Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to the Surely you Can't Be Serious? Podcast.
I am here with my aviator, ray band, reflective sunglasses on,
and my hair frosted, and Jason is in his letter
coat and tight fitting Levi's jeans right absolutely, and we're
both pretending like we can play the guitar.
Speaker 2: I'm just shaking my butt, that's all I That's all
I know how to do is.
Speaker 3: Shake my but.
Speaker 4: Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely you Can't Be
Serious Podcast, discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten
of eighties and nineties pop culture with your co hosts
James D. Graves and Jason Colliban.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to jump into this one. This is new
territory for us. Is very much pop, and I realized
we covered Michael Jackson and that's the king of pop.
But we've been primarily a rock and roll kind of thing,
and in excess was about as close to pop as
we got. And now we're getting full on in as
poppy as pop can get with mister George Michael.
Speaker 2: I'm excited about this too, because even though it is
a full on head dive into pop music, this was
everywhere in nineteen eighty eight. You couldn't go anywhere without
hearing George Michael's songs. And this guy has a voice
like an angel. So I've got no problem covering talented,
impactful musicians from the eighties.
Speaker 5: So let's do this, all right.
Speaker 2: So, just to remind everybody, this episode is about George
Michael's Faith album. But this is a comparison with Inexcess's Kick,
which we did last week.
Speaker 1: Yes, both of these albums came out in nineteen eighty seven,
and we're both topping the pop charts during that time.
Speaker 2: Yep, very end of eighty seven, and we're prominent all
the way through eighty eight into nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 3: So you're ready to dive right in.
Speaker 2: Let's do this all right, clone, all right.
Speaker 1: In June nineteen sixty three eight, a young Greek child
was born named Porjijos Kyriakos Peneluto, not quite as poppy
as George Michael, but anyway. He was born in England
and grew up there. His father owned a restaurant called
Mister Jack's, a Greek style restaurant, and George had to
work in the restaurant, cleaning dishes and such like that.
And knew at the time he wasn't sure what he
wanted to do, but it definitely wasn't working in a restaurant.
Speaker 2: That's right, he said. His memories are that he hated
every moment of it.
Speaker 1: So George's dad was kind of of a task masaker,
disciplinarian type of father, and he didn't really connect with
him very well. Had a great relationship with his mother,
and as he grew up, he kind of had some insecurities,
felt like he was fat, he wore glasses, had funny hair,
and eventually he moved to Bushy Meads School, where a
young man named Andrew Ridgeley was asked to take him
under his wing, and George and Andrew became fast friends.
George was pressed with Andrew's care free lifestyle, good looks,
ability to get girls, and so they became inseparable, and
then at age seventeen, they both quit school at the
behest of Andrew and decided to start a band together
and lived on welfare while they were composing songs, putting
their dance moves and style together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this band was initially called the Executives, but that
didn't stick, and you may know them better as Whim
hard to miss whim in nineteen eighty four. These guys
when they got together, so.
Speaker 3: They were young.
Speaker 5: Guys were really young, like.
Speaker 2: When they got started they were nineteen yeah, but George
had an ability to write catchy tunes, and Andrew wanted to
be the biggest band in the world and it'd.
Speaker 5: Be great, right.
Speaker 1: They released their first album, Fantastic in nineteen eighty three,
and it did not take off until there was this
weird dumb luck circumstance where a band was unable to
play on a little show called Top of the Pops
in England, which was basically like an American bandstand style
show in England. And when that band wasn't able to play,
Wham happened to be able to fill the spot, and
when they came in, it was George and Andrew dancing
around having fun with a couple of other lady singers
that were in the band, and they had such a
good time on their show that it was almost an
overnight success for them. Their singles, which hadn't done much
up until then, suddenly started climbing up the charts and
it wasn't much longer before they were everywhere on the airwaves.
Speaker 5: I saw this.
Speaker 2: One of the songs that they played on top of
the pops was young Guns go for It. But these
guys had a rap song. These are two English white
guys in nineteen eighty two who were rapping that was
pretty unheard of at that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, in their moves and their style were certainly
something that kind of drove the girls around crazy. They
immediately became teen idols and everywhere they would go, girls
were screaming their names and looking for their autographs. So
the next album to come out for Wham was an
album called Make It Big.
Speaker 3: You heard of that one?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Actually, I.
Speaker 2: Think everybody in the world had a copy of This
is like passed out in the fourth grade of my school.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think I've mentioned on some of our
other episodes. This was one of the very first tapes
that I had. It was this and a Minute Work
and nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the big songs off of Make It Big
were wake Me Up Before You Go Go, which I
can barely say without singing. Everybody in the world knows
this song. But Everything She Wants was a huge hit, Freedom,
which we'll talk about here in a second, and then
Careless whisper.
Speaker 1: So just before this, just before Fantastic came out, George
had an experience that led him to question his sexuality,
and when he approached his bandmates about it, they were
concerned about how his family would feel.
Speaker 3: In the eighties, aids.
Speaker 1: Had just become a thing, and this was a shocking
and scary thing that was associated at the time with
that lifestyle, and so they convinced him at the time
to just keep it a secret, and so for the
next sixteen years he didn't say anything about it. Now,
I will say this, I didn't really have any question
about it, even as a kid watching the videos, going Okay,
that guy's different than other guys. So as the bandmates
became very famous, ironically, there was a lot of dating
a very beautiful women by both Andrew and George, and
some gaming of stealing of the women from each other
as their fame went on. One of those women that
was really into WAM at the time was a young
lady named brook Shields who was also a megastar in
the early eighties, and apparently when they met, became very serious,
very fast, and George said, I just got scared and
just kind of laughed.
Speaker 5: George Michael and brook Shields.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty powerful early eighties couple right there.
Speaker 5: Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, so of those singles that WAM put out from
Make It Big.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Caroless Whisper for just a second. The
story behind the song is kind of interesting. George used
to chaperone his sister to skating rinks, even though he
was two years younger than she was, but he said
he would basically let her go do whatever she wanted
because all he wanted to do was stare at this
beautiful girl named Jane. At the time, he said, I
was a fat, bushy haired, classes wearing kid who never
had a chance with her. And then you know, he
met Andrew, he changed style, girls became interested in him.
He began dating another girl named Helen, and then lo
and behold.
Speaker 3: He happens to.
Speaker 1: A couple of years later, come across Jane again and
she has seen him doing some DJing and she's now
enamored with him, and so he starts seeing Jane without
telling Helen, and he said this song. He remembers coming
up with it on the bus, like he very very
vividly remembers, you know, riding the bus home and as
he's handing the money to the bus driver. As he's
about to get off the bus, this sack solo comes
into his head, unmistakable sax ol.
Speaker 5: Right, yeah, I heard him say that.
Speaker 2: At that time that was the proudest he'd ever been musically.
Speaker 1: When he had gotten the song arranged, he had a
friend who played sax at the local pubs for fun.
