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UR023: “Unforgotten” - George Michael [1996 MTV Unplugged]
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George Michael is my first gone-too-soon artist to get their own “Unforgotten” style episode. While I normally save my single-Unplugged deep dives for when I interview an artist or musician who has played MTV Unplugged, “Unforgotten” will be an interview-less solo deep dive around an Unplugged artist who’s passed away. Plug in to hear all about his incredible musical evolution and songrwtiting maturation, starting from his early days in WHAM! and running all the way up to his 1996 MTV Unplugged episode.
If you dig the show, would like to share your own Unplugged memories, offer up a correction, or connect with the show for any other reason:
- You can email me at unpluggedrevisited@gmail.com,
- You can reach out on Bluesky at @willhodge.bsky.social, or
- You can leave a voicemail (that’ll maybe get played on the show) by dialing 234-REVISIT (234-738-4748)
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Unplugged Revisited'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Unplugged.
00:00:03
Speaker
Unplugged.
00:00:12
Speaker
Revisited. Greetings and salutations.
Introducing 'Unforgotten' - George Michael Special
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome back to Unplugged Revisited, the podcast that celebrates, critiques, and dives deep into the last three and a half decades of MTV Unplugged.
00:00:23
Speaker
I'm your host, music journalist, pop culture anthropologist, and Unplugged obsessive, Will Hodge. First off, my thanks to everyone who reached out about my last episode, the 1996 season retrospective with longtime MTV Unplugged producer Alex Coletti.
00:00:39
Speaker
Lots of folks seem to really enjoy the full season look back with Alex's behind the scenes stories. And I really liked kicking off the new year like that. I should probably be able to sweet talk Alex into coming back to kick off 2027 with the same kind of retrospective on the 97 season. But who knows? That's like a whole year away. So let's not jinx it.
00:00:58
Speaker
For this episode, I'm actually attempting a bit of a new experiment. For those who have been listening to the show for a while, you know that I save my single Unplugged Deep Dives for when I interview an artist or musician who's played
Overview of George Michael's Career
00:01:10
Speaker
Unplugged. That's the primary backbone and throughline of the entire podcast.
00:01:14
Speaker
But if my guest is an Unplugged crew member or a music journalist friend, Or even just when I'm doing a solo show, I usually frame it around a topic that allows me to talk about a bunch of episodes at once. You know, my MTV Unplugged Two-Timers Club, or my Six Unplugged Songs That Explain the 90s Chat with Rob Harvilla. That sort of stuff.
00:01:33
Speaker
But there are some unplugged artists who I'd really like to anchor an episode around who are sadly no longer with us to talk to. And sometimes I can get around that by interviewing another member of the band, like my Nirvana episode with cellist Laurie Goldston, my Alice in Chains episode with bassist Mike Inez, or my Cranberries episode with drummer Fergal Lawler.
00:01:52
Speaker
But in a few cases, there's not really another option like that. Which brings me to today's experiment, where I'm doing an interviewless, solo deep dive around an unplugged artist who's passed away.
00:02:04
Speaker
I'm calling this episode format Unforgotten, and my inaugural entry is on the genius, gone-too-soon pop music giant, George Michael.
00:02:23
Speaker
Per usual, I only discuss and contextualize an artist up to and including their unplugged episode. So with George, that's going to cover his start with Wham!, his time navigating being a part of a super successful duo while also testing out the solo waters, His cannonball plunge into massive solo stardom with 1987's Faith, and his dynamic ebb and flow 90s period featuring the expansive Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, his incredible run of collaborations, and the musical maturation of his older album,
00:02:54
Speaker
all leading up to his stellar MTV Unplugged episode that was broadcast as the Season 7 finale in December 1996.
Bob Dylan Reissue & Acoustic Bass Mystery
00:03:01
Speaker
I guarantee you this one is going to be pretty fun and pretty hefty, so let's take care of a few announcements and more on the other side of this vintage Unplugged commercial break.
00:03:13
Speaker
think it's true what they say, that the dream is borrowed. You give it back tomorrow, minus the sorrow. The pain she just comes in to break up the daydream. Her knife edges waving. When the dawn came up, I felt so inspired to do it again. But it turns out you only get to do it once.
00:03:33
Speaker
MTV Unplugged, Liam Gallagher, vendredi 27 septembre, 20h50, sur MTV. Thank you! You know, it seemed only right to highlight a little 2019 Liam Gallagher Unplugged awesomeness after all of last episode's Oasis minus Liam Unplugged talk.
00:03:49
Speaker
Okay, on to this week's announcements. announcement one I'm so excited that we've got a new MTV Unplugged reissue coming our way this month, as Bob Dylan just recently announced that he's repressing his MTV Unplugged record for the first time in the States since its initial run back in 1995.
00:04:12
Speaker
Capturing tracks from Dylan's widely celebrated Unplugged episode that aired as part of the 94 season, this new double vinyl reissue contains the bonus performance of Love Minus Zero No Limit that was originally only included on international vinyl pressings.
00:04:29
Speaker
I'm super stoked to be able to give my original 95 US s pressing a rest, as we all know 90s vinyl can sometimes be a little more temperamental than modern pressings. And I'm also really excited at the renewed hope that we might one day get a full release of both Dylan Unplugged tapings, as his episode was one of the first to be compiled from two separate back-to-back performances.
00:04:51
Speaker
Fingers crossed that both nights of his unplugged taping are slated for one of his future bootleg series releases. But until then, we've at least got this cool new double vinyl reissue to tide us over. It's up for pre-order right now, and it'll be released on February twentieth But also, I've once again worked with my friends over at Sony to do a fun giveaway for this one.
00:05:11
Speaker
If you've been a part of any of my previous album giveaways, I'm sure you know the drill by now. All you have to do to enter is send me an email, unpluggedrevisited at gmail.com, telling me at least one thing you like about the Bob Dylan Unplugged episode or album.
00:05:25
Speaker
Make sure to put the words Bob Dylan Vinyl Giveaway in the subject line. And as a bonus, you can double your chances by rating and reviewing the podcast wherever you stream it. And just attach a screenshot of that to your email. Super easy, right? Just get those entries in quick because I'll be announcing the winner on my next episode.
00:05:42
Speaker
unosmmote too Just as a follow-up to last episode's Unplugged Mysteries segment, around the listener email question regarding the gray-black Washburn acoustic bass that shows up on both the Pearl Jam and Joe Public episodes?
00:05:56
Speaker
Well, I was texting with Kevin Scott, the lead singer and bassist for Joe Public, and he confirmed that it wasn't his own bass, but instead it was just loaned to him to play that day when they showed up, like it was already there on site.
00:06:08
Speaker
So I rewatched the closing credits of both episodes, and sure enough, there's an Instruments Courtesy of credit, and Washburn is listed right there. So I think we can put this one to bed that Washburn, as well as Takamini and Drum Workshop, who are also listed in the closing credits, just provided some extra instruments for the unplugged episodes that were filming that day. Though, probably not for Mariah Carey. I'm sure her crew probably brought their own gear. But definitely for Joe Public
Dylan Covers & Wham! Era of George Michael
00:06:34
Speaker
and Pearl Jam. Thanks very much. It didn't feel like a TV show at all, actually. If you've got your own burning Unplugged Mysteries question, just shoot me an email, unpluggedrevisited at gmail.com, and we'll see if we can get you an answer.
00:06:46
Speaker
Okay, let's keep things rolling with this episode's Uncovered. This is a segment where I quickly highlight a couple cool Unplugged cover songs all tied around a singular theme.
00:06:57
Speaker
In honor of the Dylan MTV Unplugged vinyl reissue and giveaway we're running, I thought I'd do a quick little Bobby Z-centric one, featuring artists who covered Lucky Wilbury during their own Unplugged episodes.
