George Michael - The Joys and Sorrows of a Pop Star

For once talent pays off, but the ruthless rules of showbiz music are always ready to devour those not backed by a strong character. That could sum up the long arc of one of the greatest popstars of the 80s and 90s, George Michael.

Born in London to a Cypriot restaurateur and an English dancer, Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou is a diligent student who causes his parents no particular trouble; his ideas about his sexuality are somewhat confused, but his ideas about his future are crystal clear. He's blessed with a powerfully soulful voice, yet one that's unmistakably white, making him closer to Freddie Mercury (he sings Queen's "39" to cut his teeth on the London Underground) than to the much-loved fathers of black music, beloved though they are to him. His chance to break through comes quickly, after a brief stint as a DJ, when he decides to form a duo with his friend Andrew Ridgeley that would let him show off his skills as a pop songwriter and producer: Wham!

Independent label Innervision Records smells an opportunity - the vain George Michael is rather good-looking and could make a decent alternative to Simon Le Bon - and so signs Wham! to a contract. The duo is joined by backing singers Dee C. Lee (who will soon leave the project to join the Style Council of her future husband Paul Weller), Shirlie Holliman and Pepsi DeMacque. Their first single, "Wham Rap (Enjoy What You Do?)", written by Michael and Ridgeley, is a curious and in some ways pioneering attempt (for two white British lads) to approach the rap music that was just then starting to appear in the American charts thanks to the Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash (and piquing the curiosity of Blondie), but which in 1982 Europe was still taboo. The track's breezy mood and catchiness - which today wouldn't be out of place for Mark Ronson - aren't enough, though: the single goes unnoticed. At least until the follow-up, "Young Guns (Go For It)", built on similar lines but even clumsier, unexpectedly breaks into the UK charts, dragging the previous single along with it as a result.

The time is now ripe to make a whole album. Michael takes artistic control of the project, while Ridgeley from this point on will limit himself to playing guitar, singing backing vocals, and co-writing a couple of other (still important) tracks. The lead single is the catchy "Bad Boys" (number two on the UK chart), which, despite rehashing the synth-funk sound of the earlier singles, immediately makes clear that the rap flirtation up to that point had just been a fashionable whim, and that the rest of the album, 1983's Fantastic, would move along lines that were indeed black-influenced but far more conventional. "A Ray Of Sunshine" casts an envious eye at the Michael Jackson of "Off The Wall", "Love Machine" and "Come On" look to the more crowd-pleasing side of Earth, Wind And Fire, while the slow "Nothing Looks The Same In The Night" is elegantly sinuous but icy cold in its synthetic garb. What stands out instead is the other track co-written with Ridgeley, the most conventionally pop songs on the record: "Club Tropicana" is a summery holiday-resort anthem, sunny and nostalgic in just the right measure, with a delightful melody destined to become one of their most fondly remembered classics, complete with a thoroughly charming video that would become a huge hit on MTV.

The top-ten of the singles chart is conquered for the fourth time, and all that's left for the album to do is seize the top spot of its own chart. The success of Fantastic catapults Wham!, whether they like it or not, into the ranks of the so-called British Invasion of the world charts, alongside Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Culture Club. Critics, however, consider them the weakest and most vacuous of the bunch, and even to the public they seem like nothing more than a passing divertissement, a duo of pretty boys for teenagers. No one imagines that it is precisely they who are holding the biggest surprise in store.

When it came time to release their second album at the end of 1984, Michael and Ridgeley decided to do things in style (much like their brand-new, heavily permed hairdos). They signed a deal with Epic/Sony Music and launched a work whose title said it all: Make It Big. Written and entirely produced by George Michael, it would be heavily previewed by the utterly silly yet equally irresistible "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", a boogie–woogie with strong 50's influences, which would prove to be their Trojan horse for conquering the American charts. Other hit singles contributed to the commercial success of an album that was nonetheless uneven and not yet fully mature: the synthetic soul of "Everything She Wants" (the track Michael would remain most attached to) and the more classically Motown-indebted "Freedom". Rounding out the record were a faithful cover of the Isley Brothers' "If You Were There", a syrupy "Like A Baby", and two typically sugary 80s pop numbers like "Heartbeat" and "Credit Card Baby".

