STACK #185 Mar 2020

FEATURE MUSIC

or irresponsible as they tried to make it out to be, to the extent that the word ‘monogamy’ appeared in the video.” Co-directed by George and Andy Morahan, said film clip co-starred George’s muse/ girlfriend at the time, Kathy Jeung. The singer’s naked, hairless torso in the video is actually that of body double Chris Bessie since George was deemed too hirsute (and also allegedly not at his most ripped when the shoot was scheduled). After Kirsty Young described his image in the I Want Your Sex video as “very, very heterosexual”, George reminded her that he identified as bisexual back then: “It wasn’t as though it was a complete lie, it’s not that I had stopped having sex with women, but I was already fully aware that - in and of itself - was a lie.” surrounding this song definitely worked in its favour: “The more radio stations refused to play it, the more people talked about it.” Still, just in case the public’s overreaction to I Want Your Sex spiralled out of control, Lippmann placed the song “in a very safe environment”: on the Beverly Hills Cop II soundtrack. At the start of the film clip for George’s follow-up single, a jukebox plays I Want Your Sex before switching over to Faith , which cleverly kicks off with organ fanfare that borrows the chorus melody fromWham!’s Freedom . Of his look - faded, ripped jeans, cowboy boots, white T-shirt, black leather jacket and aviators - in the Faith video, George opined: “I never considered it a particularly macho look, but I tried to soften it just a bit by having a string of pearls on one of the shoulders of the leather jacket.” The famous Triumph leather jacket worn in the clip originally belonged to Sade’s manager Lee Barrett, who sold the jacket to George. Michael Lippmann, one of George’s managers, admitted the controversy

“Cuddle up, baby, move in tight” - ‘saucy George’ inWham!’s Wake Me Up BeforeYou Go-Go clip.

and Hey Jude (1968). George also boasted both the year’s #1 album and #1 single in America, which hadn’t happened since 1970 (Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water plus its title track). He’s the only British male solo artist to rack up four #1 hit singles - Faith , Father Figure , One More Try and Monkey - from the same album on the Billboard Hot 100 and George wrote, arranged and produced all of the songs of Faith (except for Look At Your Hands , which he co-wrote with David Austin). The first album by a white solo artist to hit #1 on the Billboard Top Black Albums chart, Faith took out 1989’s Album Of The Year Grammy and also cleaned up at the American Music Awards that same year, with George winning every category in which he was nominated: Favourite Male Artist (Rock and Pop), Favourite Album (Soul/R&B) and Favourite Male Artist (Soul/R&B). The look on presenter George Benson’s face after he opened the envelope just prior to announcing the winner of Favourite Album (Soul/R&B) speaks volumes. The black community’s outrage was also immortalised on wax thanks to Help Me Out , the B-side of Public Enemy’s Fight The Power 12”, during which Spike Lee’s voice is sampled addressing Flavor Flav: “Flav, I was watching the American Music Awards - what is George Michael doing there? How’d he win all the awards? How’d he win the R&B category?” “I didn’t ask to be given those awards,” George stressed. “I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t happy to get them. But I do understand the argument that says that this guy is just an acceptable version of black music for white America.” George died on Christmas Day, 2016 and Tennant sounded audibly upset when acknowledging his peer’s untimely passing during our aforementioned chat: “It really upsets me that George died. It really, really upsets me.” RIP, Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou. Thank you for the music. BC

Faith ’s title track, which was composed around a Bo Diddley rockabilly riff, topped the charts in Australia and was 1988’s Stateside #1 single of the year. Since Careless Whisper (Wham!’s pop ballad that proved George was capable of creating sophisticated musical statements prior to his solo output) was 1985’s best-selling single in the US, George became the first recording artist to achieve two Billboard year-end #1s since The Beatles set the standard with I Want To Hold Your Hand (1964)

In Pet Shop Boy sandwich with (left to right) Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant.

George with his girlfriend at the time/ IWantYour Sex co-star Kathy Jeung.

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