00:07:08
Speaker
First up, an artist I don't think I've mentioned since my initial batch of Explainer episodes. Here's John Mellencamp's violin and accordion-infused cover of Dylan's All Along the Watchtower from his often underrated 92 episode.
00:07:23
Speaker
So let us stop talking faster now. Yeah, want to get little.
00:07:33
Speaker
Next up, Phil Collins covered Dylan's 1973 top 20 hit, Knocking on Heaven's Door, during his 94 episode recorded in London. However, it wasn't a part of the broadcast, and I haven't been able to source any audio of it.
00:07:48
Speaker
but he did end up playing it a bunch that year at other shows, so you can easily find a couple other era-accurate versions of it out there if you'd like to sample it yourself. And finally, the band that I mention, along with Nirvana, on practically every episode. My beloved R.E.M. from their second unplugged appearance, the one from 2001, here's Michael Stipe dropping a few lines of Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone into their own country feedback.
00:08:12
Speaker
Music Once upon a time, you looked so fine. Throw the bum a dime in your crown. Didn't you?
00:08:25
Speaker
Kinda surprising that only three artists have covered Dylan during their Unplugged, right? Fun fact though, not only did Dylan play all three of these songs himself during his Unplugged, but also all three of them made it on to his Unplugged album.
00:08:38
Speaker
And that'll do it for our short and sweet Uncovered this week. Alrighty, so let's get into the show. Here's my first Unforgotten featuring the unforgettable George Michael.
00:08:51
Speaker
The legend of George Michael, the hyper-talented, golden-voiced, world-renowned, multi-platinum superstar slash mega-global pop culture icon known as George Michael, starts out well before there ever was quote-unquote George Michael, back when he was known to his friends and family as just, well, I'll let him pronounce it for you. My real name is Yoros Kiriago Baneoddu.
00:09:15
Speaker
It sounds like George Michael could say it really quickly. Yeah, so back before um George, as we'll call him, ended up taking the pop music world by storm and dominating the 80s and 90s radio, record store, and MTV landscapes en masse, He was just an everyday, unsure of himself, pre-teen new kid on the block who just so happened to serendipitously meet a creative twin flame on his very first day at a new school.
00:09:41
Speaker
It was the mid-70s, George was 11 or 12 years old, and on his first day attending Bushy Mead's school in Southeast England, a just slightly older, just slightly cooler kid named Andrew Ridgely volunteered to be George's mentor to help him get accustomed to his new surroundings.
00:09:57
Speaker
So Andrew and George, or Yogg as he was soon nicknamed and which Ridgely still warmly refers to him as in interviews, they became quick friends and eventually started a band together. Though it's probably not the band you're thinking of.
00:10:11
Speaker
Their first musical outfit was actually a five-piece ska band that they started up in 1979. Imagine like The Specials, Madness, English Beat, all those great two-tone records bands. Their group was called The Executive, and it didn't last very long, but they did manage to cut a few lo-fi demos, including this syncopated send-up of, and I kid you not, Beethoven's Fur Elise.
00:10:41
Speaker
As I mentioned, the executive was not long for this world, and by 81, George and Andrew traded in their ska quintet aspirations for something a bit more vibrant, pop-oriented, and completely of their own making.
00:10:54
Speaker
A wildly energetic, fun, and fashionable duo they onomatopoetically christened Wham! The duo's blossoming musical talent, charismatic good looks, love of club life, and tireless work ethic immediately coalesced and paid off pretty quickly, as by early 82, they had sparked enough interest to sign their first recording deal with an upstart label called Inner Vision Records.
00:11:17
Speaker
George and Andrew had already been writing songs together since their executive days, with their first ever co-write being a song called Rude Boy. I mean, it was the late 70s UK ska scene, after all. And their first couple Wham! demos were also co-writes, for the time being at least.
00:11:32
Speaker
Their first official single was called Wham! Rap, and if you've never heard it, it may actually be a bit of a shocker for you. Not only because rap circa 1982 was not exclusively, but for the most part, still a fairly underground genre in the UK that was predominantly considered a US phenomenon, but also because the lyrical content of Wham! Rap was basically a topical, social commentary, quasi-protest song.
00:11:57
Speaker
rebelling against the conservative British government-backed 9-5 grind and promoting unemployment benefits. Hey everybody take a look at me, I've got street credibility.
00:12:08
Speaker
I may not have a job but I have a good time with the boys that I meet down on the line. D-H-S-S, man a rhythm that's given is the very best.
00:12:18
Speaker
I mean, the official B1-B2 unemployment claim forms and England's Department of Health and Social Security, or DHSS, get explicitly shouted out by name multiple times.
00:12:30
Speaker
Wham! Rap was released as the duo's debut single in June of 82, but it didn't really do anything on the charts. In September, they followed it up with their second single, the, uh, potentially chic-slash-Sugarhill Gang-inspired Young Guns.
00:12:45
Speaker
which fared a bit better but still stalled just outside the UK Top 40.
00:12:57
Speaker
However, things were about to majorly change for the duo courtesy of the legendary British TV show, Top of the Pops. While Wham's non-Top 40 ranking wasn't exactly enough to get them invited onto the weekly chart show on their own merits, they managed to score a fill-in spot thanks to the last-minute cancellation of another guest.
00:13:17
Speaker
Seizing the opportunity to make the most of their mind moment in front of the show's roughly 8 million a week viewing audience, George and Andrew expertly set the rest of their life in motion with their fortuitous, career-defining, inaugural Top of the Pop's appearance at just 19 years old.
00:13:40
Speaker
So, immediately following their Top of the Pops taping in November 82, Young Guns shot up the UK charts and hit number three in December. And in January 83, they reissued their Wham Rap single, which this time made it all the way to number eight, giving them back-to-back UK top ten hits within just a month or two of each other.
00:14:00
Speaker
1983 actually ended up being a frenetically dynamic year of some extreme highs and lows for the duo. While working on songs for what would become their debut album, it was unquestionably clear that George was already emerging as the stronger and quicker songwriter of the two.
00:14:16
Speaker
In fact, their first hit, Young Guns, had been solely written by George. and most of the tracks on their debut album would end up being George Penn songs. And even right out of the gate, he also handled some of the group's studio production, earning a co-producer's credit on six of the album's eight songs.
00:14:33
Speaker
About two months before their debut album came out, they released another lead-up single, Bad Boys, which not only netted them their highest UK chart ranking so far, hitting number two, but also earned them their first ever chart ranking in the US, modestly but importantly landing at number 60 on the Billboard Hot 100. And this was the first notable signal of the duo's sizable dual-continent successes that were just around the corner.
00:15:01
Speaker
Bad boys, stick together, never, sad boys, today.
00:15:08
Speaker
Their debut album, Fantastic, was released in early July 83, and it made a huge splash in the thriving UK pop music scene that was already overflowing with popular groups like Duran Duran, Tears for Fears, Bananarama, Culture Club, and others.
00:15:24
Speaker
Fantastic hit number one on the UK album charts, and it eventually earned a triple platinum certification. It didn't hit quite as hard here in the States, but still managed to land in the top half of the Billboard 200 album chart and get certified gold.
00:15:39
Speaker
Wham! quickly followed up Fantastic's release with another single, the youthfully hedonistic Club Tropicana, which hit number four on the yeah UK charts. And by October, they were heading out on their first major tour for a month-long trek across England, Scotland, and Wales.
00:15:54
Speaker
Touchdown!
