both of their voices, co-written by
Simon Climie who a year later would have success of his own teaming up with
Peter Fisher in the band Climie Fisher. “I Knew You Were Waiting” was also part
of Franklin’s resurgence in the 1980s, but would be her last top 10 single on
Billboard.
All grown up
One of the reasons George Michael wanted to go out on his own was to
perform music aimed at an older audience, not just the teenage fans Wham!
appealed to.
The first solo single shattered the teeny-bopper mold. “I Want Your
Sex” was released in the middle of 1987, to much controversy as you can
imagine. It made an appearance in the movie “Beverly Hills Cop II”, and was
featured on that soundtrack.
When George Michael released his first solo album entitled “Faith” at
the end of 1987, “I Want Your Sex” was the first single. It would peak at
number two on the Billboard Hot 100 singles in August. I thought the song was a
bit much, not that I was offended, but it just seemed obvious he was trying to
be sexual and controversial.
Girls going wild
The title track, “Faith” was released in October of 1987 a few weeks
before the album came out. It just drove the girls crazy.
I say this because I witnessed it first hand. I was in my first year
of university on the 10th floor of Kelsey Hall, a student residence.
My best friend and roommate Chris Vining and I had made friends with some of
the floor members of Fifth Kelsey, the last-remaining all-girls’ floor in
Kelsey and the entire three-tower, 31-floor Lister Complex. I was down on 5K
one Friday night when all of a sudden one of the girls yelled out, “It’s time!”
Suddenly, I’ll bet 20 girls gathered from the three wings into the lounge, crowding around the TV set.
I wondered what was going on. I knew the MuchMusic Coca Cola Countdown
was on, because we usually watched it too.
One of the girls then shushed everyone as the commercials were ending.
You could hear a pin drop in the 5K lounge.
The TV slowly dissolved to the number one song of the week – “Faith”
by George Michael.
It was an iconic video, one of the most memorable of the decade.
Once it finished playing, the girls went wild.
You gotta have “Faith”
The album “Faith” would be one of the most popular of the decades,
producing singles that played on the radio, and videos on TV, for almost two
years.
“Faith” would stay on the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks,
and was the number one single of 1988.
“Father Figure” was a slow, haunting song that made use of kind of an
echo feel. It was released at the outset of 1988, and went all the way to
number one on the Billboard Hot 100, staying there for two weeks.
The hits kept on coming as “Monkey”, released in July of 1988, was the
fourth single to reach number one off the “Faith” album, and stay there for two
weeks. It was George Michael’s sixth number one solo single, when you include
“I Knew You were Waiting” and if you count “Careless Whisper”.
The final single to be released off “Faith” was “Kissing a Fool”,
which had a smokey, smouldering jazz feel, coming out in November of 1988. It
would break Michael’s string of consecutive number one hits, but still peak at
number five on the Billboard Hot 100.
The album would go on to win the 1989 Grammy for album of the year. He
would also have a successfully, albeit long and exhausting tour to promote
“Faith”
It was safe to say, by the end of the decade, everybody had “Faith”.
The years after
Another outstanding memory was Michael performing at the Freddie
Mercury Tribute Concert on April 20, 1992. The song that I always remember, of
the ones Michael performed with Queen, was “Somebody to Love”. His voice suited
the Queen sound very well. Proceeds from this endeavour again went to AIDS
research.
The other memory I have of George Michael after the 1980s, was his
arrest for a lewd act in a public washroom in 1998. A lot of comedians and
comedy writers made a lot of hay on that.
Parting thoughts
The last half of the 1980s was dominated by George Michael and various
projects he was involved with. To be honest, to start with, I did not like
George Michael. I was envious of the way he appealed to teenage girls and I
really did not.
However, once I got beyond the teen angst, and looked at his body of
work through the eyes of an adult, I actually liked quite a bit of his music.
George Michael tried to capitalize on his sexuality, which is really not
something that appeals to me. Even the title, “I Want Your Sex” was overt and
over the top for me. It just seemed so obvious.
But he did have an incredible voice, especially when he sang in that
jazz, blues style of songs such as, “One More Try”. He really did not need to
rely on sex appeal, because his talent spoke for itself.
In the end, his antics in the 1980s paled in comparison to what some
artists do today. We don’t see now that stuff he did then anyway. All we are left with is the
music.
Beyond his voice, what I will remember about George Michael is his
social conscience. Whether it was “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, “Don’t Let
the Sun Go Down on me”, or “Somebody to Love”, George Michael raised millions
for worthwhile causes. That will be his lasting legacy for me.
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