He had recorded it. It was the sound that he wanted,
but it was just a simple recording. So when they
got together to actually record this song, they thought, okay,
we're big at this point. We're going to bring in
the top saxophonists from LA to just do this track.
And it was a deal where he should have been
in by eleven and out by twelve, but three hours
later George is still like, no, this is not right.
You're not doing it right, and ultimately gave up. And
they went through eleven different saxophonists over the course of
several months, and George was just like, no, this isn't it,
This isn't it. And finally, when George wasn't even there,
they recorded a saxophonist playing the sacks. But the saxophonist said,
you know, this isn't kind of a weird key. If
I could play it in a lower key, then I
could probably find that little magic thing that George is wanting.
So he played it in the lower key. Then the
producers sped it up to the key that George wanted
to sing it in, and when George came in and
listened to it, he said, that's it. That's the solo
that I want. So with us and our you know,
the production of music and synth sounds and stuff like that,
it doesn't hurt our ears to hear the saxophone sped
up to where it almost sounds like an alto saxophone.
But that's that magic saxophone sound is actually played in
lower keys pitched up to sound like it does now.
Speaker 3: Oh sweet.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that is kind of unique
about Careless Whisper is there are lots of outlets where
they'll say Careless Whisper featuring George Michael and he was
the only one in the music video, which was strange
that it came from a Wham album, but it seemed
to be George's song, even though Andrew originally co wrote
the song with him. I don't know what do you
think about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? It's strange.
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to find an answer as to
why they did it this way, other than maybe that
George had this kind of deeper, longer connection with the song.
I mean, it was before he had formed a band
with Andrew that he started putting this song together. So
maybe it was just an agreement between he and Andrew that, Hey,
this song I just feel like needs to be my song.
That's the only reason that I can think, because it was.
I mean, they were still Wham together, they were still
touring together, but one album cover just has him. I mean,
it's just George Michael Careless Whisper, and then the alternative
one is one that says Wham on it Careless Whisper
featuring George Michael. So I don't know why this seemed
to be more of a solo single than a Wham single.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the single after Careless Whisper is a song
called Freedom, which if you've seen the music video, you've
seen that the band went to China, which was this
huge deal in nineteen eighty five. I guess the producer
went to some leader in China and said, Okay, here's
a picture of Queen and he had some pictures that
were unflattering of Freddie Mercury and then showed in pictures
of Wham and basically are two clean cut young men,
and the Chinese guy said, I'll take them, pointing to
the Wham picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic, and it was. It was a
big deal.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was that allowed other bands to come in.
It kind of improved the relationship between China and the
West and allowing things like that to happen. But that
was that was a huge deal for them globally. I mean,
they were already a big success in Europe and in
the Americas, but to do that that created such a
buzz about him that obviously the money just poured in
at that point.
Speaker 2: And you got to think, these guys are very young
at this time. So he's born in nineteen sixty three
and nineteen eighty five, they're playing China, they're twenty two
years old.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 1: So at the time that George had decided to form
this band with Andrew, he went to his father and
told him what his plan was, and his father was like,
why do you want to do this? Why don't you
just want to come and run the restaurant with me,
this is what you're supposed to do. You're never going
to mount to anything as a musician, And so that
was kind of a big blow for him. Obviously, he
moved out, started doing all of his stuff with Andrew,
and then as time goes on, they hit their success,
they start performing these concerts. Finally, his dad comes to
one of these concerts several years after you know, telling
him he would never amount to anything and basically not
having anything to do with him for that time period.
He comes to one of the concerts and sees thousands
and thousands of people screaming and singing and in love
with his son, and he says, I wept like a baby.
I realized that I had been wrong about my own son.
Speaker 2: They had a tough relationship and his dad initially said,
why would you want to be a singer? You can't
sing with a flip, And I'm like, did he ever
take the time to listen to him sing? So they
played China in nineteen eighty five. They also play Live
Aid in nineteen eighty five, Yes, which.
Speaker 1: Was live Aid produced by Bob Belerd, who later his
wife would have an affair and ultimately a child with Michael.
Speaker 2: It's funny how these are so many stories are intertwined.
So they play live aid in nineteen eighty five. Their
next album that comes out has a couple of great
songs on it, in my opinion, the Edge of Heaven
and I'm Your Man.
Speaker 5: These are great.
Speaker 2: Catchy pop tunes yep. But at this point there's still
kind of teeny bopper.
Speaker 1: Songs, absolutely, and George is tired of the teeny bopper
persona that he has fallen into, and so he decides
he needs to go out on his own. He needs
to separate himself from Wham, He needs to separate himself
from his lifelong friend Andrew Ridgeley, and he needs to
do something that is his own and is grown up.
Speaker 2: He was such a good writer that he could continue
that young, teeny bopper Wham character and continue to write
songs and successful songs would probably make a bazillion dollars
in all the success in the world. But he really
craved the respect that a solo artist, somebody like Madonna
or Prince or Michael Jackson would get.
Speaker 1: He basically felt like with Wham he would never be
taken seriously as a musical artist.
Speaker 5: You know, he's not wrong about that either.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: I mean the reason that I Want Your Sex was
the first big boom from this album is because he
wanted to let parents know it's not okay for you
to go out and buy my albums for your kids.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 2: So a lot of people say that his sort of
first steps as a solo artist came with Careless Whisper,
and I would agree with that. But his leap came
not with Faith but with a song that came out
in early nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 5: Sometimes this kid's forgotten, I think.
Speaker 2: But the song I Knew You Were Waiting for Me
with Aretha Franklin.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that was a huge I mean, that was
a soulful song that was not the bubblegum pop that
Wham had been putting out before.
Speaker 2: This is a great song. I love this song. Reach
number one in April of nineteen eighty seven, was number
one for two weeks, so re counting at home, that's
number one with wakem Up, Before you Go Go Everything
she Wants, Careless Whisper and Now I Knew You Were
Waiting for Me with the Queen of Soul.
Speaker 3: Are we ready to jump into the album, Yeah, let's
dive into the album.
Speaker 1: Okay, diving into the album, we have such an epic
and I just I love this.
Speaker 3: He wanted to set himself.
Speaker 1: Out as a musical artist who is not the bubblegum
pop artist for kids.
Speaker 3: So what does he do.
Speaker 1: He takes this song that was a huge hit for
Wham and he plays it on an organ as if
it's sacred, and then all of a sudden that music
stops and the guitar comes in.
Speaker 6: Nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the organ for those of you who don't know,
and I didn't recognize that, that is the Wham song Freedom.
Speaker 1: When I turned that first song on the first time
I listened to that organ, I'm like, wait a minute,
I recognize that organ tune.
Speaker 3: What is that?
Speaker 1: And as I played it in my head, I was like,
I'm singing the lyrics to a different George Michael. No,
this is the Wham song Freedom from Make a Big Thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, So, in my opinion, the organ tune for Freedom
sounds like a funeral and I think he's putting to
death Wham.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a certainly, that's another way to look at it.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know which one of them
is the right.
Speaker 1: But it's either way the equally the same, same idea.
