George Michael

Few could have guessed that the transition from teenybopper idol to serious singer/songwriter would go as smoothly as it did for George Michael, who became famous as half of the British pop duo Wham! [see entry] before ascending to pop superstardom with his solo debut, Faith. Whereas in Wham! Michael used his cherubic good looks and uncanny knack for a melodic hook to create ingratiating but disposable pop, his solo work reveals an earnest effort to achieve deeper musical and emotional resonance. His radiant ballads, insidious dance tracks, and blue-eyed soul singing established him as a top artist. His popularity never waned in the U.K. - all of his albums have reached either #1 or #2 on the album charts there - but subsequent efforts have been able to match his early solo successes in the U.S. Michael’s first post-Wham! outing was “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me),” a duet with Aretha Franklin that hit #1 in 1987 and earned Michael a Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo. Shortly afterward, Michael released the funky first single off of Faith, “I Want Your Sex,” which, bolstered by a sexy video, quickly soared to #2. The album would eventually spin off four #1 hits: “Faith” (1987), the shimmering “Father Figure” (1988), the romantic ballad “One More Try” (1988), and “Monkey” (1988). “Kissing a Fool” hit #5, further boosting the 14 million–selling Faith, 1988’s smash album and Grammy winner for Album of the Year.

In his videos and media appearances, Michael cultivated a sex-symbol image, albeit a more rugged - leather, chin stubble, sneer - and mature one than he had nurtured in Wham! But with the release of his second solo effort, Listen Without Prejudice vol. 1, in 1990, Michael surprised fans and industry insiders by shunning the press and saying that he wouldn’t make videos. The album peaked at #2 nonetheless, and there was a chart-topping hit, the somber “Praying for Time” (#1, 1990). The danceable second single, “Freedom 90” - whose lyrics spelled out Michael’s decision to abandon his rock-star persona - went to #8 (1990) and was made into a video, albeit without Michael’s presence. (Instead, a bevy of supermodels lip-synched his vocals.) In late 1991 Michael was back on the charts with a #1 version of Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” recorded live with John.

A year later, Michael announced that he would take legal action to terminate his contract with Sony Music, the corporation that took over his label, Columbia Records. He charged that Sony, still wishing to package Michael as a sex symbol, lacked respect for his artistic expression and that it only halfheartedly supported his projects benefiting AIDS research and prevention, among them his duet with Elton John and his three-track contribution to a compilation album called Red Hot + Dance. In 1993, Sony grudgingly granted Hollywood Records permission to release Five Live, an EP of two cover songs performed by Michael on his 1991–92 tour and three from his appearance at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert in 1992, during which he sang Queen songs with surviving members of that band. All proceeds from the record went to the Phoenix Trust, an AIDS charity set up in Mercury’s memory.

In June 1994 a London court rejected Michael’s claim that his contract with Sony amounted to “restraint of trade” and upheld the $12 million contract the singer had signed with the company in 1988. At the time, Michael owed the label six more albums on a contract that could run to 2003. Two months later, Michael filed an appeal of the verdict. As the legal battle continued, Michael was unable to release new product. Under a special arrangement, however, Michael performed his song “Jesus to a Child” on television as part of an annual appeal to raise funds for needy children. After hearing the six-minute song, listeners pledged $32,000 to the charity.

In 1995, though Michael lost the appeal he filed, he signed new contracts with DreamWorks in the U.S. and Virgin in the rest of the world. He released his first album of new material in six years, Older, in 1996 (#6), featuring “Jesus to a Child” (#7) and the dance track “Fastlove” (#8), but the release sold just 900,000 copies in the U.S.

Michael’s profile was heightened again in 1998, but for a more notorious reason: In April of that year, he was arrested for lewd conduct in the men’s room of a public park in Beverly Hills. Speculation arose regarding the nature of the “lewd conduct,” and before Michael could become the target of international crude jokes, he took control of the matter and outed himself as homosexual on CNN. Though the court fined him and ordered him to perform community service, he seemed somewhat relieved to reveal the truth to the media and his fans. That fall, he even set the scene for his video for “Outside” (one of two new songs from Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael) in a public restroom; it featured dancing men dressed in leather and male actors portraying police officers kissing. Unfortunately, this was no joke to Michael’s real-life arresting officer, who filed a lawsuit against him, claiming slander; the judge dismissed the case.

In late 1999 Michael put the embarrassing events of the previous year behind him with the release of Songs From the Last Century, an album of cover songs coproduced by Phil Ramone (Billy Joel) that ran the gamut from the Depression-era “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” to the Police’s “Roxanne.” In 2000 Michael participated in Equality Rocks, a concert in Washington, DC, organized by the Human Rights Campaign that highlighted the issue of gay rights.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)