George Michael R.I.P.

One of my husband's relatives, just now: "Did he leave behind a wife and kids?"

Hmm. Dare I ask what the reaction was when this person was disabused?

wow

In his defense you can be gay and leave behind a wife and kids.

But that's off topic and worthless to discuss atm. I'd rather talk about his late work:

What was the last thing he did? I think the last song I heard from him was Outside from 1998! I lost track completely. Anything you recommend from his work of the past 20 years?

I remember there were some rumors of a Disclosure/George Michael collaboration... seems it never came through but I would've loved to hear him in that 'updated' setting - not necessarily Disclosure but any sort of modern edm/disco/house context- he had a really smooth very sexual voice.

53. That came out of nowhere.
RIP George.

Anything you recommend from his work of the past 20 years?

Joan L. Chachi on "Amazing" upthread to thread

I just played "Freedom '90" and his death is going to be especially hard to come to terms with because as well as only being 53, so many of his songs are about being alive and living your life on your own terms. "Because I would really really love to stick around."

really sad news. he had a really amazing voice. agree with ned about father figure. i'd say there's always been one or two of his singles drifting into regular rotation for me, over many years, whether solo stuff or wham.

obvious choice but the vocal in this is so brilliant, it's obviously a great song but he performs it with such style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtYOpHp-bX0

Love the guy but his post 96 output save Amazing was dismal

He seemed to be going on a whole new terrain with Older that he never properly followed up on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdfXzUFo3_s

friend shared this on facebook, great track and a really nice video.

Heartbroken about this. The ILM poll earlier this year made me go back to his stuff and listen to it over and over, especially Precious Box.

RIP George.

This has been widely posted but just adding here as it's amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1ZMi3cPzUg

Also just to rep for "As", which I will listen to any day over the Stevie version

What a man

Also, Fastlove, I think in retrospect the greatest song of my teenage years. Back when pubs had pool tables and jukeboxes, always impossible not to 50p it

as a DJ in hip-hop clubs in New York City in the late 90’s, George/Wham’s “Everything She Wants” was one of maybe three or four tunes by white artists that you could follow MJ, Frankie Beverly or Roy Ayers with

nice tribute from Mark Ronson https://www.instagram.com/p/BOdfkmVArb7/

it's all so sad :'(

Amazing how patronised George is in that clip, while being the most broadly knowledgeable and open person on the panel. ugh, Morrissey.

Had never heard (or heard of) "If I Told You That" until this morning.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7EjfbyCpAxA

Love the guy but his post 96 output save Amazing was dismal

i mean i know i'm cap'n save an artist's later work but having gone through it just earlier this year this is absolutely untrue

i mean, "cars and trains"! "precious box"! "an easier affair"!

'Flawless'
'Shoot the Dog'

more sparse than dismal

Outside too.

George does come across very tasteful and intelligent in that eight days a week episode. But fucking Morrissey ... ugh! indeed, what a repulsive lil' arrogant overgrown 6th former cunt he makes out of himself.

that was the raw material he had tbf

this is gorgeous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRAOG-BpNOw

his combination of chops and soul, passion and control was sublime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbWJO8RMg1A

I would be interested in English people's, or people from anywhere else, impressions of his last 20 years: like did his shit get on the radio or you heard it everywhere you went upon release? is ti true that he was huge everywhere else?

― veronica moser,

Older was to England what Faith was in America: a massive hit.