What was before is no longer. We are now something new.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 2: So I don't think we've mentioned this before, but curiously,
the Faith album was released October thirtieth of nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: The first single was I Want Your Sex. That came
out was released June first of eighty seven, so five
months prior to the album being released, right, And the
second single, Faith was released October twelfth, nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 5: It's kind of curious of.
Speaker 2: The dates how they had two singles released before the
album was even available. All right, So Faith is the
second single released October twelfth, nineteen eighty seven. This one
hit number one December twelfth, nineteen eighty seven, only took
seven weeks to reach the top spot on the Hot
one hundred. That's like a rocket, I mean, that's shooting
up the charts yep, and was number one for four weeks.
Speaker 1: So during the recording of the song, he did something
that we've talked about before that Lang would do, and
he built this song piece by piece. He would record
line by line, sometimes word by word to get it
just perfect. But obviously what came out sounds very polished
and fluid. So it was a very well produced song.
Speaker 2: This is a fantastic pop song. It's not a rocker
by any stretch, but it's just a great pop song.
Speaker 1: It's not the rock of the nineteen eighties. It's the
rock of like the nineteen sixties. This is Bo Diddley.
I mean, this is.
Speaker 3: Done no, no, this is that reimagined it.
Speaker 1: And so that little guitar beat that he's got going
on is all about the early rock and roll style.
And I mean, crap, he looks like the nineteen eighty
seven version of Elvis, right, I meanely got the Elvis hair,
except it's frosted. The jeans, the leather, the glasses. I
mean it's it is all right there. And then he's
got that guitar and he's swiveling a hips just like
the camp.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this was the number one single of the
year in the United States in nineteen eighty eight. Okay,
it was the song of nineteen eighty eight. Let's talk
about the look for a second, all right. So he
has created this character, this masculine character with the leather jacket,
cowboy boots, the jeans, the guitar, the ray band, sunglasses,
the five o'clocks.
Speaker 3: Double, the bearded wonder.
Speaker 2: This was all a character that he created. And I
was talking to you off air. I think this is
based on Other than the five o'clock shadow and the
ear ring and the frosted hair. This is Maverick from
Top Gun. Oh yeah, Oh, the leather jacket, the ray bands,
the jeans, you know, the boots.
Speaker 3: And the guitar.
Speaker 1: I mean, and the guitar is you said it's a costume,
it's a character.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 1: Any guitar player watching him play is going to go,
You're not playing that guitar.
Speaker 3: What is he doing?
Speaker 1: And so somebody actually asked him, They're like, Okay, you
don't play the guitar. Why are you in this video
with the guitar? And he said, America, if you stick
a guitar on, you have a big penis. Is that.
Speaker 2: He's tending to be a lot of things in this video,
including a guitar.
Speaker 3: Player, fighter jets, guitars, penises. There you go.
Speaker 2: This song is covered by Limp Biscuit.
Speaker 5: Have you heard this version of it?
Speaker 4: Uh? Yeah, I guess it would be nice, good black
good touch a body. I know, not everybody has got
a body like me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I
just stick with the George Michael version.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: This song was featured in Big Bang Theory The Goldbergs,
which is a great show, The Office, and the movie
Ready Player One. It's a great song.
Speaker 3: Really, where is it a Ready Player one?
Speaker 2: When he goes to the library? When, oh Man, when
he goes to the library. Okay, all right, So this
song was knocked out of the number one spot by
so Emotion, by Whitney Houston, one of the pop stars
at the time that he was trying to reach that level.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and it had been.
Speaker 1: The album itself was in number one in and out
several times, knocked out at one point, I think by
Tiffany and her debut album.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 2: So they asked him, you know, what does faith mean
to you? You know, and he said, well, it represents
the way I felt at the moment. It's kind of
like another word for hope or optimism.
Speaker 5: So it was just a strong word.
Speaker 2: He liked the idea of being a simple idea for
the song, and then he actually this was his second
choice for the title of the album. The original choice
to be the name of the album was Kissing a Fool,
But he liked the simplicity of this song and that
word so much that it became fair And I think
that was a right choice.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, all right, moving on to track number two, I
Will Be Your Father figure that.
Speaker 4: Same so sad.
Speaker 5: This song's a masterpiece.
Speaker 2: Okay, this song is a pop masterpiece.
Speaker 3: Well it is.
Speaker 1: It definitely needs to be a part of the Makeout
Slash four Play Slash Finish Off mixtape.
Speaker 3: Of nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: So you guys know that, Like we talked back and
forth before we have these episodes and talk what we're about,
what we're doing.
Speaker 3: And Jason at one for says, I.
Speaker 1: Just ran like three miles and listened to the Faith
album and it was a little weird from.
Speaker 3: Time to time.
Speaker 1: I cannot imagine running and sweating out in the Oklahoma
sun to I Will Be Your Father.
Speaker 5: I gotta do my research, man.
Speaker 2: So Fathervigure was actually the fourth single. It stayed number
one for two weeks. It was released December twenty eighth,
nineteen eighty seven, hit number one February twenty seventh, nineteen
eighty eight. Again, that's two months to reach the top.
Speaker 5: That's really fast.
Speaker 2: And it knocked out Never Going to Give You Up
by Rick Astley, Oh the Rick Roll. And this reached
number one in the United States, but it only got
to number eleven in the United Kingdom. It was the
first time that he failed to reach the top ten
in his home country. And I'm like, with this song,
this is the one that didn't make the top ten.
Speaker 5: That's crazy, all right.
Speaker 1: So this video was directed by George Michael and Andy Morahan,
who had also done the video for Faith and I
Want Your Sex and Monkey, and they both together ended
up winning the award for Best Direction in a Video
for Father Figure in the nineteen eighty eight MTV Video
Music Awards.
Speaker 2: Nice the Takoma moon Man. Yeah this video, he's a
cab driver and then he meets that high fashion model
and they kind of stare at each other longingly.
Speaker 5: That high fashion.
Speaker 2: Model is Tanya Coleridge, by the way, who at the
time I thought every woman just wore garter belts, and
you know, like.
Speaker 5: This is exactly what I want my life to be.
Speaker 3: Right, Jason got married and his wife's getting ready. He's like,
are you gonna put on your garter belt? We're about
to head out and forgetting your garter.
Speaker 2: That's right, don't put your launch take here to my
beds off and put on your lingerie.
Speaker 6: Let's go.
Speaker 3: It's hilarious.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if you have you seen the
movie of Tomic Blonde, I have not. Okay, talk about
a sensual movie. It's not a sentual movie. There's there's
a few pretty central parts in it, but this song
is essential as it is is part of this huge
fight scene in it. And to throw it back to
the Tom Cruise top gun thing, the producers actually wanted
to use take My Breath Away by Berlin in the scene,
but they couldn't clear it, and so instead they use
this in a kick but Charlie's Throne beautiful and bad
a making it awesome.
Speaker 5: Nice cool, that's really cool.
