- This article is about the musician. George Michael is also the name of a former radio DJ and current sports
presenter. See The George Michael
Sports Machine.
George Michael (born June 25, 1963)
is a British pop singer/songwriter born in Bushey, Hertfordshire.
Wham!
Born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, Michael began his career by forming a band called 'The Executives' together with
Andrew Ridgeley. The band didn't survive for long though. It wasn't until he formed the duo Wham! together again with his best friend Andrew Ridgeley in the early 1980s that the success came for the
band. Their first album, 'Fantastic', was an instant success and within a year they had released their classic debut single,
Wham Rap, while their second single, Young Guns (Go For It!) became the first in a string of Top 10 hits. They were
rapidly followed by titles such as Club Tropicana, Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, Careless Whisper,
Last Christmas, Everything She Wants, I'm Your
Man, and many more. Michael also sang on the original Band Aid recording of
"Do They Know It's Christmas and donated
the profits from 'Last Christmas' to the charity. After the success of his solo releases "Careless Whisper" and "Different
Corner" stories of an impending split intensified. After a series of sell-out concerts at Wembley in 1986 the band was ended.
Solo career
Some of his biggest hit singles as a solo artist include the single "Faith" (taken from his debut album Faith that not
only became No.1 on both sides of the Atlantic but also resulted in
stunning 6 No.1 singles in America) and many more.
"Careless Whisper" (written when he was 17) became one of the most played songs of the decade and voted Londoner's Favourite
record of all time in January 1995 in a competition run jointly by the capital's leading evening newspaper and radio station. He
was then also voted Best Male Singer by the same radio station and by the readers of a national newspaper. Some of his other hits
include "Father Figure", "One More Try", "Freedom 90", "Fastlove", "Jesus To A Child", "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" (a duet
with Elton John), 2002's "Freeek!" and
"Shoot The Dog".
His work covers a variety of pop styles, from ballads to funky dance tracks. In a career spanning more than 20 years, George
Michael has been responsible for more than 80 million album sales.
Having decided to release his new material through a number of labels on a single-by-single basis, George found a home at Sony
for his new, highly anticipated album Patience. It was released in March 2004 after two unstellar
singles came out on Polydor and it debuted at number one on the UK album charts and number 2 in Australia.
Notoriety
Michael was involved in a court case concerning his record contract after
his record company CBS was taken over by Sony. Amongst Michael's complaints was that Sony had not fully supported the release of his second solo album
resulting in its poor performance in the US compared to "Faith". Sony responded that Michael had refused to appear in promotional
videos and it was this that had caused the poor response to the album. The case was heard in London and was found against
Michael. As a consequence Michael declared he would not release any new material until he had completed the minimum of his
contractual obligations to Sony.
Michael is also well known for his 1998 arrest
for "engaging in a lewd act" in a public restroom in a Beverly Hills city park. He was arrested by an undercover Beverly Hills police officer
named Marcelo Rodriguez.
- George Michael: "Well, I was followed into the restroom, and then, this cop - well, I didn't know he was a cop at the time
obviously – he started playing this game. I think it's called ‘I'll show you mine, you show me yours, and then when
you show me yours, I'm gonna nick you!'" [1] (http://gaytoday.badpuppy.com/garchive/people/110998pe.htm)
After pleading "no contest" to the charge, Michael was fined $810 and sentenced to 80 hours of community service. After that incident, he became open about his homosexuality.
Soon afterwards, Michael made a video for his single "Outside" which was clearly based on the public restroom incident and
which featured men dressed up as policemen kissing. Rodriguez, the police officer,
claimed that this video "mocked" him, and also that Michael had slandered him in
interviews, and in 1999 filed a ten million dollar lawsuit in California against the singer. The court dismissed the
case on the grounds related to the officer's status as a kind of public official, but an appeals court reinstated the case on December 3, 2002.
George has often taken a public political stance. George Michael sang as part of Band Aid on the charity song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" for famine relief in
Ethiopia and Wham! played at Live Aid
in 1985. In the 1980s, George Michael was very critical of Margaret
Thatcher's Conservative government and its
cruise missile alliance with the United States. George said that he felt bad, since through his taxes he was paying for these weapons, yet was
obliged to never dodge his tax obligations to his home country.
In December 2004 Elton John stated in an interview that he believed George
Michael should 'get out more'. As both John and Michael were openly gay and had performed together on several occasions many were
surprised at the public spat. In an open letter response Michael claimed he and Elton were not good friends and that John had
little knowledge of his personal life other than what he might glean from gossip.
Future career
George Michael announced that Patience will be the last record on sale to the public. He told BBC Radio 1 on March 10, 2004 that future music that he puts out will be available for download with fans encouraged to make a donation to
charity. He said: "I've been very well remunerated for my talents over the years so I really don't need the public's money. I'd
like to have something on the Internet which is a charitable download site where anyone can download my music for free. I'll have
my favourite charities up there and people will hopefully donate to that."