It will, however, be another track from that album that finally brings Wham! lasting glory and even wins over the critics - and it will be recorded during the summer of that year as George Michael's first solo single (paradoxically, it's also the only songs on the record co-written with Ridgeley). With its famous, knowing sax riff, "Careless Whisper" will become a modern standards and the perfect musical backdrop for romantic candlelit dinners. Its enormous success (number one in his homeland) will prove so long-lasting that the song will also reach the top of the American chart in February 1985, becoming the best-selling single of that year, just as Wham! embark on a triumphant tour that will see them perform even in China, the first Western act to pull off the feat.

The gifts for the now legions of fans don't end there, though: Christmas 1984 also sees George Michael take part in Bob Geldof and Midge Ure's charity supergroup Band Aid for "Do They Know It's Christmas?", and above all it provides the springboard for yet another assault on the charts under the Wham! name. The idea is to make a Christmas songs with an electro-pop twist, setting aside sleighs and Santa Claus in favour of a story about a love affair gone wrong; and naturally, the idea works brilliantly. The joyful melancholy of "Last Christmas" (and its video) becomes a hit everywhere, returning to the Top Ten even the following Christmas and over the years becoming a Christmas anthem on a par with the more classic ones, just as John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" had done years before. It will take another ten years before another modern track manages to reach the same status, thanks to the far more conventional "All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey.

Wham!'s media success showed no signs of slowing down: 1985 was marked by the much-talked-about relationship between Michael and actress Brooke Shields, by his contribution to the less-than-inspired "Ice On Fire" by Elton John (with whom he would share the Live Aid stage), and above all by the blue-eyed soul of the infectious "I'm Your Man", a single that already hinted at the singer's desire to make something more mature and to fall in line with what Hall & Oates were putting out in those years. This is where the urge to pursue a solo career took hold, and firmly so - a decision not opposed by the far from publicity-hungry Ridgeley, who knew he had merely been a launching pad for his talented friend. And so, in the spring of 1986, the two announced the breakup of Wham! in the friendliest possible way, just as George Michael was conquering the world with his new solo single, the hazy "A Different Corner", unbearably languid yet effective in showcasing the singer's beautiful voice. Shirlie & Pepsi also departed, intent on trying their luck with an ill-fated career as a duo.

Sony, however, wants to go out with a bang: a new farewell album would be ideal, but there aren't enough tracks ready, so instead they opt to gather all the singles recorded after Make It Big, plus a few unreleased tracks and b-sides, under the title Music From The Edge Of Heaven for the American market, while in the rest of the world they prefer to put out a more classic greatest-hits collection simply titled The Final. Driving it to success is the carefree "The Edge Of Heaven", almost a new but more mature "Wake Me Up" - no room for tears here. The following single, the romantic "Where Did Your Heart Go" (a cover of the Was brothers), will be the last track for which Michael and Ridgeley appear together on video, while the other unreleased track, "Battlestations", won't get a promotional clip at all.

The farewell concert at Wembley Stadium will be an event for more than seventy thousand people, after which Ridgeley will try, without success, to carry on his career in music and film showbiz, before retiring to private life with Keren Woodward of Bananarama. For George Michael, on the other hand, it will mark the dawn of one of the brightest and most talked-about careers in pop history.

George Michael's post-Wham! career couldn't get off to a better start: a recently resurgent Aretha Franklin invites him to sing on a track from her new album, "Aretha". When the glossy but undeniably effervescent "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" is released as a single in early 1987, it will top both the American and British charts, giving the Queen of Soul one of the biggest hits of her career and building a climate of feverish anticipation for his first solo long-player.