Speaker 2: Father Figure was sampled in PM Don's Looking Through Patient
Eyes nineteen ninety three. It was sampled in the song
Father by Illa Coolja, and it was sampled by Destiny's
Child in Winter Paradise.
Speaker 5: Pretty impactful song.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Okay, what's your feeling on this song?
Speaker 6: You like this one?
Speaker 3: Oh? Man? I love it so far.
Speaker 1: I mean I'll just say the first the first several,
the first four songs at the very least, and we'll
have to go through. But out of the box are
fan freaking tastic Faith Dynamo. I mean, the throwback to
the fifty sixties rock and the poppy drums and hooks.
It's amazing. And then father figure, my gosh, I mean
the song was made to make out two and so
why wouldn't you, Yeah, why wouldn't you at my age,
which would have been thirteen, love that song?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 2: So that brings us to the most controversial song on
the album. This song is called I Want Your Sex Crown.
Speaker 3: So you want to tell me what you said you
thought the music sounded.
Speaker 5: This song wet and juicy.
Speaker 1: Yep, there's something very sex sounding about this music. I
don't know what they did, how they made the plunking
and the blipping and the blooping and all of.
Speaker 3: That with the instruments.
Speaker 1: I don't know how they did what they did, but
it just it's just like, man, it sounds like doing it.
Speaker 5: It does?
Speaker 2: It sounds like, yes, like a wet porno at the
beginning of the song. This song was released originally on
the Beverly Hills Cop two soundtrack.
Speaker 3: Really, I did not know that it.
Speaker 2: Was one of the hits, so like Shakedown, Cross, My
Broken Heart, and I Want Your Sex. It was actually
played in the movie during the strip club scene. But
this was released June first, nineteen eighty seven, And like
you said, this was a stark difference from Wham.
Speaker 5: Right out of the gate.
Speaker 2: He's demonstrating I'm done with that teeny bopper crap. I'm
making a song about sex.
Speaker 1: And if you are, if you happen to be an
aspiring music artist, I think that we've learned from def Leppard,
Pour Some Sugar in Me, Van Halen, Black and Blue,
and George Michael. If you write a song that strippers
want to strip two, then you're probably gonna have a hit.
Speaker 2: That's right, Okay, So here's something that I do want
to dive into. This to me is very interesting. Growing
up in the Midwest, I definitely remember this song. There
was a big backlash by parents and stuff about playing
this song. It was kind of the first song popular
song that had the word sex in it, right, So
you had, like Prince had songs that he had that
were sexual in nature, but they weren't the hits, right.
There were other tracks on the album, but nineteen ninety
nine was what was out front? You know, Delirious was
out front. This is the first song that was like
a hit song that had the word sex in it.
Speaker 5: This, yeah, only reached number two.
Speaker 2: So it only reached number two because at the time
that was based on sales like single sales and radio play,
and there were a lot of radio stations around the
country that refused to play the song. I remember there
were certain radio stations that had alternate versions of it
that the song was called I Want Your Love, and
it was this loop from the song where they've played
I Want Your Love, I Want Your Love.
Speaker 1: Sexual Healing is about the closest you got to the
mention of sex and a song, and that was that
was eighty two by Marvin Gay. But this is not,
I mean, this isn't just a song mentioned in sex
and the title. This is a guy who's I mean,
just depending on your perspective and your where you stand
on these type of things, it's a guy. It's either
a guy who's tired of getting teased or a guy
who's pushing a girl a little too hard. As a
dad of a daughter, I'm like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 3: Like this? Shut your mouth? He is he's a good girl,
her alone, stop pressuring her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a man's got his patience and that is where
his end. According to this song, sex is natural, sex
is good. Not everybody does it, but everybody should. Sex
is natural, sex is fun, and sex's best when it's.
Speaker 3: One on one.
Speaker 1: Although I'm not really sure if he bought into that line,
I don't know if he believed.
Speaker 5: I don't think he did either.
Speaker 1: There was a there's a part of this video that
I from. This is just from memory. I did not
go back and research this thing. But it seemed to
me that even MTV was resistant to playing the video
until they put that part in where he's writing on
the girl explore monogamy. He's like writing with lipstick on
the girl.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that was a big deal. Yeah, even MTV
was scared off by this song. I do want to
mention one other thing before we dive into the video,
because I do want to get into the video. Casey
Caseen would not say the title of this song during
the Top forty countdown. He would say things like George
Michael's greatest hits is up next at number two or whatever.
He would not say I want your sex, which even
to me at the time, I'm like, I didn't know
sex is something you could possess, like.
Speaker 5: We have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got my sex, but I want your sex.
Speaker 2: Together we have this sex.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's talk about the video for a second. Okay,
Like you said, MTV made him because they were concerned
about the AIDS epidemic. They were concerned that this was
going to be promoting promiscuous activities, and so they made
him put this little PSA at the beginning of the
video where he's talking about this is not about crazy sex.
This is about monogamy.
Speaker 1: There are so many songs that are about what he's
talking about in this song leading up to this song, right,
I mean, You've got Darling Nikki and Erotic City by Prince.
I mean, Prince was pushing the envelope the whole time.
He just wasn't saying the word sex. And there probably
even those songs are a bit more graphic than I
Want Your Sex is because he's actually because he's not
actually talking about having sex as much as as Prince
does in some of his other songs. But man, the
I mean, after this song came out, you had I
Want to Sex You up and I touched myself and
I mean all kinds of I mean then, and of
course Prince releases cream and get off.
Speaker 3: It's it is. It is amazing.
Speaker 1: What when somebody finally just goes, oh, there's the line, yeah,
I'll just go ahead.
Speaker 3: And step over that, and everybody's like, yeah, step over go.
Speaker 2: Okay, So you mentioned Prince. Let's talk about Prince for
just a second. Because one of the things that George
Michael does in this song, and he actually does it
other songs in this album, is he artificially pitches up
his voice similar to what Prince did in the Sign
of the Times album.
Speaker 5: Okay, music video, we talk about music.
Speaker 1: Video, Yeah, just to quote here, Okay, So I mean
this is this is the time of AIDS being a
very huge factor. Safe sex was what everybody was all
about at the time of this thing came out and
George said this, He said, the media has divided love
in sex incredibly. The emphasis of the AIDS campaign has
been on safe sex, but the campaign has missed relationships.
It's missed emotion, it's missed monogamy. I Want Your Sex
is about attaching lust to love, not just to strangers.
Speaker 2: In the music video once again, directed by Andy Morahan.
This features George Michael's girlfriend at the time, Kathy Young.
In the video, he writes the words explore and monogamy
on her back in lipstick, which, as a fourteen year
old I thought that is the.
Speaker 5: Coolest thing that one could possibly do.
Speaker 2: I would have written the words I Want Your Sex
in lipstick. But you know, okay, one of the things
I want to mention on the album on the LP.
On the CD, I Want Your Sex Part one and
Part two are lumped together in this big long song.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, see that bothers me.
Speaker 5: I take I separate those.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you should.
