George Michael R.I.P.

(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

I just saw him do "Feeling Good" for the first time yesterday. <3
His covers .., man, he really knocks your socks off

https://youtu.be/WxBr_9EkmQ0

I loved this when it came out in 2000 - George & Whitney dancing together in the video is still a treat

https://youtu.be/7EjfbyCpAxA

A (surprisingly) thoughtful and poignant tribute from Armond White.

I hope everyone loves "Too Funky" as much as you should.

more!

just watched the rehearsal of "Somebody to Love" from the 1991 tribute. cotdamn. like Alfred said above, he's about the only one who approached what Freddie did on this song - most covers of this tune or live performances are always so antiseptic and he's so locked in even in the rehearsal. this is a song where melisma isn't inherently a bad thing, but both Freddie and George used it in a way that served the song, yet i like that George didn't note-for-note replicate Freddie's runs at the end.

Gtfo dickhole

― Neanderthal, Monday, December 26, 2016 5:42 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM.

Best thing I've read by Armond White, easily.

as a gay guy who makes a little music i have often related to George Michael's voice in a very particular way. it created a niche for "people like me" in an industry so hard to penetrate. as embarrassing as it is that i've never listened to Prince or Bowie, i feel proud that George in many ways taught me how to sing!

Personally, I'm finding news of George Michael's passing as difficult to process as Bowie and Prince earlier on in the year. His health problems this decade were well documented, but even with that in mind I felt he was the type of guy that would live well into his 70's at the very least. 53 is ridiculously young. That '80s stars like George Michael and Prince are passing away while '60s stars like McCartney, Jagger, Richards, Townshend etc. are still active, alive and kicking is just... wut?

Nevertheless, I'm listening to Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 again for the first time in ages, and I keep forgetting how utterly fucking wonderful 'Praying For Time' is.

I've always loved George Michael's voice, and felt he was somewhat underrated as a songwriter and a producer. Maybe now, people will look at his body of work and realise that he had an amazing songwriting gift.

TMZ is saying he may have had a lot of recent weight gain and since the cause of death was heart failure, could have been related to that. it just kind of shows how random it all is - there's no equation for who lives to what age, such as the examples above.

feel like listening to "Cowboys and Angels" now.

"Praying For Time" and "Freedom '90" are kind of an amazing one-two of high profile MTV-uber-alles videos that now weirdly seem like total harbringers of the YouTube era -- a lyric video followed by a dubsmash.

'Somebody To Love' was the song I havent been able to listen to since the news. I hadn't properly cried til now & I can't stop.

It is the song that means the most to me because his performance shows how deeply he understands the song. My understanding is that Somebody was Freddie's favorite song, but the one he was most self-conscious of because of how personal it was. - I like to think that George knew that, an as an expression of solidarity & understanding - he's playing not just to the huge crowd but to the heavens.

But he inhabits the *plea*. That's where he gets me. Freddie's version can make me cry any day of the week because of that plea, that hope, that need. George captures it so perfectly. Like a great actor he not only reads the lyrics, he *listens* & answers.

He's not mimicking Freddie in any way, he feels it in his soul & pours it out the way the song demands & it defeats any argument against his right to be among the great interpreters & creators of pop music. Not that those arguments hold much water but anyway

I just feel so ;_;

so I wrote this: http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/7633317/george-michael-gay-artist-sexuality-career

really nice. i saw it linked online before too.

VectorVictoria @V3ct0rv1ct0r

@richardosman he gave a stranger in a cafe £25k as she was crying over debt. Told the waitress to give her the cheque after he left.

EMILYNE MONDO @EmilyneMondo

George Michael worked anonymously at a homeless shelter I was volunteering at. I've never told anyone, he asked we didn't. That's who he was
4:43 AM - 26 Dec 2016

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/26/506998666/after-george-michaels-death-stories-emerge-of-his-quiet-generosity

There's been a lot of that stuff on the news over here too. He genuinely seems like he was a nice person.

I liked a few GM/Wham songs, but would hardly classify myself as a fan, per se. However, Queen not paying him whatever he asked to front the band after Freddie died = dumbest mistake ever. George Michael was like Freddie, with arguably even better pop/soul chops, and totally agreed w/above, regarding how deeply he clearly understood their music. Maybe he wouldn't have even been interested, but it's hard not to think about what might have been. RIP

so I wrote this: http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/7633317/george-michael-gay-artist-sexuality-career🔗

Wonderful piece. Definitely gonna investigate his later work.

Although this duet has always struck me as ropey and vacant, hearing it this morning brought tears. It works better as an ode to music instead of a love song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBCWLhlJV0Y

Yeah I love it as a callback to duets like Aint No Mountain High Enough etc

It's naff but very lovable - actually a very good song for children. There's a TOTP clip with John Peel snarking on it immediately after the song - amusingly dickish but always made me like the ring even more.

it was on the radio ALL the time when it came out, i was young enough to enjoy it

it's a v posi vibe song

Song even more

Sorry, didnt mean that as a reflection on the quality of Patience

I shouldve just said 'sparse' yes

I remember seeing the video and thinking it looked like it was made in outer space, or something equally unearthly. Gradually becoming clear at that age that guy was simply awesome

i was 28 yrs old

“Hey George Michael you don’t know me but I know you very well.. They can’t take that away from you. You are the one.. "

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

rip man this sucks so much

and your mom
and your mom
was always acting craaaazy

Per my earlier post about how "Father Figure" had been on my mind:

http://nedraggett.tumblr.com/post/155001636372/it-came-to-mind-the-other-week-i-have-no-idea

there was a Q mag interview with him in the wake of the 1998 Will Rogers park incident (my copy is in another state) in which he was not all contrite and hugely entertaining as such…it seems like he never really stopped cruising like that… good for him!

One thing I'm still curious about is how he and Ridgley might have been perceived by, say, the NME reading student cohort, like how he was dressed in that thing with Morrissey and Tony Blackburn. Like, would "naff" hit the spot? I'm sure this is perfectly obvious, but if someone could unpack the specific variety of corn/ cheese he bespoke '82-'87, I'd be interested. There can be no doubt that from the 90s on, he inhabited the most exquisite gay existence imaginable…

i once waited on him in a restaurant. he was at a table with two huge bears. they were all very nice.

:) :)

what'd they drink?

tea, iirc!

I remember reading a reprint of an NME interview with Michael from the mid-80s, iirc NME had been very positive about Wham Rap and Young Guns (Go For It), giving them single of the week etc, but had turned against them when they did Club Tropicana, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go etc and became full on Smash Hits approved pop stars, the interview was basically a debate between GM and the NME journalist, with GM accusing them of being too-cool-for school snobs who rejected them for being too popular and the NME journalist accusing Wham of going middle of the road and bland.

I mean, this is all way before my time, but that's what I inferred from this reprinted interview. I guess that Wham hit their peak just at around the time that what the NME reading students were into and what was in the top 20 was being beginning to diverge with "indie" becoming a thing?

bob stanley touches on their perception at the time here https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/dec/26/george-michael-wham-most-misunderstood-group-1980s-thatcherism