He states that the decision will put less pressure to produce a new album every so often and allow him to have more of a
private life with his partner Kenny Goss.
Discography
Albums
- As part of Wham!
- Fantastic
(1983) #1 UK, #83 US
- Make It Big (1984) #1 UK,
#1 US
- Music From The Edge of Heaven (1986) #10 US
- The Final (1986)
(compilation) #2 UK
- If You Were There (The Best of Wham) (1997) #4 UK
- As a solo artist
- Faith (1987) #1 UK, #1
US
- Listen without Prejudice, Vol. 1 (1990) #1 UK, #2 US
- Five live (with Queen & Lisa
Stansfield) (1992) #1 UK (singles chart), #46 US
- Older (1996) #1 UK, #6 US
- Ladies & Gentlemen (Best Of George Michael) (1998) #1 UK, #24
US
- Songs from the Last Century (1999)
#2 UK, #157 US
- Patience (2004) #1 UK, #12 US
Hit singles
- from Fantastic!
- 1982 "Young Guns (Go For It)" #3 UK
- 1983 "Wham Rap" #8 UK
- 1983 "Bad Boys" #2 UK
- 1983 "Club Tropicana" #4 UK
- non-album single
- 1983 "Club Fantastic Megamix" #15 UK
- from Make It Big
- 1984 "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" #1 UK, #1 US
- 1984 "Careless Whisper" (credited to George Michael solo) #1 UK, #1 US
- 1984 "Freedom" #1 UK, #3 US (1985 release)
- 1984 "Everything She Wants" #2 UK (double A-side with Last Christmas in the UK), #1 US (1985 release)
- from Music from the Edge of Heaven
- 1985 "I'm Your Man" #1 UK, #3 US
- 1985 "Last Christmas" (re-issue) #6 UK
- 1986 "The Edge of Heaven" #1 UK (double A-side with Where Did Your Heart Go in the UK), #10 US
- 1986 "A Different Corner" #1 UK, #7 US
- from Aretha (Aretha Franklin album)
- 1987 "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" (with Aretha Franklin) #1 US, #1 UK
- from Faith
- 1987 "I Want Your Sex" #3 UK, #2 US
- 1987 "Faith" #2 UK, #1 US
- 1988 "Father Figure" #11 UK, #1 US
- 1988 "One More Try" #8 UK, #1 US
- 1988 "Monkey" #13 UK, #1 US
- 1988 "Kissing a Fool" #18 UK, #5 US
- from Listen without Prejudice, Vol. 1
- 1990 "Praying for Time" #6 UK, #1 US
- 1990 "Waiting for That Day" #23 UK, #27 US
- 1990 "Freedom 90" #28 UK, #8 US
- 1991 "Heal the Pain" #31 UK
- non-album single
- 1991 "Don't Let the Sun Go down on Me" (with Elton John) #1 UK, #1 US
- from Red Hot + Dance various artists charity album
- 1992 "Too Funky" #4 UK, #10 US
- from Five Live EP
- 1993 "Somebody to Love" #30 US
- from Older
- 1996 "Jesus to a Child" #1 UK, #7 US
- 1996 "Fast Love" #1 UK, #8 US
- 1996 "Spinning the Wheel" #2 UK
- 1997 "Older/I Can Make You Love Me" #3 UK
- 1997 "Star People '97" #2 UK
- non-album single
- 1997 "Waltz Away Dreaming" (Toby Bourke feat. George Michael) #10 UK
- from Older
- 1997 "You Have Been Loved/The Strangest Thing '97" #2 UK
- from Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael
- 1998 "Outside" #2 UK
- 1999 "As" (with Mary J. Blige) #4 UK
- from Greatest Hits (Whitney Houston album)
- 2000 "If I Told You That" (with Whitney Houston) #9 UK
- from Patience
- 2002 "Freeek!" #7 UK
- 2002 "Shoot the Dog" #12 UK
- 2004 "Amazing" #4 UK
- 2004 "Flawless (Go to the City)" #8 UK
- 2004 "Round Here" #32 UK
External links
- "George Michael faces $10m lawsuit (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/446721.stm)" - BBC News article, dated Tuesday,
September 14, 1999
- "George Michael video case dismissed (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/646004.stm)" - BBC News article, by Peter Bowes,
dated Thursday, February 17, 2000
- "Officer allowed to sue Michael (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2542097.stm)" - BBC News article, dated Wednesday,
December 4, 2002
- "George Michael Fans Unite For Unreleased Material (http://www.petitiononline.com/Faithful/petition.html)" An Online Petition For George Michael
Fans, March 15, 2005
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