00:16:03
Speaker
However, throughout a sizable chunk of their Whirlwind 1983, the duo was also embattled with InterVision regarding their shabby, inequitable contract. In the midst of these legal disputes, towards the end of November 1983, InterVision tried to further monopolize the band's popularity by hastily releasing a four-song remix EP called Club Fantastic Megamix, which featured a few remixes of three album cuts from Fantastic.
00:16:29
Speaker
Despite the band's publicly vocal non-approval of the release, it still managed to hit number 15 on the UK charts. However, the move seemed to be the final nail in the coffin for the label-duo partnership, and InterVision eventually settled out of court.
00:16:45
Speaker
After cutting ties with InterVision, Wham! landed another hugely serendipitous move when their contract was picked up by CBS Records, and the duo was placed on the Epic Records roster, now making them label mates with fellow UK pop stars Adam Ant and the Boy George-fronted Culture Club, as well as a few US-based pop acts you may have heard of, like Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, and the Gloria Estefan-fronted Miami Sound Machine.
00:17:11
Speaker
And if it seems like they were navigating a momentous 1983 with a rocket on their backs, nothing could have prepared them for the explosiveness, in more ways than one, of their collective and individual pasts throughout 1984, the year in which, quote-unquote, Wham's George Michael started evolving and elevating into the altogether different entity George Michael of Wham.
George Michael's Solo Breakthrough and Collaborations
00:17:34
Speaker
So, 1984, the wham side of the storyline went like this. In May, the band released what was initially just the lead single to their sophomore follow-up album, that quickly became their first dual UK and US number one hit, on its way to being a global chart-topping smash, that would eventually become their signature song.
00:18:02
Speaker
The George George Michael-produced, number one in over a dozen countries, do you remember it more as a song or a music video, moment in time defining Diddy, that perma-bonded both a musical duo and not-yet-solo superstar into the collective pop-cultural consciousness of the radio-listening, record-buying, MTV-watching zeitgeist.
00:18:27
Speaker
Don't leave me hanging on like a yo-yo Wake me up before you go-go
00:18:35
Speaker
The immediately recognizable music video managed to straddle both fashionably trendy and unabashedly corny vibes. I mean, those Katherine Hamnett Choose Life t-shirts were inarguably iconic, while the Dayglo biker shorts and fingerless gloves didn't exactly stand the test of time in the same manner.
00:18:53
Speaker
Either way, the song and video were a massive hit throughout the summer of 84. By October, George and Andrew were ready to release their second album, Make It Big, and the title turned out to be a bit of a calling-their-shot self-fulfilling prophecy.
00:19:08
Speaker
They released the song Freedom as a single two weeks before the album came out, and it became their second yeah UK number one single, while also hitting number three in the States. And when the album hit stores, well, they were off to the races on both sides of the pond.
00:19:37
Speaker
Make It Big hit number one on the album charts in both the UK and the US, and it also went platinum in both markets, with the UK getting their first by just a month or so. However, in the long run, Make It Big was one of the first instances where Wham! and more importantly George Michael actually hit harder in the States than back home in Britain, as the album would eventually go quadruple platinum in the UK, but six times platinum in the US.
00:20:03
Speaker
Wham! topped off their 1984 by releasing a massive double A-side single in early December. On one side was Make It Big's fourth single, Everything She Wants, yet another massive global hit that was not only George Michael penned and George Michael produced, but also George Michael completely constructed.
00:20:22
Speaker
Somebody told me, or everything she
00:20:30
Speaker
It was written towards the end of the album recording sessions when all the musicians had already flown back home, and the multi-talented, multi-hyphenate George wrote, played, recorded, and produced everything on it himself, making it both a significantly notable musical statement for him personally, and also one that took on an even more rewarding shine when it hit number two in the yeah UK, and again showing the geographical audience shift went all the way to number one in the US.
00:20:58
Speaker
On the other side of that AA side single was another George penned, George produced, George plays all the instruments track, but this was one that did not appear on Make It Big.
00:21:09
Speaker
This instead was a bit of a standalone number, though still credited to Wham! as a duo, that little pop chestnut you may be familiar with, Last Christmas.
00:21:23
Speaker
Now, it would be very easy to get entirely bogged down on the importance of Last Christmas, both to George individually as an uber-talented, self-contained artist, but also to pop music, especially holiday pop music in general. There are already a ton of great articles, book chapters, and podcasts solely devoted to the seasonal sonic magic of this song.
00:21:45
Speaker
The BBC put out an hour-long documentary on it just a year or two ago, so I won't spend too much time here. Just... Global smash hit in its day, enduring holiday classic for the last 40 years, you get the picture.
00:21:58
Speaker
The only thing that kept it locked in at number two both here and in the UK was, well, actually, let's pause there for a second and rewind it back a few months to discuss the other 1984 story thread around George's not yet with his full chest, but still getting started solo efforts.
00:22:17
Speaker
So, right in the summer 1984 window between the explosive popularity of Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go Go single hitting number one all over the world and right before their Make It Big album was going to get released that fall, George wanted to put out a song that they had actually been working on together since the duo's earliest days in 1981, but one that had never really fit into the overall Wham oeuvre.
00:22:42
Speaker
You know what? Instead of me trying to explain the complex and delicate dance of George putting out a solo single without actually quote unquote going solo, here's a snippet of Andrew Ridgely being interviewed by Ronan Keating in 2024, discussing the unique move of George putting out Careless Whisper as a single under his own name while still very much in Wham. So we'd had that for...
00:23:07
Speaker
at that point three years and and Fantastic wasn't the right album for it um and you're ah Jörg came to me and asked me if I would um consent to his releasing Careless Whisper as a solo track and at that point it was it was clear to us both that Jörg's songwriting would take him beyond Wham. Wham was so much about and and ah
00:23:40
Speaker
and and our youth and it represented us in our youth and it was neither of us could see really how you could take Wham into maturity um because the nature of of of what it represented and what it what it stood for and you know, Jörg was going to, he was developing and evolving as an artist and as a songwriter and his songwriting was was was taking him
00:24:10
Speaker
ah into the George Michael sp in sphere, in the George Michael context as an artist. And that wasn't that wasn't going to be Wham. And Wham imposed constraints upon his songwriting, which you know it would would have been wrong to have to have asked him to to maintain that he couldn't yeah as an artist you know at some point you you know you move on So, Careless Whisper gets released in late July of
00:24:45
Speaker
not as a wm single but as the first george michael single And as curiously framed as it ended up being, it was of course still a God-tier pop ballad beautifully sung by George with a killer saxophone riff that was also written by George.
00:25:12
Speaker
It was a top 5 hit across the globe, number 1 in over a dozen countries, including the UK and US, and achieved a variety of multi-platinum certifications. Triple platinum status in Brazil and New Zealand, 5x platinum in Canada, and once again continuing the new tradition of faring a bit better stateside, was certified triple platinum in the yeah UK and 7x platinum in the US.
00:25:37
Speaker
Before the end of 84, there was one more sizable footnote in the solo George Michael chapter, and this one was pretty huge in the moment, and it cast a significant long shadow.
00:25:48
Speaker
Remember how I said that Wham!s Last Christmas was super popular, but never made it past number 2 on the charts? Well, as most everyone is well aware, the song that locked down the number one spot during the 84 Christmas season was another massive modern holiday pop classic, Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid, Bob Geldof's charity supergroup who were raising money for Ethiopian famine relief.
00:26:13
Speaker
And while Wham! as a duo did not appear on the star-studded track of UK superstars, George Michael did. In fact, he even got one of the few solo spotlights.
00:26:25
Speaker
Paul Young delivered the first verse, which was originally envisioned to go to David Bowie before the rushed one-day recording session proved to be too much of a scheduling conflict. The second verse went to Boy George, and then most of the third verse was sung by George Michael.
