A genuine superstar who raised the bar for pop
George Michael was a genuine British superstar. It is a term that is bandied about too much in pop music, but he was the real deal. He had talent that shaped the pop narrative of his times and, for a while, bestrode the entire world.
You can’t think about the Eighties without thinking about George Michael. He was one of the defining figures of that most colourful of eras. In the Nineties, he remained a pop powerhouse, one of our most distinctive and always fascinating icons. And if his star faded just a little over time, it was more to do with his erratic lifestyle and personal choices than a failure of ability or creativity. It would be sad if he was remembered now for his ridiculous run of car accidents and drug busts, his notorious arrest in an American toilet, or his sometimes embattled and eccentric proclamations to the media. Musically he operated at the very highest levels of pop craft. And personally, on the few occasions I met him, I found him to be an intelligent, engaging character with a strong sense of the absurdities of his own life.
When he first appeared on the UK music scene in 1981, it was immediately obvious he meant business. Even the act of shoving a shuttlecock down his tight shorts on Top of the Pops was a cheerfully bold proclamation of intent. As the architect of his pin-up duo Wham! he helped shape a fresh, shiny, upbeat sound that shook off the darkness of punk and new wave, reacting to the privations of the era not by protest but by escapism. With his blow-dried hair and dashing grin, he seemed determined to signal a break from seriousness. Yet this character was an act. A soulful and somewhat tortured individual in private, he mimicked the ease and ebullience of his friend and onstage partner Andrew Ridgeley to project a confidence, machismo and joyousness that didn’t perhaps come naturally. It was explosively successful. Wham! are an all-time great pop act, almost absurdly joyous, with a blend of giddy British songcraft and American dancefloor rhythmic drive that became unstoppable. They spearheaded the second great British pop invasion of America, when bands including Culture Club, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet brought a colourful palette of synthetic flavours to sweep away rock’s prevailing tone of po-faced seriousness. It was really the last time Britain absolutely ruled the airwaves. I think it’s fair to say that all manufactured boy band pop still carries a bit of Wham! in its DNA.
Michael went on to be even more successful as a solo artist, when he was able to unleash the full range of his talents. He could sing with the flow, phrasing and command of the great American soul and gospel vocalists, something rarely heard before in British music. You’ve got to be pretty damn good to duet with Aretha Franklin, as he did on I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) in 1987. He really raised the bar for every British singer that followed in his wake. And he was a fantastic songwriter too, the absolute architect of his own fantasy, combining words, melodies and rhythms that worked on both the immediate, superficial level of instant pop gratification and on deeper levels of emotional expression.
Everybody knows George Michael’s songs, and can probably sing them whether they want to or not. Last Christmas has been chiming out across the land this holiday season, a perfect little nugget of happy-sad pop.
Yet it was actually one of his more throwaway ditties. The best of his work beguiles the ear with hooks while carrying the listener further and deeper than they perhaps even realise. It was a very adult kind of pop music.
Careless Whisper is a killer slow dance for lovers, a smooth and smoochy ballad with the rare power to move bodies as well as hearts. Faith is about as lusty a proclamation of manhood ever heard, delivered over a stripped back acoustic rock and roll rhythm as taut as a drum skin. Jesus to A Child and Father Figure are heavy, resonant ballads. I Want Your Sex and Fastlove are super slick grooves driven with bold, erotic energy. His music always sounded the business.
He was a multi-instrumentalist and a great producer, with an ear for arrangements that would frame his voice to best advantage. At the forefront was a powerful performer who expressed himself with a vigour at odds with the inner uncertainties and fragilities still tangible in his music. It was his inner conflict that, ultimately, made him so compelling.
And, perhaps, ultimately, made his career so erratic.
For a long time, George Michael maintained a private life very separate from his public image, struggling to address the homosexuality he could admit to friends but not his parents. Although it was well known in the music business that he was gay, it was only after his arrest by an undercover policeman in a Beverly Hills public toilet in 1998 that his sexuality became public knowledge. Once out of the closet though, there was no going back. He became a vocal advocate of gay rights and an often very funny commentator on his own foibles.
He was frank about a marijuana habit that may have had something to do with several arrests over the years for erratic driving. In private, I know Michael felt that being exposed as gay had damaged his career (and certainly his record sales in America flagged) but he was also relieved to be able to emerge from self-imposed silence and reveal his truer self to the world. It was only then that he was able to publicly reveal the personal devastation he had experienced after his boyfriend, Brazilian Anselmo Feleppa, died of Aids in 1993, which inspired some of his most beautiful
‘The best of his work beguiles the ear with hooks while carrying the listener further and deeper than they perhaps even realise’
songs. Even after all the losses pop has suffered this terrible year, I have to admit I am in shock at the loss of George Michael. It is not just that 53 is too young, it is the feeling of a story still unfinished. Michael was not prolific. There have only been five solo albums, the last in 2004. Yet he was a man who had a lot of music in him, who seemed at his very best when able to let it pour out of him, and who always spoke as if privately convinced that the best was yet to come.
There had been rumours about the state of his health over the years. Someone mentioned to me just a few weeks ago that he was not well, although they were unable or unwilling to elaborate. Publicly, he was known to have been recording again, and optimistic about releasing new music next year.
Whether that will emerge now is a whole other question, for another time. Right now, every pop music lover should be mourning the loss of an amazing star, a huge talent, and a fascinating, complex, warm, funny human being.
As ever, we have to take what succour we can in music that cannot be erased by time. It may have been George Michael’s last Christmas, but the songs play on.