It would take almost a year for it to be released, but in the meantime Michael put out the first official single from his new project, the heavily censored "I Want Your Sex". A skeletal jam synth-funk track inspired by Minneapolis sound, complete with a long Latin-tinged coda (used as B-sides), and lyrics ranging from the raunchy to the embarrassing. Never a particular favourite of the singer's (he hasn't performed it live since the 80s and has left it off every compilation), it would nonetheless prove to be yet another worldwide hit, narrowly missing the top spot on the American chart occupied by the U2. His fame, also thanks to the video's images that cement the singer's status as a sex–symbol, is about to become possibly even bigger than that of the Irish band, and when the album Faith comes out in the fall, once again written and produced by him, the world will be definitively at his feet.

Opening the new record is the melody of the not-too-old "Freedom", played on a solemn organ, before moving on to celebrate his long-awaited creative freedom with the swaggering title track, an acoustic rockabilly number destined to become the best-selling single of that year. The rest of the album, however, sticks to the electro-pop coordinates laid out by the first single, and this will prove to be the Achilles' heel of an otherwise immaculate record in terms of melody, expressive urgency and performance. The more sterile, fashion-driven sonic scaffolding of those years ends up chilling the soul of two flawless soul ballads (and future classics) like "One More Try" and "Father Figure", and nowadays keeps us from fully appreciating the energy that made "Hard Day" - and, above all, the even more aggressive "Monkey" - two surefire dancefloor-fillers of their day.

Rounding out Michael's charmingly time-worn pop gem is also a variation on the theme of Billy Idol's "Sweet Sixteen", the subdued "Hand To Mouth", an all-too-garish "Look At Your Hand" that looked toward the contemporary work of Elton John and, finally, the most vintage and paradoxically least dated track of the whole project. With piano and double bass in plain view, "Kissing A Fool" is a splendid, modern torch songs, even a major commercial success despite being miles away from the sounds then in vogue, and destined to lay the groundwork for the singer's future output. A singer who shrewdly underlined the success of Faith by adopting one of the most distinctive looks of the entire Eighties: three-day stubble, a highlighted quiff, mirrored Ray-Bans, a cross earring, a leather jacket, tight jeans and cowboy boots — practically an unmistakable mask.

The album's sales will be triumphant, with no fewer than four number-one singles on the chart US chart and another two in the top 5, and the following year Faith it will also win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. By the time he launches his first solo world tour, George Michael is the most successful British star of the decade alongside Phil Collins, but unlike him, he also possesses that star aura that makes him the only one capable of rivaling the holy trinity of pop of those years: Michael Jackson, Prince e Madonna. With the diva he shares the ability to control glamour every visual aspect of his output, with the Prince of Minneapolis a creative independence and an obsessive attachment to his privacy (which will prove disastrous when it is violated by the media), and with the more reserved Michael an insecurity that will spill over into self-destructive tendencies and drug dependencies.

With the tour over, George Michael is in the throes of a full nervous breakdown, feeling drained and used, a money-making machine, a pretty cover-boy face rather than an artist recognized as such. He also comes to terms with his homosexuality, realizing that his (in any case concealed) bisexuality was only a mask he still can't manage to cast off, in order to protect his fans, his career and his mother.

At the dawn of the new decade, George Michael wants to present himself as a different man, a more mature artist unbound by commercial compromises. His look has become more sober and elegant, the Brazilian popular music of Antonio Carlos Jobim has monopolized his recent listening at the expense of dance, and when it comes time to release a new album he imposes a firm diktat on Sony Music: if any music videos are ever made to promote future singles, he will not appear in them, just as he won't appear on the cover of the new record. In short, a way to wipe the slate clean of one of the biggest pop stars of the Eighties in one fell swoop.

The title chosen for the album is a statement of intent: Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (with the second volume still in the works), a heartfelt invitation to listen to his new, more refined musical offering without being swayed by the image and stylistic choices he made during the previous decade. As a calling card comes the beautiful single "Praying For Time", an airy, heavily reverbed ballad with an almost Christmassy atmosphere that is actually a harsh invective against social injustice. Critics and audiences applaud, it's number one again in the States, and no matter that the video is just a black screen with the lyrics superimposed. The rest of the album, again produced solely by Michael, is certainly no more colorful, consisting mainly of slow, nostalgic numbers or mid-tempo tracks that showcase his vocal and interpretive abilities.