00:26:43
Speaker
And here's a clip of him from the day of the recording, showing how even with just a couple of lines in a charity single, George had no creative cruise control. He was not only going to vocally crush it, but he was also going to tweak it and elevate it into something better than it originally was. That actual line itself, the but say a prayer, is hard for me to sing powerfully.
00:27:04
Speaker
if we if we If you wanted to kind of change the notation a little bit so it started off a bit higher or something. But say prayer. But say a prayer. can do that if you want. That sounds great. That sounds great.
00:27:18
Speaker
Thank you.
00:27:31
Speaker
ah The chorus. yeah committee yeah George! George! George! george george george Sorry, we forgot the chorus part. And just as a fun reminder that all the Band-Aid and Last Christmas Hubbub was occurring simultaneously, here's an incredibly charming clip of George chatting with Polly Yates during the November 25th all-day recording session for Do They Know It's Christmas.
00:27:56
Speaker
Talking about how Wham was also going to be releasing their own holiday tune in a week or two. And he even gave her a little acapella sneak peek. The song's really catchy. It's a major threat to our fourth number one. Your fourth number one. What's your next single? It's called Last Christmas. It's a Christmas single. Is it very Christmassy? Very. I can't ask you to sing a bit. You'll get mortified. You can't ask me to sing a They'll ask me a little bit. It goes... Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away. I'm not giving you any more than that. Oh, that was good. Imagine I'd go and tell all my girlfriends, George, sing to me. To speak to George's overall talent and his amazing ability to create and collaborate within a variety of different sonic settings, it's interesting to note that in 1984 alone, George managed to net a UK number one with three different creative outlets. as a solo artist with Careless Whisper, as part of a duo with Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go Go and Freedom, and as part of a charity supergroup with Band-Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas, all released within like six months of each other.
00:29:07
Speaker
Heading into the next year, even with all the incredible solo success and attention he was starting to experience, the kickoff to 1985 was still very much Wham-centric for George.
00:29:18
Speaker
The duo bridged 84 and 85 with a massive world tour across Japan, Australia, the US, Hong Kong, and Europe, which included getting to play last Christmas on Christmas Eve night to a sold-out hometown crowd at Wembley Stadium, and which also saw them making history by being the first Western pop act to play China as part of a cool 10-day trip that was documented for the concert film Wham! in China, Foreign Skies. i did... I feel, although we were very privileged to actually be put in the position we were, acting as ambassadors of a sort, I did feel totally out of place.
00:29:54
Speaker
We are musicians, we're not politicians. But I don't think anybody had any idea what to expect from a Chinese audience watching Wham!, you know. 1985 also saw the duo continuing to rack up successes all over the place. Like at the 85 Brit Awards, where they nabbed four nominations and beat out Bronski Beat, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Queen, and U2 to take home the coveted Best British Group Award. And the winner is... read it read it read The winners are... Wham! a
00:30:25
Speaker
After a year of sellout concerts and hit records, not to mention the undying hero worship of their predominantly young fans, Wham may not be altogether too surprised to be receiving this Best British Group Award tonight.
00:30:38
Speaker
Nevertheless, it's been very tough competition for them. Their first hit in November 1982. Since then, they've had a whole string of hits, including some great number ones. Wham, the best group of the year.
00:30:49
Speaker
That August, after having only played six U.S. shows in smaller theaters earlier in the year, they returned to the states for a proper U.S. stadium tour under the Wham! America banner, though s slight points off for not actually calling it Wham! Erica.
00:31:04
Speaker
In that November, they released the standalone single I'm Your Man, which showcased a developing soul-influenced undercurrent bubbling up through their more familiar radio-ready pop foundations. The song made it to number three in the States and all the way to number one in the UK.
00:31:27
Speaker
The very next month, in January 86, they received two American Music Award nominations and bested Eurythmics and Tears for Fears to win the award for favorite pop rock video group. The winner is Sheila E. I'm sorry.
00:31:43
Speaker
The winner is Wham. But just as it was during the previous year, even with Wham appearing to be quite full steam ahead during this 85 to early 86 period, George was simultaneously experiencing some really high profile, still not quite yet with his full chest, but now maybe a little bit more than just getting started solo efforts.
00:32:05
Speaker
Like at the massive Two-Continent Live Aid concert on July 13, 1985, where in front of a sold-out Wembley crowd and about 2 billion people watching at home, George was invited by Elton John, who was already carrying the longest set of the day, to duet on Elton's 1974 hit Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me for the very first time.
00:32:35
Speaker
Later that day, George would have another solo spotlight moment during the event's All Skate closing number of Do They Know It's Christmas, where not only did David Bowie finally get to kick the song off as originally intended, but also George seriously nailed his part and then some.
Success of 'Faith' and Its Impact
00:32:59
Speaker
George had another standout solo moment that October when he appeared on two tracks off Elton John's Ice on Fire album. His top 10 lead single Nikita,
00:33:18
Speaker
and his top 20 follow-up hit, Wrapper Up.
00:33:28
Speaker
Fun random side note, alongside Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Wrap Her Up is the second pop radio hit where George gives a shout out to 20th century Hollywood icon Doris Day.
00:33:42
Speaker
But this constant dance between George's creative partnership with his longtime friend Andrew and Wham, and the ever-increasing pull of the evolution, maturation, experimentation, and autonomy afforded by his successful whether-you-want-it-or-not solo career proved to be no longer tenable.
00:34:00
Speaker
And by mid-'86, George and Andrew publicly announced that they had decided to shut down shop on Wham. Now the big news, Wham has split up. Now, what's it all about?
00:34:12
Speaker
um Well, basically, i suppose the big news is that it's not really quite time for the big news. What have actually happened was about seven months ago, Andrew and I decided that um we thought what we wanted to achieve four years ago when we formed the band had been just about achieved and that whatever we do from now on will be a and a matter of maintaining and make making sure that people don't get a chance to say we're finished. And we thought that that wasn't really the way we wanted it to carry on. So um we had decided that um we'd record a few more singles and we'd like to play Wembley Stadium this summer. And then we were going to actually um make an announcement then. With him also adding... I think it should be the most amicable split in pop history if we do it properly. Around the same time as the breakup announcement, George released another solo single, the matured and mellow ballad a Different Corner, which hit the US s top 10 and went all the way to number one in the UK.
00:35:19
Speaker
And just a couple months later, during the summer of 86, Wham! rolled out quite the amicable, multi-tiered, fan-friendly swan song. At the beginning of June, they released the single for The Edge of Heaven, and it naturally went all the way to number one in the UK.
00:35:40
Speaker
In late June, they released their Music From the Edge of Heaven album, though curiously only in the Japanese and U.S. markets, where it went top 10 and was certified platinum.
00:35:50
Speaker
And late June was also when they played their much-hyped very last concert, dubbed The Final, at Wembley Stadium. 80,000 screaming fans, mostly in their early teens, stood in the sun for several hours waiting for their heroes.
00:36:04
Speaker
Among them a large turnout of George Michael look-alikes. And a week later they released a parting Greatest Hits compilation, also called The Final, which ended up being a global top five album that went platinum in a half dozen countries.
00:36:18
Speaker
After that farewell single, concert, and album, the curtain officially fell on the Wham! chapter of George's career. Here's his in-the-moment thoughts about it all from an interview recorded on the day of the final Wham! concert. You know, because Wham! the whole thing about Wham! was total impact and being the best. And it's an awful lot of pressure to to to be under for a new length of time. It's interesting because in the end, you were almost hyped by your own...
00:36:44
Speaker
Ambitions. Oh, yes. I mean you set up a band that was going to be the number one model now aware band and in the end you both apparently being knackered by your own success. Oh, definitely. i mean, there's definitely we did build our dream to to to a degree that we i mean went beyond what we thought we could achieve and we're we're very very glad that we've achieved it but you know, it's just so cutthroat. i mean the business is so cutthroat and there's no room for And with that, there was no more tiresome balancing act.