Speaker 1: This is a pop single, and no pop single needs
to be nine minutes long. I mean, save that for
the album Rock of Lynyrd Skinnyard. If the song lasts
longer than the sex last you made the song too long.
Speaker 5: That's great.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess if we're done with I Want Your
Sex Part one, we can move on to I Want
Your Sex Part two.
Speaker 1: Okay, shouldn't it happen? That's all I really could say
about this, but go ahead.
Speaker 5: Okay, all right?
Speaker 2: So, so Part one of I Want Your Sex is
known as Rhythm one Lust. Rhythm one Lust okay, Yeah,
I Want Your Sex Part two. It sounds like the
lounge act version of a great song, Rhythm to Brass
in Love, Rhythm to brass and Love.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 2: So the song that we know as I Want Your
Sex is rhythm one lust. This is rhythm to brass
in Love. This is horns and lounge act. And it's
the version of the great song that I don't want
to hear.
Speaker 6: I don't like it at all.
Speaker 5: What do you think?
Speaker 1: It is unnecessary and it doesn't. It takes away from
the first song instead of adding to it. I mean,
as far as quality and listenability is concerned, it's not.
Speaker 3: I don't care for.
Speaker 6: It me too.
Speaker 5: Just leave it off, Just leave the great song. Yeah,
cut trim the fat here.
Speaker 3: I'm doing this just to just to let you know.
Speaker 1: As to those weird sounds that we were talking about,
they were generated with a very early sampling device called
a green Gate DS three, which ran on an Apple
two computer.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: The rhythm track on this song was the result of
a happy accident. Most of the sounds on the song
were made by using two synthesizers and a Len drum machine,
which is also sampler. The devices were connected to a
mid unit which went a little it started messing up,
and it triggered some random sounds and Chris Porter says, oh,
dang it already said it. And George said, hang on
a second, Hang on a second. That sounds really good,
doesn't it. And he then Chris says, it's a little
bit weird, isn't it. And he said, yeah, but if
we just take a bit out here and there and
a bit they we might be able to use it.
And that's how they came up with those sounds. And
they recorded a few bars of that with the kind
of squelching that's the word squelching noise, And that's where
you get that weird sound that kind of morphs into
the song what is next?
Speaker 6: One more try?
Speaker 3: This song is friggin beautiful.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is an amazing song.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, this is either the first or second best.
Speaker 5: Song on the album or Father Figure.
Speaker 3: I love this song.
Speaker 5: It's so good. It's so good.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, with Father Figure, it had started off as a
dance style type of song. But then George Michael, who
by the way, he produced this album himself, like he
was the producer. He took out the drums and he
realized that it became much more special, and he did
kind of the same thing here with one more try.
This is like a This is in the style of
like Marvin Gay or Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 3: It's just an amazing ballad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one almost feels gospel to me. You know.
It starts out with that synth that almost feels like
church music.
Speaker 5: And I think the video kind of backs that feeling up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got he's singing with the stained glass behind him,
and it's just this very kind of straightforward. I mean,
the focus is on him and the song. There's not
it's not the video is not a storytelling kind of video.
It is a I'm presenting myself to you the audience
in this way, like like you said, like a gospel song.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 2: So this song reached number one on the Hot one
hunh hundred May twenty eighth of nineteen eighty eight. This
song was a triple chart number one. Okay, this is
a really cool fact. So it hit number one on
the Hot one hundred, It hit number one on the
Hot R and B chart, and number one on the
Adult Contemporary chart. This is the last song to do
that by a white male artist until Robin Thick did
that with Lost Without You in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: There's no question when you're listening to this album that
the influence is predominantly the R and B music. There
weren't there were not a whole lot of white guys
who were putting out this kind of music, but it was.
I mean, he really he did such a fantastic job
with it.
Speaker 2: So his voice is very soulful, you know, he's got
such great vocals that the R and B community accepted him,
which is really funny to think about. When you go
back and listen to Wake Me Up Before you Go go,
that's about the biggest whitebread song you could possibly have,
And you say, Okay, this guy is going to be
number one on the R and B charts very shortly. Well,
it's a little bit hard to believe at that time,
but this song is just so good. The interesting and
so there's a couple of interesting things about this song
that I think are worth mentioning. So this is the
third consecutive number one from Faith, which I Want Your Sex.
We already talked about hit number two, mainly because the
radio wouldn't play it.
Speaker 5: It reached number eight.
Speaker 2: On the UK charts, so he was not doing as
well in his home country as he did in America.
It seems kind of crazy. This is the sixth number one.
Speaker 5: For George Michael.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome and.
Speaker 5: He did it.
Speaker 2: This one debuted at number forty like when it was released,
debuted at number forty and took only seven weeks to
reach number one.
Speaker 3: That's incredibly fast, and to do that well, the song
has to have merit on multiple levels. Obviously, the hook
is there, I mean, the melody on this one is
flat out awesome. The instrumentation for the eighties was spot on.
His voice is incredible and soulful. And then the lyrics,
I mean, and the lyrics tell you a story of
a man who has been in bad relationships before, who's
trying to say no to a relationship that's in front
of him, only to be ultimately overcoming the end and
fall in love and be part of the relationship as
a great storyline.
Speaker 2: One More Try was the second longest running number one
of nineteen eighty eight, tied with Every Rose Has Its
Thorn by Poison, and only behind Steve Winwood's Roll with It,
which was number one for four weeks. I was talking
to my wife about this, and she remembers being a
fifteen year old and this song really spoke to her heart.
So this is her favorite song on the Faith album.
She's not alone in that. Elton John said this is
his favorite George Michael song and that he's not jealous
about many songs, but this song is one that he
wish he would have written.
Speaker 3: That's great, that's a great compliment.
Speaker 2: Mariah Carey covered this song on twenty fourteen. Have you
listened to that version of it?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: Okay, so I listened to it.
Speaker 2: I also listened to her version of def Leppards bringing
on the Heartbreak Not so good, all right, not the best,
but this one because it's that softer, more soulful ballad.
Speaker 5: She actually does have a good version of this. I
thought it was good.
Speaker 1: It's not horrible, but it's it's not as good as
the first one.
Speaker 5: It's not as good as the first one.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the video for a second, okay. This
video was directed by Tony Scott. Tony Scott is the
director of Thailand.
Speaker 1: Yes yeah, well, I mean and you can definitely see
the top gun like the uh take my breath away.
Part of Top Gun is definitely this style of this
video for sure.
Speaker 3: The blowing sheets and perfect for this song.
Speaker 2: Last little tidbit I've got on this. This was knocked
out of the number one spot by Rick Astley's Together Forever.
So Rick Astley also knocked Father Figure out of the
number one spot, which is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: So so George Michael has been Rick rolled a couple times.
Speaker 2: Now, Freaking Rick Astley keeps kicking me out. All right,
stop your tape, kick it out, flip it over for
side two.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: The first song on side two is hard Day.
Speaker 5: Don't Bring Me Down. Okay.