The overall atmosphere tends toward melancholy (the long jazzy ride of "Cowboys And Angels") if not outright funereal, as in the dramatic "Mothers Pride" and in the cover of a little-celebrated Stevie Wonder track, the tormented "They Won't Go When I Go", in which his English surprisingly holds its own against the original author's.

To bring a bit of light to the project, there are a couple of acoustic soul sketches such as "Something To Save" and "Waiting For That Day" (built on the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want") and the tropicalist influences of "Heal The Pain" and the album's only two dancefloor-friendly moments, the vain "Soul Free" and, above all, the celebrated bossa nova of "Freedom 90". The latter, titled that way to distinguish it from the identically-named Wham! track, is the other single lifted from the album to enjoy major international success, not only thanks to its accessible elegance but also because of the memorable, glossy music video directed by David Fincher (fresh off the triumph of Madonna's "Express Yourself" and "Vogue") in which all the most beautiful and famous supermodels of the moment (including Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista) lip-synched the track while the symbols of the Faith mask burned to destruction. Which is practically what happens listening to Listen Without Prejudice, undoubtedly his best and most well-balanced work, melismas and all — an inevitable part of his style. Yet critics initially don't seem particularly impressed, on the following tour even Michael himself gives little space to the new songs, favoring covers by his favorite artists instead, and even the American public (unlike the more loyal British one), after the initial bang, seems to quickly lose interest in a work that isn't the easiest listen, probably missing the pop star he used to be.

By the end of the run the album will have sold several million copies worldwide during 1991, but going from the twenty million of the previous record to fewer than ten is still a flop for someone of his media stature, so the record label starts complaining. And George Michael, who despite having become a new man remains a capricious diva at heart, rather than engaging in any soul-searching, takes Sony to court, accusing them of not having invested enough in promoting his record and letting it fall into oblivion. Alongside Prince, who fell out with Warner Bros. around the same time, Michael becomes, much against his will, the symbol of the fight against major labels and their oppressive market rules at the expense of artistic freedom — never mind that, unlike the prolific Roger Nelson (who demanded the right to release albums on a rolling basis as soon as they were ready), his dispute with Sony stemmed from purely commercial motives.

As a consequence of the much-discussed legal case, the second volume of Listen Without Prejudice will be shelved, George Michael will refuse to make any more albums for Sony, and the label will prevent him from recording for anyone else until his contract expires. In the months that follow, however, the singer is far from off the radar: he strings together a run of hit singles that steady his commercial standing. He spends Christmas 1991 at number one on both sides of the Atlantic, thanks to his duet live with Elton John on a sumptuous version live of “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”, and in spring he donates the only four finished tracks from the aborted follow-up to Listen Without Prejudice to the charity project “Red, Hot + Dance”, a benefit album raising funds for Aids research. One of these, the glittering “Too Funky”, which finally brought him back to the dancefloor, becomes a massive hit single, crowned by a video as fashion-conscious as the one for “Freedom 90”, though Michael himself appears on screen for only a few seconds.

He draws more attention in the flesh a few months later, during the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in honor of the recently deceased singer: he steals the show performing "39", duetting with Lisa Stansfield on a heartfelt "These Are The Days Of Our Lives" and, above all, earning a standing ovation with a flawless, energetic version of "Somebody To Love". The next day everyone is talking about his tremendous vocal performance, about how he was the only one not to be overshadowed in comparison with Mercury, and from that moment on many will start pointing to him, in vain, as the only possible choice for Queen to carry on with a new singer.

The uproar is in any case too great not to be exploited commercially, and Parlophone manages to wrangle Sony's consent to release that performance as a single. A single that will eventually become an EP, credited to George Michael And Queen With Lisa Stansfield, titled Five Live and containing the performances from that evening plus a few covers Michael had sung on the previous tour: the recent "Killer", made a hit by Adamski and Seal, the Motown classic "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone" and a flawless "Calling You" from "Bagdad Café". Success, especially in Europe, is of course guaranteed, and in Britain it reaches the top of the charts. For the hefty mash-up of "Killer/Papa Was A Rollin' Stone", remixed by P.M. Dawn, a rather influential video was also made for 90s video art, but the singer will once again choose not to take part in the filming. From that point on, exhaustion from the legal battle will take over and George Michael will disappear from circulation for a full two years.

