![]() ![]() George Michael – My Mother Had a Brother (2004) Wham! rightly had a regard for Blue: it turned up on greatest hits album The Final. ![]() Sometimes, the contents of Patience sounded a little too obviously like the work of someone who smoked an enormous quantity of weed, but My Mother Had a Brother – which retold the story of Michael’s closeted gay uncle, who killed himself on the day the singer was born – is tender and yet incredibly powerful. George Michael – One More Try (1987)įaith offered an embarrassment of songwriting riches, including the pained balladry of One More Try. George Michael – December Song (I Dreamed of Christmas) (2011) A great version on Michael’s final album, Symphonica, strips away the synths and replaces them with choral backing vocals and a southern soul organ, revealing the song’s musical roots. Inevitably overshadowed by Last Christmas, 2011’s December Song deserves to be better known. Wham! – Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (1984) A gorgeous, heartfelt, harmony-laden but schmaltz-free ballad, it comes with a hint of darkness lurking in the background, as well as what appears to be a reference to Michael’s well-publicised troubles: “I went a little crazy / God knows they can see the child.” 24. If any song embodies what infuriated people about Wham!, Wake Me Up … is it. It’s neon-hued, incredibly perky and utterly brazen in its desire to be hugely commercially successful: they performed it on Top of the Pops wearing T-shirts that read Number One. It is also a fantastic pop song, which presumably infuriated people even more. George Michael – Praying for Time (1990)Īnother shift away from the sound of Faith, Praying for Time is audibly immersed in the oeuvre of John Lennon. ![]() The music recalls Mind Games, while the frustrated, sarcastic lyrical tone and the slapback echo-dosed vocals are very Instant Karma!. But it rises beyond pastiche: the melody is gorgeous, Michael’s vocals are superb. Michael performing at a Wham! farewell concert in 1986. The Wham! No 1 no one seems to remember – you certainly don’t hear it as often as the others nowadays – which feels unfair. It’s a sophisticated example of Michael’s way with an irrepressible 60s soul pastiche, with lyrics that played on the duo’s imminent demise: “One last time might be for ever.” 19. Reviled as the apotheosis of craven, weightless 80s pop, Wham!’s early singles were always more knowing than detractors seemed to notice. Bad Boys is a case in point: wilfully preposterous, extraordinarily camp (“Easy girls – AND LATE NIGHTS! / Cigarettes – AND LOVE BITES!”), it’s a song with its tongue cemented to its cheek that got taken in deadly earnest. George Michael – Amazing (2004)Īmazing now sounds weirdly prescient, a hybrid of disco rhythms and soft-rock instrumentation that predates the latter-day obsession with yacht rock embodied by the Too Slow to Disco compilation series. Aretha Franklin and George Michael – I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me) (1987) The vocal, meanwhile, perfectly captures the sweet sense of wonder in the rush-of-new-love lyrics. Michael and Aretha Franklin performing together. On one level, I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me) was as much a statement as a song, the presence of Aretha Franklin automatically conferring a new gravitas on her co-performer. Although he didn’t write it, the song won the pair a Grammy award for best R&B performance, deservedly so: I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me) is totally joyous. ![]()
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