Speaker 2: This song is actually the third single of the Fake,
which to me was kind of a surprise because I
wasn't familiar with the song. They didn't make a video
for this song. I didn't know it. I didn't hear it.
Speaker 5: But it's good.
Speaker 6: I like it.
Speaker 1: It's got that funk. It's one of the funky songs
on the album. It's and I dig it. But I
feel like they just kind of missed the mark a
little bit.
Speaker 3: It's not bad.
Speaker 1: It just I heard this and I was like, this
could be a single, but it's just missing something. And
I can't even put my finger on it. But I
guess they felt like it wasn't missing anything because obviously
they released it as a single.
Speaker 2: Father Figure be a hit today, kissing it to be
a hit today. This one, it's a little bit eighties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me let's this which.
Speaker 5: We love eighties.
Speaker 2: We love eighties, so don't get me wrong on that.
I really like the chorus in the song.
Speaker 1: So you get this really interesting kind of almost Native
American style whistling going on, and I don't know, yeah,
I'll describe that, and then it comes with the end
with a total dance funk.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So my feeling on this song is that the bass
line overwhelms the song main and don't but no, no,
main now, Nope, bound down. I mean, it's just in
your face if you had that organ instead of that
synthesizer there, or even just a piano or something. I
don't know that, it's just it kind of misses the
mark for me.
Speaker 5: Okay, that's fair, that's fun.
Speaker 2: This song was written and originally produced by George Michael,
like we said, and released only in the US and Australia.
I don't really get that. I don't know why record
companies do these types of things. Either release it or
don't release it. But anyway released October thirtieth, nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 5: It released it.
Speaker 2: It reached the top five on the US Hot Dance
Club Songs chart and it was the top It was
in the top forty of the US R and B chart.
So this song was the B side of the I
Want Your Sex single, and when they released Hard Day
as a single, on the B side of Hard Day
was an extended version of I Want Your six. So
the lyrics are addressed to a woman that the singer
is like obsessed with, but in the last verse, George
Michael is like singing a duet with himself, so it's
it's his male voice and then this sped up, pitched
up version of himself as the female.
Speaker 3: Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, listen to.
Speaker 2: This sweet little.
Speaker 1: And get to in the when the people don't understand.
Speaker 3: You're telling me that this is George Michael.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, no, friggin way yes, yes, and you know
where he got the idea from Doudga Prince.
Speaker 1: I'm blown away right now. I was going to look
and see who the who the duet was with and
you're telling me the girl at the end of this
song is not a girl, it's George Michael.
Speaker 5: Yes, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: That's fan frea fantastic Okay, my mind is blown, So
unpack this with me for just a second. So we
know George Michael is a big fan of Prince. Princess
Sign of the Times album came out in spring of
eighty seven.
Speaker 1: Prince foreshadowing, by the way, quick foreshadowing. We're doing Sign
of the Times in a future episode versus you to
the Joshua Tree.
Speaker 5: Awesome.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to get into that one.
Speaker 1: But oh, it's going to be fantastic, but I'm sorry.
So George Michael is listening to Prince do some stuff
off of Sign of the Times and comes up with
this idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Prince had this alter ego, this female version of
himself that he called Camille, and so when he would
sing these female parts, he would raise and pitch up
his voice. If you're familiar with the song, you've got
the look that he sings with Sheena Easton. Yes, it's
that's Camille. And he had this whole album planned where
he was gonna sing as Camille. So anyway, George Michael,
being enamored with Prince thought, I'm gonna give that a try.
He actually does it a little bit on a watcher
sex if you go back and listen to that. But
this song in particular, anyway, that is him singing as
the female part.
Speaker 1: That is that's amazing. That's some solid that's a solid
bit of producing right there. I had no idea. I
thought it was a real girl singing that part.
Speaker 3: I'm just floored. Thank you, thank you for blowing my
mind today.
Speaker 5: Yes, you're welcome.
Speaker 3: Moving on.
Speaker 1: Next song is hand him out? Okay, so is this
intro is in? I have an expectation of a song, right,
you got very The drums are solid in here, and
then you get the coming in and then you get
that bass again that I thought was kind of overwhelming
on hard day. Yeah, but it's not so overwhelming. It's
just a simple bassline and then the lyrics I love
in his voice, I love, but this melody doesn't belong
with these drums, Like I feel like it was a
great song that somebody bought brought a drum machine to
and it was like, oh hey, let's put these drums
to this.
Speaker 3: And if I was.
Speaker 1: There in the studio, I'd be like, yeah, that's a
nice trick, but take that crap out of here.
Speaker 3: This is good.
Speaker 1: We don't need these drums in here. This is this
is like in the Ghetto by Elvis. This needs to
be slowed down a little bit, have real instruments and
no drums and then it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, I think that's I think that's good.
Speaker 1: I can see that the choice to leave the drums
in I think was a bad choice.
Speaker 3: And I've heard him. I try to look.
Speaker 1: Once I heard the song, I was like, I know
he did an MTV unplugged, I know he did some
other stuff maybe, and he did, And I'm imp TV
unplugged in.
Speaker 3: This of this song.
Speaker 1: And it sounds better because he's got pianos in there
instead of the synthesizer, but it's still got the drums
in there. And I'm just like, no, this if I could,
you know, if I had these tracks that I could
break up I boot that drum, I would make it
a real piano and not this synthesizer. And if you
had that, you got a fan freakantastic song.
Speaker 3: As it is.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna listen to it for about a minute and
I'm gonna get tired of this repetitive drum beat and
I'm gonna fast forward.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, all right, So this song to me is
is close to like Michael Jackson's Liberian Girl. It's good,
but it never really quite gets off the ground for me.
It's I think it finishes strong musically, it's just kind
of jazzy and light, and his vocals never really it's
kind of more breathy, and he doesn't really like put
the throttle down, you know. Okay, I've got something for
you on this tell me if I'm off bass. So
they have the drum kit at the beginning that just kind.
Speaker 4: Of the.
Speaker 3: Right yep.
Speaker 2: Then it comes in with the piano, that piano line
and it just kind of repeats. That sounds very similar
to the piano line in Computer.
Speaker 5: Blue by Prince.
Speaker 2: Different tone, same line, I think, see what you think?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that little bit, that little bit at the beginning, Yeah,
it's the same. It sounds like the same notes, but
Prince is cutting it short, whereas George Michael completes the
completes the phrase on the on the music for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, cool, So I'm not off based on that that sounded.
Speaker 3: At all no very similar.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this song is different from the other songs
on the album because it's kind of a social commentary.
This isn't about sex, this isn't about love, this isn't
about relationships. This is about people on the streets, people
who lose themselves to poverty and to drugs, and that's
that kind of thing, and where their children are left.
It's definitely an raally different storyline than the other the
other stuff that we have.
Speaker 3: On this album.
Speaker 1: And that that's that's a part that I like. I mean,
I think that that that the lyrics and the meaning
behind the lyrics are solid.
Speaker 3: Again, I just.