It's the autumn of 1994 when, in Berlin, an unrecognizable George Michael takes the stage at the first edition of MTV's Europe Music Awards to present a new songs. His hair is cropped very short, his look is elegantly understated, and he appears visibly heartbroken as he tiptoes his way through an elegiac ballad. The sweet "Jesus To A Child" is a tribute to a dear Brazilian friend of his, Anselmo Feleppa, who had died the year before from complications related to AIDS. It's fairly clear to everyone that the friend was actually his partner, but perhaps out of sensitivity for the moment, the media won't press the issue too hard, and for another four years Michael's homosexuality will remain nothing more than an unconfirmed, and not even particularly loud, rumor. The track will be released as a single exactly a year later, once the contract binding Michael to Sony has finally ended, and it will be a hit, reaching the top of the British charts and the American Top Ten. Everything is ready for the launch of a new album, his first for Virgin Records, due out in the spring of 1996. It will be an extremely stylish dance anthem to the quickie, "Fastlove", accompanied by a spectacular music video about cyber-sex, that will carry Older, his most mature work, one in which his passion for jazz and South America will by now be fully integrated into his style.

The ones that benefit most from this are the splendid title track, elevated by its refined delivery, the smirking jazzy groove of "Spinning The Wheel" and the tropicalist "Star People". Elsewhere, the hazy, vaguely narcoleptic atmosphere that pervades the album (conceived and recorded under the influence of marijuana, as Michael himself admitted) won't stop the overly convoluted "To Be Forgiven", "It Doesn't Really Matter" and the cocktail-bar number "Move On" from coming across as a bit cloying.

Older too is a work that's anything but cheerful and doesn't give itself over easily to the marketplace: "The Strangest Thing" is intellectual world music and "You Have Been Loved" is a cinematic, funereal ballad that seals an album dedicated to his late partner and to Antonio Carlos Jobim, who had died the year before. And yet, this time critics and audiences are all on his side, sales double those of the previous album, and even though in the States its climb up the charts will be less impressive than in the rest of the world, it will still earn platinum status, and "Fastlove" too will reach the singles Top Ten.

MTV crowns him pop star of the year and invites him to deliver a memorable unplugged concert, in which the never-forgotten "Everything She Wants" and a memorable cover of Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" stand out above all.

After a few dark years, George Michael is back in the spotlight, but his private life is about to be turned upside down. First by the death of his mother, and then, in the spring of 1998, when he will be arrested in Los Angeles on charges of soliciting an undercover police officer in a public park restroom. The scandal immediately makes headlines around the world, it's all anyone talks about for days, and it's above all the singer's homosexuality that causes a stir, even more than the rather undignified embarrassment that will cost him a fine and several hours of community service — as if most people had never noticed a thing. Now unmasked, Michael will admit to being gay in a famous television interview, making public his relationship with a Texan manager and appearing surprisingly at ease discussing the subject.

He also seizes the opportunity to turn the incident to his media advantage, releasing the single "Outside"; a track and accompanying music video inspired by his arrest, with a decisive 70s disco flair that crowns it the dancefloor-filler of the autumn. At the same time, his first, double greatest-hits collection is released, titled Ladies & Gentlemen, yet another ironic nod to public restrooms: one disc containing his most famous ballads, the other his most danceable singles. The tracklist also includes two new covers: Jobim's "Desafinado", in duet with Astrud Gilberto, and Stevie Wonder's "As" alongside Mary J Blige. And for the second time, Michael manages not to make listeners miss the original. However, it will be his last album to reach a million copies sold in the United States, and from this point on his career will start to lose its former shine, marked by scant output, muddled projects and drug dependency issues that will begin to spiral out of his control.