00:37:15
Speaker
and it's just like we don't want man to hurt there's got to be a time when we're not making them more records anymore so why not just cut short now and with that there was no more tiresome balancing act No more worrying about being Wham's George Michael or George Michael of Wham or anything else other than just full capital G capital M George Michael.
00:37:35
Speaker
And it goes without saying that he took to his fully realized, firm-footed solo endeavor like it was what he was born to do. And audiences around the world took to it as well. To help bridge the gap from his Wham! past to his solo future, his first couple musical moves were guest spot duets with an absolutely otherworldly legend and a much celebrated of-the-moment solo upstart.
00:37:59
Speaker
First up, in June of 1987, just six months after the final Wham! concert, the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin released her smash hit duet with George, I Knew You Were Waiting For Me. which hit number one in both the US s and the UK and about a half dozen other countries.
00:38:25
Speaker
The next month, George could be heard duetting with Jody Watley on the song Learn to Say No from the former Shalimar singer's platinum-selling debut solo record. me lies Give that me that
00:38:44
Speaker
And in May 87, the now fully solo George Michael rocket officially took off. And much as we see with like Disney stars and former child actors who want to continue their careers into adulthood and escape the public image of their younger selves, George's first official single as an official solo artist was an unambiguously spicy one.
00:39:17
Speaker
And while the winky, impish, dayglow, and bubblegum trappings of Wham were nowhere to be seen, George's ever-evolving artistic and creative thumbprints were still all over his I Want Your Sex single.
00:39:30
Speaker
He wrote it, produced it, played all the instruments, and even started experimenting with layering a variety of different vocal tones and textures that were all just altered and pitched iterations of his own voice, just like Prince used to do all the time.
00:39:54
Speaker
At this exact moment in May 87, George's debut album hadn't fully been announced yet and was still almost six months away from being released. So the song was really operating on its own as the first standalone single of his new solo career.
00:40:08
Speaker
And it certainly generated enough conversation on its own. I've always thought it was pretty hilarious how George was able to simultaneously both scandalize his pearl-clutching critics via the song's sex positivity while also having them scratching their heads a bit as to how exactly they could criticize the song and music videos' pro-monogamy messaging.
00:40:34
Speaker
And, especially as this was happening during the era-defining, tragically mishandled HIV-AIDS crisis, he even went as far as adding an additional statement to the beginning of the Heavy Rotation music video.
00:40:46
Speaker
In the past, there were arguments for and against casual sex. Then it was a question of morality. These days, it can be a question of life or death.
00:40:57
Speaker
It's as simple that. And this song is not about casual sex. Despite a daytime radio ban by the BBC and some other censored airplay here in the States, the track did really well on the charts, hitting number 3 in the yeah UK and number 2 in the US, where it also eventually went platinum.
00:41:15
Speaker
The same day it was released as a single, it also appeared on the soundtrack to Eddie Murphy's Beverly Hills Cop 2, which was a top 10 album that also went platinum on its own. Though, I should note that its association with the movie also made it eligible for the Razzies, and it ended up winning the Worst Original Song Award at the 88th Ceremony.
00:41:35
Speaker
Though, Prince had won the prior year for Love or Money from Under the Cherry Moon, so he was still in pretty good company. Then, in October 87, things really got interesting when George released his debut solo record, the absolutely monster multi-genre global smash album, Faith.
00:41:57
Speaker
And just in case anyone was curious about how exactly he would handle the Wham-ness of it all, yes, that is the melody line from Wham's 1984 hit, Freedom, played on a church organ to open the album and song.
00:42:12
Speaker
There are a million threads that could be talked about with this album, so I'll keep it brief. Roughly 25 million copies sold worldwide, 10 million in the U.S. s alone, 6 million of which were sold before the album had even turned a year old.
00:42:26
Speaker
Number one on the charts pretty much everywhere around the globe, including spending almost a year within the top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart, and 12 weeks at number one, a run broken up only briefly by Tiffany's debut album and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.
00:42:42
Speaker
In the States, Faith ended up being the single best-selling album of 1988 against some pretty stiff competition like U2, Tracy Chapman, Guns N' Roses, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and again the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.
00:42:56
Speaker
And it was due to an insanely popular run of hit singles that was bolstered by a steady stream of upper-tier chart rankings, platinum certifications, and notable awards. So let me try and speed run through the notable high points of George's late 87 to early 89 turbocharged album cycle for Faith.
00:43:15
Speaker
Again, it kicks off in October 87 with the album release.
00:43:22
Speaker
which hit number one in the US and the UK, and the title track lead single that also hit number one in US. But despite going double platinum, only made it to number two on the UK singles chart.
00:43:34
Speaker
And I know that's a seemingly insignificant data point difference between the two markets, but one that would signal the ever expanding shift of Georgia's solo material faring a bit better in the States than it did back home, which was kind of the opposite situation for the majority of Wham's career.
'Freedom 90' and Iconic Music Videos
00:43:52
Speaker
In December 87, he released the atmospherically evocative ballad Father Figure as a follow-up single, which also hit number one in the US, but surprisingly stalled just a hair outside of the UK top ten.
00:44:14
Speaker
Across January and February of 88, Faith was certified double and triple platinum, George was nominated for favorite pop rock male artist at the AMAs, and he won Best British Male Artist at the Brits, where Faith also received a nomination for album of the year. To the best British male artist, George Michael.
00:44:35
Speaker
In March, George was awarded his first Grammy, winning the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group Award with Aretha for their I Knew You Were Waiting For Me duet. And in April, he released another ballad, the Gospel-Laced One More Try, which hit No. 1 across three U.S. singles charts, the mainstream pop Billboard Hot 100, adult contemporary, and the egregiously named Billboard Hot Black singles chart,
00:45:01
Speaker
now called the Hot R&B Hip Hop Songs chart. And lest anyone think that was a fluke or anything, as an album, Faith had already hit number one on the equally egregiously named Billboard Top Black Albums chart, making George the first white solo artist to achieve that distinction since the chart's invention back in the mid-60s.
00:45:22
Speaker
And while the reception of George's music into some of those spaces was legitimately earned and widely celebrated on the merits of his music alone, it certainly didn't come without a completely understandable skepticism and ambivalence as well.
00:45:36
Speaker
But more on that in a minute.
00:45:39
Speaker
After three consecutive number one singles from the album, two of which were dreamy, you know, maturity establishing ballads, George wanted his next single to showcase a little more of his long-standing dance club and funk influences.
00:45:54
Speaker
So in the summer of 88, he released the song Monkey as the album's next single and even invited the legendary production duo of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to remix the song for its radio single release.
00:46:16
Speaker
And once again, just underscoring the UK vs US s reception to George's initial solo run, Monkey only hit number 13 in the UK, while in the US it went top 10 on the Billboard Hot Black singles chart and went all the way to number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard Dance Club songs chart, which was another huge personal achievement for George.
00:46:39
Speaker
In September, Faith was certified six times platinum, And George took home his first MTV VMA award. Though, who knows if he ever actually got it back from a very, let's just say, potentially blissed out Robert Downey Jr. Poor Suzanne Vega.
00:46:55
Speaker
And the winner is George Michael, father figure. Well, George couldn't be here tonight. He pulled a no-show, so we accept this award on his behalf.
00:47:10
Speaker
It's going right in my office. In November, he released the album's final single, the late-night lounge-vibed Kissing a Fool, which didn't exactly achieve the heights of his previous quartet of chart-toppers, but All Things Considered was still a pretty respectable hit.