Speaker 1: Think that the instrumentation they missed the they missed the
mark on it. Next track on the CD tape or
LP is look at Your Hands.
Speaker 5: So this one's a little bluesy. There's more horned.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to see how he moves from ballad to
dance song to jazz. We haven't got to yet and
this is more blues.
Speaker 1: Wow, this is this is similar to an excess. This
has a very in excess kick. Nice feel about it.
Speaker 3: I like this song.
Speaker 2: Okay, when I first listened to it, I thought to myself,
it sounds a little bit like Bruce Willis and respect yourself.
Speaker 1: So this song is the only song that has a
co writer. This one was co written by George Michael
and a guy named David Austin. It's got the rock,
it's got the the saxophone in there like the inexcess
ass and then the piano like it. Yeah, this is
strong in access to me, strong in excess.
Speaker 3: Feel on this one.
Speaker 5: Interesting, Okay, cool.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it just takes hearing a song about four or
five times and then you fall in love with it.
You know.
Speaker 2: That happens to me quite a little bit, actually.
Speaker 3: So this song is about a guy who is unhappy
with is unhappy with the way that his ex girlfriend's
life has turned out. You got two fat children and
a drunken man.
Speaker 1: Bet you don't, bet you don't like your life.
Speaker 3: So this one's I don't know if this one is
pleading with her or if it's just yeah, I know
he's just he says, I still want you tonight. So yeah,
he's he's telling her she's made a big mistake. Your
kids are brats and your your man's a dirty drunk.
You should with me. That's I love.
Speaker 1: That's some that's some solid, all right. So this one
is back to the funk. You're right, yeah, I love it.
I mean this is the eighties music that I go
back to and revisit and I'm just like, yeah, give
me eighties all about it.
Speaker 5: So this song is called Monkey.
Speaker 2: This is the sixth single released July third, nineteen eighty eight.
This one hit number one on the High one hundred. Man,
this is just a string of number one hits. The
song on the LP is not as good as the
song in the video, so.
Speaker 5: It's two different versions of it.
Speaker 3: Okay, so this song listening to the one in the video.
Speaker 2: So the album he had to finish because he was
on a deadline. So he got these two producers, Jimmy
jam and Terry Lewis to work on the track after
he heard what they did for the song Nasty by
Janet Jackson. So they had done songs by New Edition,
Robert Palmer, the Human League. Like I said, they did
Nasty for Janet Jackson. They ended up doing black Cat
off of her Rhythmation album. Michael told the pair that
he had envisioned Monkey being more melodic with chords, but
he was on a deadline when he recorded, so he
didn't have the time to do it properly. Jam and
Lewis completely reworked the song and they even got George
Michael to re record his vocals. So the song that
you hear on MTV that was played a ten thousand times,
that was the Jimmy Jam Terry Lewis version, and I
liked that version much better.
Speaker 1: So as long as we're talking about the video, have
you seen the hat that he's wearing on.
Speaker 3: Can we please go?
Speaker 2: I'm glad so this music video directed again by Andy Morahan.
Speaker 5: It was choreographed by Paul Abdul.
Speaker 1: How many times has Paula Abdul made that experience?
Speaker 3: On our podcast UCLA Loosh.
Speaker 5: Paula Abdul, George Michael. Yeah, So it's intercut with.
Speaker 2: Him and his footage and he looks awesome, the denim.
Jackie's running around singing looking cool, and then they interspliced
the white shirt and black hat, which I'm like, oh man,
not a good look for him.
Speaker 3: Think about this, Think about this? Okay, there were guys
that existed.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven nineteen eighty eight that knew that
girls liked George Michael and they knew that George Michael
wore that hat, and so they went out and bought
a hat so that they could look like George Michael.
Speaker 5: Yes, I think you are probably right about that.
Speaker 3: They also wore suspenders with blue.
Speaker 2: Jeans, yes, yes, and the five o'clock shadow was definitely
in during this summer. So when this song, when I'm fourteen,
fifteen years old, I don't really know what a monkey is.
I don't understand it. I don't get the reference. But
the song is about a drug habit. The monkey on
your back is a drug habit. Do you love your
drug habit or do you love me?
Speaker 1: It's interesting that that's what this is about, because George
Michael admittedly had a pretty significant drug habit at the
time that this this album came out, like he and
his girlfriend that he had picked up from the eyewinter
Sex video were doing ecstasy and drinking heavily every single day.
Speaker 2: Okay, number one hit Super Fun Dance eighties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll turn it on. I like it.
Speaker 5: It's good. I like it.
Speaker 1: So this single was released in nineteen eighty eight, and
it reached number one on the US Billboard Hot one
hundred and number thirteen on the UK Singles Chart. Monkey
debuted at number forty two on July ninth, and by
August twenty seventh, nineteen eighty eight, it was number one
and it.
Speaker 3: Stayed there for two weeks.
Speaker 1: So with this, he joined Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston
as three artist who had four or more consecutive number
one singles during the nineteen eighty seven eighty eight era.
From one album.
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson had five number one hits from Bad Flashback
to Our Bad Episode episode two.
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston had seven.
Speaker 5: That's incredible. It's incredible.
Speaker 3: It was off two albums.
Speaker 1: But that's pretty that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 5: It's impressive.
Speaker 3: Monkey also reached number one on the US Hot Dance
Club Play chart, and it was his first dance number
one when they released the single version was that remixed
version by Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the better version for sure.
Speaker 1: Last song on the vinyl, but not the last song
if you had a CD or a cassette, and that
song is Kissingle Fool.
Speaker 2: The song is beautiful, another stone cold killer on this album.
So Kissing the Fool was the seventh single released November
twenty first, nineteen eighty eight. This song, to me sounds
something like Harry Connick Junior would sing. It's definitely more jazz.
Speaker 1: This is what I wanted for Hard Day. If they
had done Hard Day like this, Hard Day could have
potentially been another number one head. I think we know
that with pop in the eighties, you're gonna use synthesizers,
you're gonna use drum machines. But George Michael is saying
on this particular song, I don't even have to do that, right.
Speaker 3: I can give you. I can give you.
Speaker 1: Old school piano, old school stand up bass, and me
singing the blues, and you're gonna follow them off.
Speaker 2: According to George Michael, the vocals were recorded a cappella
one take one take Wow. Somewhere Joe Elliott is crying
when he hears.
Speaker 3: That, drinking himself to sleep.
Speaker 2: This album was originally supposed to be called Kissing It Fool.
That was the working title for the album for a
long time until at the last minute they kind of
changed it to Faith.
Speaker 1: So this was the least successful of the singles released.
It made it to number eighteen on the UK Singles
Chart and it became the first single in five not
to make number one on the Billboard Hot one hundred
in the US, but it was number one on the
Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and became number five on the
Billboard Hot one hundred.
Speaker 2: So the best part to me this song is when
the big band jumps in at the end and the
vocals take off of that.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you say that it kind of reminds
you of Harry Connic. The song was actually covered by
Michael Bublay and it is whereas you can listen to
so many of the songs on the sound of them
and go, yeah, okay, this is kind of dated. I
can say this is eighties. This song is timeless.