Michael wants to close out the decade that made him a star, and above all the century, with a touch of class: the release of an album made up of standards jazz and torch–songs, which had always fascinated him, co-produced by Phil Ramone, the legendary founder of A&R Recording. A move not unlike the one Sinéad O'Connor had made a few years earlier with “Am I Not Your Girl?” (with which it would also share some less-than-favourable reviews), and which anticipated artists like Robbie Williams and Michael Bublè, who would later reclaim the genre for purely commercial ends.

The overly refined Songs From The Last Century indeed tries to steer clear of any sort of starry self-indulgence (save for the vocal kind, flawless on "Brother Can You Spare A Dime") or hammy posturing, aside from an amused reinterpretation of Nina Simone's "My Baby Just Cares For Me". The sensibility with which George Michael selects and approaches the tracklist is decidedly more feminine, more in line with that of the old soul divas (Billie Holiday first and foremost) than with that of the Rat Pack. And the project's real point of interest lies exactly in this attitude, which leads him to excellent reinterpretations of the touching "You've Changed" and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", but which also weighs down the overall result a bit too much: the famous "Wild Is The Wind" and "I Remember You" (built on the basis of Bjork's "Like Someone In Love", another cover with similar intentions) are laid on far too thick.

To further win over the public, he also included a pleasant, less cerebral version of “Miss Sarajevo” by U2/Passengers and a convincing jazz reworking of “Roxanne” by the Police, both released as singles but without much fanfare. Even the album will struggle to top three million copies sold, still no small feat for a work of this kind. Michael will get more media attention thanks to his subsequent duet with Whitney Houston (herself soon to be consumed by success) on “If I Told You That”, chosen to launch her Greatest Hits.

Anyone expecting that a new record deal, this time with Universal, would soon bring him back to the scene with an album of new material was mistaken. It's only in the spring of 2002, in fact, that his return is announced with a new single heralding a whole record. Expectations are very high, and speculation also swirls around a video rumored to reimagine “Blade Runner” in a sadomasochistic key. When “Freeek!” finally sees the light of day, it leaves many baffled: it's an industrial funk track rich in hip-hop samples, but the songs and Michael's new look are too aggressive for most of his audience, who — with the exception of a few European countries — tend to unfairly snub it. Back home it stalls at a mere number 7 on the chart, quite a blow and a major loss of money for the label, which had invested heavily in the extremely costly video.

Damage control follows: in the summer another single, “Shoot The Dog”, is released, more classically disco-funk and built on “Love Action (I Believe In Love)” by Human League. Accompanying it is a low-key animated video that heavily satirizes the British and American political situation. Things get even worse: the cartoon ends up getting talked about more than the songs, it doesn't even reach the Top Ten in Britain, and in North America it isn't even released due to its political content. Such a disappointing result was impossible to foresee; interest in George Michael seems to have suddenly faded, and the album's release gets postponed: the official line is that the work isn't finished yet, but the contract with Universal ends prematurely, leading to suspicion that the singer has been dropped.

Another two years would pass before the new album was finally released, and paradoxically it would be the hated Sony itself that distributed it. Patience it would be titled precisely as a dedication to the long wait endured by his fans, and would be represented by the single “Amazing”, a driving ballad electro–pop with acoustic flourishes meant to recapture the freshness of his early days. But it's just a refined pose, though — craft has taken over from inspiration, and the track, despite enjoying modest success across Europe, isn't enough to revive the singer's former glory (nor does the clumsy video in which Michael, visibly heavier, pays tribute to his younger self from Faith).

The tracklist also includes the previous, less-than-fortunate singles, which sound like fish out of water as the only dance tracks, alongside the hypnotic “Precious Box” and the later single “Flawless (Go To The City)” (a semi-cover of the house track of the same name by The Ones), in an album of an altogether different nature. The rest of the very long record is in fact made up mostly of rather slow, toothless songs (“John And Elvis Are Dead”, “Please Send Me Someone” and the acoustic “Through”), which rehash the few flaws of Older while stripping them of their refined influences in favor of sounds that are far too glossy and saccharine (“American Angel” and “Round Here”). Only the piano-led title track and “My Mother Had A Brother” rise above the average. Critics give it middling-to-decent reviews, and sales stay in line with the previous covers album, but the era of George Michael the superstar can now be considered definitively over.

