The british singer passed away at the age of 53; he lived among the success, the controversy and the need to find an identity of its own
One, two, three, dozens of times he tried to George Michael change of skin, even if it means they disappear from the scene, being marginalised in the rotation of after-hours chain of video clips or face a of the labels the world’s most powerful in a trial that entry was lost. These efforts to find himself -in addition to the 100 million albums sold throughout his career, give the size of the british artist, who died yesterday, at age 53.
Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou was born in East Finchley, London, 25 June 1963. His father was a restorer of art Greek cypriot who had come to the Uk to try his luck; his mother, a ballerina of the English. This must be why it was not strange that George was interested in music since a very young age, and dreamed of forming a band in his teens.
The Bushey Meads School as crossed with Andrew Ridgeley, a boy with whom he shared aspirations. The first attempt came with The Executives, a band of ska which was not consolidated, but which opened the doors to pop more synthetic but just as fun. And that was Wham!, an attempt to entertain in times in which the new wave gained ground.
If the first album (Fantastic, 1983) I saw the first successes in the Uk, the second (Make it big, 1984), catapulted him definitely to the world. And all thanks to that hit something tontuelo but irresistible which is “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go”. There, George Michael put all his sex appeal in the service of the video clip, with numerous glances to camera and a few shorts tiny they were doing to whisper to the girls.
“Careless whisper” was the other tip of the iceberg. And, although it was part of the disk, it worked as proof that George didn’t need anyone else to make successes; his solo career, now yes, it was just around the corner.
golden Boy
After getting involved with the charity project Band Aid, making a successful tour of the Far East with Wham! and record their third and final album together (Music from the Edge of Heaven, 1984), George Michael and Ridgeley decided to take separate paths.
“Careless whisper” as the workhorse, the singer added another ballad that gave rotation in radios all around the world: “A different corner”, 1986. Meanwhile, progressed in the recording of his first solo album, which would come out a year later and mark is definitely on his way. Because Faith showed him as a great interpreter, but also as a composer, producer and musician with many sides, but also put it at the edge of the controversy.
The first single from the album, “I want your sex”, generated a debate within the programmers of radio and television. The first thought that the letter and the intent of the song was too “strong” as to pass it at any time of day; the seconds are put on something red to view the video that promoted the court. As well, the clip was largely marginalized to the night time of, for example, the very MTV.
The other singles (“Faith”, “Father Figure” “One More Try”, and “Monkey”) topped the rankings all over the world and the golden boy of pop was serving up to its promise of becoming a super star. But George Michael felt, suddenly, that I was tired and that, at some point, had become a slave of that success with which both had dreamed of. That’s why, she thought of a second album (Listen Without Prejudice) more personal and close to what he felt he wanted to do musically. His record label, Sony Music, were not all in agreement, and then began a personal battle first and legal after for delete with the elbow that I had ever signing with the hand.
“Freedom ’90″ is probably the best mailing of how uncomfortable she felt George Michael. In fact, he wrote things like “you don’t belong and do not belong to me” or “sometimes the clothes do not make the man”, in clear allusion to the artist he needed to change his skin and leave behind the boy sexy he moved his tail while he played the guitar. Refused to appear in the video, and there was a selection of supermodels (Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz and Cindy Crawford) to do their part and composing a few of the clips most iconic of his career (and, probably, 90).
Ladies and gentlemen, open step
The conflict with his record label led him to disappear from the scene for a long time, although he managed to find new avenues to transcend the figurine in which I felt that what had become. One of them was to join on the stage with Elton John to do a version as a duet of his success in 1974, “Don’t let the sun go down on me”. The other was on the stage of Wembley to provide such a huge performance of “Somebody to love” at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert.
the return to The studio work came in 1996, with Older. Yes, George Michael wanted to prove that he had grown up, and which, in addition, could take their sound to what the new times demanded. Out of that came the successful ballad “Jesus to a child” -a tribute to her late boyfriend, Anselmo Feleppa – and also “Fastlove”, a sort of ode to the sex without commitments. That same year, he recorded an unplugged for MTV.
hindsight occurred in 1998, with its compilation of the greatest hits Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael. And there was time to laugh at himself: “Outside”, a song inspired by an episode of the police, who starred in when he was arrested for performing an obscene act” in a park in Beverly Hills. From the scandal, he has publicly admitted being a homosexual.
After you realize your interest in genres like jazz and bossa nova on Songs from the Last Century (1999), came Patience (2004), an album that marked his reconciliation with Sony Music and also was marked by controversy from the beginning: the video of “Shoot the dog” showed Tony Blair as a spitz of George Bush, in a scathing critique of the invasion of Iraq by the united States and Great Britain.
After releasing Twenty Five -another disc of greatest hits – George Michael embarked on a world tour and unveiled his intention to leave the scenarios. Therefore, his next project was to lock himself in a studio to record Symphonica (2014), with the production of Phil Ramone. That would be his last job.
The career of George Michael was full of meetings and misunderstandings. That would explain why, in his 35-year career, he published only six solo albums outside of his short time inside of Wham!. However, it would be unfair to reduce his figure to numbers, when he tried with all his strength to shun to be a factory of success in order to be recognized as an artist, a composer, ingenious and a singer with one of the voices most admired of all the world.
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