t became Michael's biggest-selling album in his homeland, achieving over 1.8 million copies sold, and receiving a 6xPlatinum certification by the BPI on 5 December 1997. In the UK, it spent a total of 147 weeks inside the Top 200, 99 of them on the Top 75, and 35 of them on the Top 10 (including 23 consecutive weeks).[13] The steady sales of the album were the result of good promotion market and the release of six hit singles throughout a 2-year period. All of these singles (except for the one for the title track) were released and promoted as EP's, in two available formats, most of them containing previously unreleased material (including live tracks, alternate versions and, in the case for the Spinning the Wheel EP, two new studio recordings of brand-new George Michael compositions). Most of these singles were promoted with live performances at Top of the Pops and also music videos were recorded for the four first singles. All of this helped to push the album sales from one week to another, with the album usually returning to the Top 10 in the British charts. For example, when "Star People '97" was released in mid-1997, Older achieved a 21-14-10-7 progression on the charts. Very much the same happened when "You Have Been Loved/The Strangest Thing '97" was issued as the sixth single (fourteen months after the original release of the album), and Older showed a 24-14-7 move on the UK charts. In all, Older currently sits as the 97th best selling album of all time in the United Kingdom.

Listened to Battlestations for the first time in 25 years today. Loved it at the time then but didn't fully appreciate what a Prince-inspired classic it clearly was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSxl3CHeI7Q

I would be interested in English people's, or people from anywhere else, impressions of his last 20 years: like did his shit get on the radio or you heard it everywhere you went upon release? is ti true that he was huge everywhere else?

― veronica moser,

Just check and his last hit in the US was 20 years ago, what were you lot thinking? In that same period, he had 10 more top 10 hits and 5 top 20 hits in the UK.

RIP George btw.

Have you listened to American radio in the last 20 years? Nuance is not one of its prized qualities.

Stunned at the level of grief and interest in his death to be honest. Obviously he was much more popular in the UK. "I Want Your Sex" is a sick fucking song, those synth stabs in the chorus. But grouping him in with Prince and Bowie (haven't read all of this thread yet but I've seen that appraisal elsewhere) seems insane to me.

Faith sold 10 million copies here but....really? George Michael??

I dunno, no need to really compare legends, but I think George Michael always came across as a musical genius in a way that's somewhat similar to Prince - a soulful perfectionist

Gtfo dickhole xpost

Faith sold 10 million copies here but....really? George Michael??

Yeah, what about it?

... and I wasn't even that much of a fan of his tbh.

Faith is as good as any of the great Prince albums

even the extended CD version doesn't contain filler

(original longer CD / cassette track listing)

listening to Faith again now. Hand To Mouth should have seen him be award a songwriting credit for Richard Marx's 'Hazard'

i dug the songs i heard on VH1 as a kid (i want your sex and wake me up before you go-go), but i always had this image of him as washed up, a has been. Faith came out before I was born, probably has something to do with it. though i saw several of my friends talk about that christmas song he did. not trying to be disrespectful, i had no idea he was so beloved.

Has the stuff Lindsay Anderson filmed of Wham ever come out?

i always had this image of him as washed up, a has been

How respectful of you to share that with us.

to many, not maintaining impressive sales and chart positions in America = outright failure

How unlike Prince and Bowie who, by contrast, had an unbroken line of commercial and critical successes from their heyday up until their deaths.

I loved this guy's songs even when I didn't know some of the songs were his. Like for years I didn't know he was behind Careless whisper and everything she wants, two of the songs that perfectly encapsulate everything great about the '80s sound. Faith is a monster of an album. even when I was ten and hearing this guy solo for the first time it was pretty clear he was something special. I think his solo career even by itself is pretty superior and if you include Wham! it puts him on a level with some of those other giants being mentioned in the same breath. Don't see it being mentioned much but damn he was a great great singer too. The voice he had.

i dug the songs i heard on VH1 as a kid (i want your sex and wake me up before you go-go), but i always had this image of him as washed up, a has been. Faith came out before I was born, probably has something to do with it.

I felt pretty much the same way of David Bowie, but I didn't come to share that on his RIP thread. Certainly GM's music meant more to me (and most likely to many others of my generation) than anything Bowie ever did, and to say that he shouldn't be remembered as being in the same league as Prince or Bowie is inexplicable rockism. He was a pop genius.

Also, America is not the world, so it shouldn't be a huge surprise that artists you don't hear about there might be beloved elsewhere?

xxxxpost