In the years that follow, he has no choice but to fall back on polished concerts, all focused on his back catalogue to draw in the nostalgic crowd, and the move nonetheless proves successful, just as inevitable as releasing yet another double compilation, Twenty Five, embellished only slightly by two pointless new tracks (the predictable “An Easier Affair” and the bland ballad “This Is Not Real Love”) and a new version of “Heal The Pain”, alongside Paul McCartney. Michael, however, seems to suffer from the low profile his career has now taken on; his appearance grows increasingly bloated and his drug dependency becomes uncontrollable. He is repeatedly arrested for illegal possession of marijuana, for driving under the influence of drugs, and once again caught seeking casual sex in a public park. Even his decade-long relationship with Texan Kenny Goss comes to an end. Mindful of the success of “Last Christmas”, he tries again with a new festive track, the bland “December Song (I Dreamed Of Christmas)” in 2008, but despite being available for free on his website, few bother to download it. Then in 2011, when he tries to make a comeback with an actual single, an extremely synthetic, auto-tune-drenched cover of “True Faith” by New Order, the public doesn't know whether to be horrified or, worse still, to take it as a joke.

Serious health problems also arise: Michael is forced to interrupt his “Symphonica Tour” (featuring his classics reimagined in orchestral form) for an urgent hospital admission: a severe case of pneumonia even puts him into a coma, and for twenty-four hours the worst is feared. Rumors begin to circulate that he too might have AIDS-related problems, but a denial quickly follows, along with the announcement that the singer is out of danger.

In the summer of 2012 the single “White Light” is released, a dark EDM track related to Patience's “Precious Box”: both the songs and the striking video, featuring Kate Moss, recount those terrifying hours spent hovering between life and death. While not immediately accessible, the public still seems to appreciate the effort, though it won't be followed by any album of new material. To this day his last release remains Symphonica from 2014, a fairly successful collection featuring recordings made during the orchestral tour, led by an all-too-faithful cover of Terence Trent D'Arby's “Let Her Down Easy”, in which his magnificent voice is miraculously intact. The news about him at the time, however, is far less uplifting, with reports placing him in and out of rehab for crack and alcohol dependency.

Then, after a long silence, Christmas 2016 is marred by the news of George Michael's death. Paramedics — the BBC reports — arrived at his home in the early afternoon. Police specify that there are "no suspicious circumstances" surrounding the English artist's death. His staff simply stated that "he passed away peacefully at home", while his manager, Michael Lippman, explained that George Michael was struck down by heart failure. "It is with great sadness that we can confirm our beloved son, brother and friend George passed away peacefully at home over the Christmas period. The family ask that their privacy be respected at this difficult time", reads the official statement. By a cruel twist of fate, his passing will forever be tied to that very Christmas Day he so memorably captured in one of his greatest hits. 2016's was truly his "Last Christmas".

Yet another career ruined by the pressures of fame, by addiction and by advancing age, then — one that surely deserved a better ending than the one the public witnessed. And it's a shame that even today his talent as a writer and producer isn't always fully recognized, forever overshadowed by his extraordinary voice and by Wham!'s early, lightweight tunes, despite his being one of the very few examples of a do-it-yourself popstars, capable of crafting entire albums of excellent quality without the help of co-writers and big-name producers. It could be said that George Michael was the only one to credibly pick up the torch from Elton John as the representative of that distinctive, romantic strand of British pop that has yet to find convincing heirs, neither in the talented pen of Gary Barlow, nor in the pop instincts of Robbie Williams. Nowadays it's the ballads of the talented but stiff Sam Smith that seem to draw most heavily on his past lessons.

 

In 2023 the story of Wham! returns to the spotlight thanks to the successful docu-film by Chris Smith, airing on Netflix, which reveals previously untold stories and behind-the-scenes details about the duo's brief saga.