00:47:26
Speaker
Top 20 in the UK, top 5 on the US s pop chart, and all the way to number 1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary.
00:47:39
Speaker
And then the Faith album cycle closed out strongly with a few more notable awards in early 89. Like in February when he got two more Grammy nominations and a huge win for Album of the Year.
00:47:51
Speaker
Take it away, Gloria Estefan and Quincy Jones. The Album of the Year is... Faith.
00:48:00
Speaker
Album George Michael. Well,
00:48:08
Speaker
thank you. George wasn't able to be with us this evening. The Academy accepts this award in his name. You can have it, Quincy. Add to your collection there. Thank you. As well as a month earlier at the 89 American Music Awards, which proved to be a rewarding but bittersweet night for George and a controversial moment in the evergreen pop cultural conversations around race and genre.
00:48:31
Speaker
Going into the night, George was nominated for four American Music Awards and ended up winning three of them, favorite pop rock male artist, which was a big achievement and didn't carry too much side eye.
00:48:44
Speaker
You know, apart from him beating out bad era Michael Jackson for the award. But then his other two wins that night were, well, not without qualification, but also not without contention.
00:48:55
Speaker
as he was awarded both Favorite Soul R&B Album and Favorite Soul R&B Male Artist, two categories that, up until that exact moment, 15 years into the AMAs, had been exclusively dominated by African American artists, many of whom did not receive as much entree into the mostly white-dominated mainstream pop radio spaces.
00:49:17
Speaker
While the controversy was fairly brief, again, not only did George Michael genuinely possess the talent and sonic bona fides that welcomed him into those spaces, but also the completely valid age-old topic itself was not one that began or ended with him.
00:49:32
Speaker
But there were a couple interesting entries in this particular moment of the debate if you'd like to dig in deeper yourself, such as the March 26, 1989 Los Angeles Times article, The Whitening of Black Radio, by Dennis Hunt, which also includes some incredible insights from one of my all-time favorite music journalists, the legendary Nelson George.
00:49:53
Speaker
as well as the B-side remix to Public Enemies Fight the Power single that came out that summer, where Spike Lee and Flavor Flav briefly hit on the issue amongst a four and a half minute back and forth about a variety of topics.
00:50:05
Speaker
Flav, I stole your American News Rewards. What's George Michael doing there? he win all the awards? How'd he win the R&B category? Oh, because it wasn't George Michael Week, it was George Bush Week, man.
00:50:17
Speaker
Everybody know that R&B category, which was the
00:50:22
Speaker
But his credit, George seemed to really understand the pushback and didn't try to discredit the argument at all. He was reported to have said, I'm not going to pretend I wasn't happy to get them, but I do understand the argument that says this guy is just an acceptable version of black music for white America.
00:50:39
Speaker
As I said, the valid cultural conversation didn't attach itself to George in particular, and just a few months later, he was again accepting another notable award, though this time it wasn't exclusively centered around his Faith album.
00:50:52
Speaker
Instead, this one was almost more of a lifetime achievement-style award, A curious thing to be receiving at only 26 years old, but that only speaks to the massive impact, both sonically and visually, that George had made in his not yet even a decade-long career.
00:51:09
Speaker
Here's Madonna presenting George with the Video Vanguard Award at the 89 MTV VMAs. He has an excellent voice. He's a great songwriter, and he makes very classy videos.
00:51:24
Speaker
Like me.
00:51:27
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, George Michael. After that whirlwind 87 to 89 period, which also included a mammoth sold-out nine-month, 109 shows across 16 countries world tour, George understandably took a bit of a breather.
00:51:44
Speaker
Though in this period, much like when Michael Jackson followed up Thriller by graciously appearing with his brothers on the Victory album, George took some time to add his raw talent and star power to a couple guest spots on the albums of a few of his old Wham! friends. including singing background vocals on the song Heaven Help Me from Wham! bass guitarist Dion Eustace, which became a triple top five single across the Billboard AC, R&B, and Hot 100 pop charts in late spring 89. I still want
00:52:18
Speaker
you baby, help me, do stranger. As well as singing on the song Someday from the second album by Wham! background singers Pepsi and Shirley, and even appearing with his former Wham! partner Andrew Ridgely on the song Red Dress from Andrew's one and only solo album.
00:52:41
Speaker
But by late summer 1990, George was ready to unleash his Let's Get Serious sophomore follow-up to Faith via his ever-expanding creative palette as a maturing songwriter, producer, vocalist, and instrumentalist.
00:52:55
Speaker
He was also in a place where he really wanted to shed his fabricated sex symbol image and have the public focus more on his music than on his celebrity persona. So he went into this new album era with a resolve to not really do much press or promotion.
00:53:09
Speaker
He didn't want to appear in any new music videos and refused to have his face or even his name on the cover of the album. He just wanted it to be all about the music, his music, that was deeply more personal than it ever had been before.
00:53:23
Speaker
So the first taste of a new George Michael for a new decade came in mid-August, with the release of his forthcoming album's lead single, the somber social justice commentary Praying for Time.
00:53:49
Speaker
Furthering the UK versus US audience reception shift, Praying for Time only hit number six in the UK, but went all the way to number one in the US, his sixth solo US chart topper in just three years, and seventh overall if you go all the way back to Careless Whisper.
00:54:05
Speaker
And just a couple weeks later, his second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, hit stores. It quickly went number one in the UK, number two in the US, a slight break in the trend, and eventually went on to sell quadruple platinum in the UK, double platinum in the US, and over 8 million albums worldwide.
00:54:25
Speaker
won't let you die.
00:54:35
Speaker
I think for most folks, the quote unquote moment of the Listen Without Prejudice album was not so much the song Freedom 90, which was released as an official radio single a month and a half after the album came out, but the actual music video for Freedom 90.
00:54:50
Speaker
The one that a very tired of fame and celebrity George only agreed to make if he himself was not going to be in it. Instead, five popular supermodels of the era took his place, lip-syncing his lines between scenes of the unsubtle and unambiguous destruction of various iconography from his image-defining Faith music video from a few years prior. His leather jacket going up in flames, the jukebox and acoustic guitar exploding, etc.
00:55:23
Speaker
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not at all saying that the song itself is not good without the music video. I mean, come on, it's one of the most vulnerable and autobiographical songs of his entire career.
00:55:34
Speaker
Plus, it's part of one of my favorite sub-genres, songs that explicitly mention MTV by name. We won the got the place. We're back home, break.
00:55:49
Speaker
I'm just saying that it's one of his most popular, beloved signature songs that isn't exactly reflected as such in its chart rankings. It barely cracked the top 30 in the UK and only made it to number 8 here in the States.
00:56:02
Speaker
But I would bet good money you could take anyone who was a teenager or older in the 90s and they could karaoke 95% of this song without batting an eyelash.
Live Performances and Later Career Highlights
00:56:12
Speaker
The album itself went platinum in the states pretty quickly, but it didn't really seem to have the legs that Faith did.
00:56:18
Speaker
George released two more singles in the UK, Heal the Pain and Cowboys and Angels, but they hovered just around the UK top 40 and didn't even get proper releases stateside.
00:56:29
Speaker
At the 91 Brit Awards, George did take home the Album of the Year win for Listen Without Prejudice, but he came up short across his three other nominations. And at the 91 MTV VMAs, the Freedom 90 music video alone received five nominations, but surprisingly didn't net a single win.
00:56:48
Speaker
However, when MTV threw its MTV10 birthday party towards the end of 91, George ended up unveiling one of the hands-down standout moments of the entire star-studded event, a full band acoustic reworking of Freedom 90, which was barely just a year old itself.
00:57:11
Speaker
It was at this point in George's career that he entered a really freeing and fruitful multi-year chapter of collaborations, live performances, and uniquely framed releases that all set outside of the conventional new album cycle activities.
00:57:25
Speaker
In October and November of 91, he was part of two back-to-back releases associated with Elton John. First contributing a cover of Elton's 1976 song, Tonight, to the platinum-selling Top 20 tribute album, Two Rooms, celebrating the songs of Elton John and Bernie Taupin.
00:57:43
Speaker
Tonight Do we have to fight? and then releasing radio single of a live duet of himself and Elton performing Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, which had been recorded earlier in the year during a Wembley stop on George's Cover to Cover tour.
00:58:11
Speaker
The live duet single became a global number one smash in over a dozen countries and was even nominated for a Grammy. At those same early spring 91 Wembley shows where he recorded the Elton duet, George had also given out a small promo cassette as a thank you to his hometown fans that featured his cover of Stevie Wonder's I Believe When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever from his stellar 1972 album Talking
00:58:44
Speaker
George's cover of Stevie's I Believe was actually shipped to R&B radio a bit under the radar in early February 92, but wasn't released as an official single and wasn't meant to chart or anything.
00:58:56
Speaker
Just one great artist covering another and sharing it with his fans for fun.
00:59:02
Speaker
In April of 92, George performed at the huge, globally telecasted Freddie Mercury tribute concert at Wembley. The legendary Queen frontman had passed away from an AIDS-related illness just a few days before Thanksgiving 91, and the surviving members of Queen decided to throw a massive concert in his honor that would also serve as a fundraiser for AIDS awareness, research, and charity support.
00:59:27
Speaker
The first half of the four-and-a-half-hour show featured a variety of rock heavyweights like Metallica, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, and a pre-recorded performance by U2, while the second half featured a rotating guest list of powerhouse singers. David Bowie, Annie Lennox, Elton John, Robert Plant, Seal, and a half-dozen others all backed by Queen.
00:59:48
Speaker
During George's guest spot, he performed three songs, including Somebody to Love, which many journalists and commentators considered to be the highlight of the entire show. Can anybody find me?
01:00:00
Speaker
Somebody to love.
01:00:05
Speaker
Here's a clip of George for almost a decade and a half later, still getting choked up as he talks about the whole experience of performing at the show and what it meant to him personally. think in all honesty, I...
01:00:17
Speaker
um was received as the person who'd done Freddie the most justice. And that was probably not just because I was a huge fan, because there were a lot of huge fans there. It was because i'm enough of a um I'm insecure enough that I went and rehearsed for almost a week with them, whereas everyone else did a day, you know? So if I came out with the biggest um slice of the pie credit-wise, then I think I deserved it for the extra time I brought it in. um It was a very strange experience for me, because I was so...
01:00:48
Speaker
I'll try and... It's hard to talk about this, I'm sorry. um
01:00:54
Speaker
Sorry, I'll just start again. ah It was a very ah strange experience for me because... um Freddie had died ah the day before I found out that my partner was HIV positive.
01:01:07
Speaker
So... the The coincidence of that was horrible. And then, on the actual day... the The day itself um was so bizarre for me because one, I was incredibly proud to be ah um singing Freddie's song, but but incredibly sad to be singing in that circumstance. About a month and a half after the Freddie Mercury tribute concert, George released another standalone single, the radio-ready dance pop classic, Too Funky, returning George to the top five across a variety of countries, including a few number one rankings, as well as top ten in the States and all the way to number four in the UK.
01:01:55
Speaker
The song was originally going to be a part of Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 2, but due to a variety of different reasons, including an ongoing lawsuit with his record label Sony, Vol. 2 was officially scrapped, and George instead gave the song, plus two others destined for the ill-fated Vol. 2, to the Red Hot and Dance HIV AIDS charity compilation that came out in the summer of 92.
01:02:18
Speaker
Along with George's trio of songs, the comp also featured Madonna, Seal, PM Dawn, Lisa Stansfield, and some other killer acts. So, one more cool, unconventional George release from this period.
01:02:31
Speaker
In April of 93, released the Live ep which was officially credited to George Michael and Queen with Lisa Stansfield, because it was anchored around his mesmerizing live covers of Queen's Somebody to Love and These Are the Days of Our Lives that were recorded at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert from almost exactly a year prior.
01:02:54
Speaker
It's Jesus!
01:02:59
Speaker
The 5 Live EP went number one in the yeah UK and Ireland and was rounded out by George's live covers of Javetta Steele's Calling You from Baghdad Cafe, Seal's Killer, and The Temptations' Papa Was a Rolling Stone, the latter two of which won him the International Viewers Choice Awards at the 93 MTV VMAs. Hi, this is Jemaine at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and the winner of the European Viewers Choice is George Michael and Killer, Papa Was a Rolling Stone. Heading into 1994, George was in a bit of a quieter, secluded period of his life as he continued to grieve the loss of his partner, Anselmo Filippa, who had passed away in March 1993.
01:03:42
Speaker
As George had still not publicly discussed his sexuality on his own terms at this point, he has described this period of his life as being weighed down by a double grief that was shrouded not only in immense sadness, but also secrecy that he couldn't share with his family and his fans.
01:03:59
Speaker
While his albums were still making waves throughout the year, Listen Without Prejudice went double platinum and Faith received a nine times platinum certification, George himself rarely made any TV appearances or performed live during this period.
01:04:13
Speaker
The one notable exception was in November 1994 when he performed at the inaugural MTV Europe Music Awards and he sang a beautiful brand new song, Jesus to a Child, that he had written in tribute to Anselmo.
01:04:31
Speaker
I guess you heard me cry You smiled at me like Jesus to child George eventually emerged from this mourning period, publicly at least, at the beginning of 1996, with the official single release of Jesus to a Child, which was promoted as being the lead single from his feverishly anticipated forthcoming solo album, his third overall and his first in six years, which he titled Older.
01:05:13
Speaker
The song was an immediate global hit, hitting number one in at least 10 countries, including being his first solo single to debut at number one on the UK singles chart.
01:05:25
Speaker
It also hit the US top 10, but this was when George's UK vs US audience reception really shifted back towards being more popular in the UK, and that trend pretty much remained solid throughout the rest of his career.
01:05:39
Speaker
In April, he followed up the somber Jesus to a child with Older's second single, a frisky ode to casual, no-strings-attached dalliances that he titled Fast Love.
01:05:50
Speaker
And while he may have sang the line, part-time love just brings me down and whams freedom, or encouraged folks to quote-unquote explore monogamy in the music video for I Want Your Sex, Fast Love was playfully addressing the other side of that particular notion.
01:06:24
Speaker
Fast Love gave George back-to-back UK number ones, while still respectfully hitting number eight in the States. And I've always thought that it was cool that George took his interpolation of the 1982 post-disco dance hit Forget Me Nots.
01:06:38
Speaker
Oh yeah, miss my baby
01:06:44
Speaker
all the way to a UK number one a year before Will Smith also nabbed a UK number one with his interpolation of the exact same song for his debut solo single, Men in Black, the very next year.
01:06:56
Speaker
Get that bag, Patrice.
01:07:06
Speaker
George officially released the older album a month later, in mid-May 96, and unsurprisingly, it was another incredibly well-received global smash. Folks were really happy to have George Michael back on their radios, TVs, and CD players, and he was taking to his role as somewhat of a seasoned pop elder statesman incredibly well.
MTV Unplugged Performance and Setlist
01:07:26
Speaker
As an album, Older hit number one in over a dozen countries, naturally including the UK, and in the US it continued the trend of hitting the top ten but not really going all the way.
01:07:37
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Though, by August, Older did go platinum here in the States, and in the same month, George released the album's third single, The Jazz Club Slinked Spinning the Wheel.
01:07:47
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which probably would have been the album's third UK number one in a row had it not been imprisoned at number two by the multi-week run of the Spice Girls' debut single-slash-girl-power phenomenon, Wannabe.
01:08:07
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And that October is when George filmed his genuinely awesome and extremely impressive MTV Unplugged episode, which would serve as the show's 1996 season finale.
01:08:21
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Now, this is usually the part in the show where I spend some time laying out where Unplugged was at in its own journey and where exactly it's set in the cultural consciousness whenever a particular artist appeared on it.
01:08:33
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But my last episode was a retrospective on the entire 96 season, so it feels a little redundant to do that again here.
01:08:50
Speaker
So, George Michael's MTV Unplugged, not filmed in New York where most of the show's episodes ended up being shot, but instead in London in front of a hometown crowd just like the Oasis Unplugged, which had been filmed earlier in the summer and was premiering on MTV during the same month that George's episode was being filmed.
01:09:10
Speaker
Instead of being one of the unplugged episodes that ended up having multiple retakes or false starts and stops to get that just-right performance for broadcast, George's talent, professionalism, and pitch-perfect sense for how to elevate a performance to the highest standard were on full display in this tastefully crafted, masterfully performed, brief but brilliant 10-song set.
01:09:33
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Not to mention, he did it all while leading a full band, eight background singers, an eight-member string ensemble, and a saxophone player. But spoiler alert, no, he curiously did not play Careless Whisper.
01:09:46
Speaker
But as far as what did make the show, George did an incredible job of crafting a set list that hit on some of his previous work. One Wham song, one hit from Faith, and two tracks from Listen Without Prejudice, while mostly anchoring the set around his brand new album, Older.
01:10:02
Speaker
He also did an incredible surprise cover song. It was MTV Unplugged after all, but more on that one in a minute. So let's start with the batch of newer songs from Older, which really showcased George's more matured and mellowed tone while still exhibiting his flawless vocal control and honey delivery.
01:10:20
Speaker
Of the trio of singles from older that had already become hits earlier in the year, he only played one, Fast Love, and it translated to the unplugged format extremely well. And while I usually reserve my live acoustic sampling rabbit trails for the hip-hop episodes, just listen to how gorgeously this original Forget-Me-Not's vocal hook and bass line...
01:10:48
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translates flawlessly into the unplugged version of Fast Low.
01:11:06
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Of the other four songs he played from older, three of them were eventually released as singles that all went top five in the UK. The title track, You Have Been Loved, and Star People.
01:11:16
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Come on, let's see your hands. Come Give us a bit of vibe here.
01:11:22
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Baby, your mama.
01:11:28
Speaker
The remaining older track that George played on Unplugged was The Strangest Thing, and curiously enough, neither this song nor the title track made the actual broadcast of the episode.
01:11:39
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However, both tracks were included when George released his entire 10-song MTV Unplugged performance as the bonus disc attached to the 2017 reissue of Listen Without Prejudice.
01:11:59
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As far as the career spanning quartet of shall we say older, non older tracks, George picked some absolute standouts. okay this next track is ah the one wm track of the evening Reaching all the way back to his Wham! days, George and his band unplugged Everything She Wants, and it was really cool to hear the differences in his vocal inflections and the instrumental tones between the mid-80s synth pop original and this 12 years later older, wiser acoustic version.
01:12:30
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Everything she wants, everything she needs, it's just matter of
01:12:39
Speaker
From his solo debut Faith, he played his US chart topper slash how did it not even make the top 10 in the UK hit, Father Figure, which of course made the unplugged jump with understandable ease. And man, did the string ensemble really shine on this
01:13:04
Speaker
That's all I want To represent his Listen Without Prejudice era, he played both a breathy, string-laced praying for time, These are the days of the empty hand, Oh you hold on to what you can, And charity is a quote you wear twice year.
01:13:28
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and a burn burner acoustic version of Freedom 90 that he used to kick off the show in style, reminding us all that even though the song was only about six years old at the time, it was always destined to be a timeless classic.
01:13:40
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Take back your picture in the frame. Something that I'll be back again. just hope you understand. Sometimes it goes.
01:13:51
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And then finally, answering expectations for a killer unplugged cover song, George unveiled his This Song Is Mine Now performance of Bonnie Raitt's aching 91-hit ballad I Can't Make You Love Me.
01:14:05
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Knowing he nailed it during his unplugged taping, George quickly recorded a studio version of the song and put it on the B-side of the single for Older that came out in January 97. And it's good, no doubt, but I'll take his live unplugged version every single time, as it's easily one of the most magically delivered unplugged cover songs of the show's entire run.
01:14:26
Speaker
Turn down the lights Turn down the bed And think that's where we'll leave George for now, dazzling us with his ability to masterfully reinterpret his own hits and majestically reimagine someone else's.
01:14:43
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Older, yes, but also, thanks to his timeless songs, somehow forever young as well. George of course went on to record a few more albums, craft another batch of late-era hits, and deliver a bunch more incredible concerts over the next two decades.
01:14:59
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But to talk about all that means we'd inevitably have to end up at Christmas Day 2016, when George sadly passed away from heart disease at his home in the English countryside.
01:15:10
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Less than a year later, George's Listen Without Prejudice album received a really cool reissue that I should note had already been announced by George a few months before his passing, so there was nothing gross or cash-grabby there.
01:15:22
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And thankfully, it included his previously unreleased entire 10-song MTV Unplugged performance as a bonus disc. George's Listen Without Prejudice reissue ended up debuting at number one on the UK album chart 27 years after he first released it.
Reflecting on George Michael's Legacy and Future Content
01:15:39
Speaker
And while I always sound greedy when I say this, even though we got his MTV Unplugged audio as bonus material attached to the reissue, I do really hope it eventually goes the route of what the Cranberries did last year and follow up the bonus disc version with a proper standalone album.
01:15:55
Speaker
Maybe even release a DVD Blu-ray so we can finally see the unbroadcasted performances of Older and The Strangest Thing. But again, that's just me always wanting a little more unplugged goodness. So as usual, I'll just be patient and light my Natalie Merchant prayer candle.
01:16:11
Speaker
Because, you know...
01:16:16
Speaker
So there we go, the first entry in this new Unforgotten style episode format. No current plans for the next one just yet, but I'm definitely curious if y'all dig this occasional, interviewless, single-unplugged deep dive based around unplugged artists who are sadly no longer with us.
01:16:32
Speaker
My next batch of episodes will be back to our regularly scheduled programming, artist interviews, broader-themed chats with music journalist friends, etc. So please stay tuned for all that unplugged awesomeness.
01:16:44
Speaker
And don't forget, we're running a giveaway for the new Bob Dylan MTV Unplugged double disc vinyl reissue that's coming out on February 20th. So please get your entries in for that because I'll be announcing the winner on my next episode.
01:16:56
Speaker
If you'd like to get in touch to share your own unplugged memories, offer up a correction, ask a question, or connect with the show for any other reason, you can send me an email. unpluggedrevisited at gmail.com, leave a voicemail by calling 234-REVISIT, which is 234-738-4748, or reach out on social media.
01:17:17
Speaker
As always, please take a minute to follow the pod on your platform of choice so that it'll automatically pop into your feed when it goes live next month. Until then, my friends, be kind to yourself and look out for each other.
01:17:30
Speaker
Unplugged Revisited is a Son of a Butch production. The show is written and hosted by me, Will Hodge. The show is edited by Amanda Hodge and myself. Podcast artwork is by Jordan Ullam, and you can find more of their incredible work at jordanullam.design.
01:17:45
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That's J-O-R-D-A-N-U-L-L-O-M.design.
01:17:48
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