Speaker 2: It is timeless. Yeah, okay, great song. I love this song.
Speaker 5: It's beautiful.
Speaker 3: How did it feel when you were running and listening.
Speaker 5: To Yes Again?
Speaker 2: A little bit weird exercising while listening to this album?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 2: So that brings us to the last song on the tape,
at least a last request, I Want Your Sex Part three.
Speaker 1: We think I was trying to pressure you into sex
and apparently didn't work.
Speaker 3: So let me make last request.
Speaker 1: This song probably should have happened even less than I
Want Your Sex Part two.
Speaker 3: Give it up. I mean, just let it go. She's
not interested, She's very tired and has a headache.
Speaker 1: And again this horribly dated with this synthesizer and drum
machine drums.
Speaker 2: So I've seen enough cinemax after dark movies. This this
has the feel.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's a confession you want to
make on the air bro.
Speaker 5: This has the cinemax after a dark type.
Speaker 3: You're saying this is the eighties version of bounch.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious.
Speaker 2: It's got kind of a sexy beat the horns. I
think that as the song closes, it sounds a little
bit like You Belong to the City by Glenn Frye.
This song needed to be trimmed. This is not a
worthy track on Faith No.
Speaker 3: They wisely left it off of the LP.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why they brought it back for the
CD and the tape as a bonus track. I don't know.
Speaker 5: So I did want to bring this up.
Speaker 2: I don't know if we really got into this when
we covered I Want Your Sex. For a song to
show up in three parts on an album, I mean,
it's a it was a huge hit.
Speaker 5: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it wasn't big hit but for three
versions of basically the same song, and then from this
point on he ignores it. They don't play it live,
he doesn't mention it, he didn't talk about it. It's
very interesting his relationship with that song.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're getting big picture here, and I'm gonna say this.
Speaker 3: He reinvents himself.
Speaker 1: And he does that deliberately, at least throughout the eighties, right,
I mean he and when he does his next album,
the first video that comes out, he's blowing up the jacket,
he's blowing up the jukebox, he's blowing up the guitar.
I mean, he's getting rid of all of that. He's
like that, ain't me. You're not going to define me.
That's not who I am. I can do it all.
I am not just a pop person. I'm not just
a I want your sex person, not sex symbol only.
I'm not any of those things. You can't put me
in a box. And so I'm going to redefine myself.
And you know, when we talked about Michael Jackson, I
talked about how I didn't feel like Bad was a
better album because I felt like it was really just
a Thriller Part two, which I mean thriller is fantastic,
so why not make a part two? But there are
certain artists out there who refuse to do that. George
Michael is obviously one of those guys. Prince is obviously
one of those guys. You've noted a couple times that
he took a cue from Prince, and I think he
totally did that big picture wise with his albums as well.
Prince is not making Purple Rain Part two with Sign
of the Times. He's making something wholly different, wholly different,
and that's something admirable to be able to go, hey,
I'm going to be a completely different type of artists
and I'm still gonna make hits.
Speaker 3: That's something impressive.
Speaker 5: It is impressive.
Speaker 2: It is impressive, and I marvel at not only did
he completely change his image from this album to the
next album, but he weaves his way in and out
of different genres of music on this album, Like we said, dance, pop, rock, jazz, gospel.
Speaker 1: How many different categories of music did he write a
hit for?
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, so rap.
Speaker 2: Initially his first success was in rap bubblegum pop with
Wham right, I mean mainstream pop rock, jazz, R and
B R and B Adult contemporary.
Speaker 1: Dance, dance funk. It's pretty, it's pretty freaking impressive. It's
super pretty freaking impressive.
Speaker 2: And the guy's got a voice like an angel. So
this is kind of moving us into the impact and
the reception that the Faith album had. It won the
Grammy for Album of the Year from the nineteen eighty
nine American Music Awards. He won Favorite Pop Rock Male Artists,
Favorite Soul R and B Male Artists, which we need
to talk about, and Favorite Soul R and B Album
for Faith. There was some backlash on this. This is interesting,
so a white artist winning the R and B Best
Artist Award, this was not looked upon very favorably. Although
it's admirable that he crossed over into black audiences he
made it. The album was number one on the R
and B charts, and for him to be the first
white Solars to do that super impressive. But people like
Gladys Knight was very vocal and criticized him for that,
even though it's not his fault, all right, I do
think it's interesting when he sang Careless Whisper as the
last song on the last concert of the Faith tour,
he said to himself, I don't know if I'll ever
do this again. For him to work so hard, gain
so much success and get to the top and say
I'm not sure I'm going to do this ever again
kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: It is. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: So just to touch on the awards real quick, okay,
yep nominated for Album of the Year and one Yes
Father Figure was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Performance by
a Male. This also received the Favorite Soul R and
B Album for the American Music Awards, as well as
the Favorite Soul R and B Male Artists MTV Video
Music Awards. Both Faith and Father Figure were nominated, and
Father Figure one for Best Direction in a Video, Father
Figure one for Best Direction in a Video. He had
other nominations, but ultimately he received the Video Vanguard Award
and he won. For the brit Awards, won Best British
Male Artist.
Speaker 5: It's impressive. I mean, that's a heck of a year, man. Yeah,
I was gonna mention this too.
Speaker 2: Faith was the best selling album of nineteen eighty eight
in the United States, eleven million copies in the United
States alone, twenty million copies of Faith sold worldwide. That's
the fifty second best selling album of all time in
the US.
Speaker 3: Okay, wow, yeah.
Speaker 2: So this is an interesting tidbit just regarding the Shore
that you Can't Be Serious podcast. Okay, So Faith was
the number one selling album of nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 5: Covered by the Show That You Can't Be Serious Podcast.
Speaker 2: The number two best selling album of eighty eight the
Dirty Dancing Soundtrack, which we have slated sometime maybe in
twenty twenty one. Number three that year, hysteria Everybody this
Show that You Can't Be Serious Podcast, number four Kick,
number five bad, and number six appatit for destruction.
Speaker 1: Well, we don't pick losers.
Speaker 3: We don't pick losers.
Speaker 5: That's right. Debbie gives it at number seven. I'm not
sure that was gonna.
Speaker 1: Make the Oh yeah, dude, We're definitely doing a Debbie
Gibson versus Tiffany episode.
Speaker 3: It's gonna happen, right.
Speaker 2: We've got to talk a little bit about sort of
the tragedy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So all the success in the world can always
save you. Tragically, with both of the bands that we're comparing,
we lose an artist. Without comparison, the world has lost
something special in both of their deaths and It's tragic.
Speaker 5: It is, It is so Georgia.
Speaker 2: Michael died Christmas Day, twenty sixteen at HP three. The
autopsy report was indeterminable, but I think it's just in general,
drugs and alcohol got him in the end. Michael Hutchins
died November twenty second, nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 3: His death was very unusual.
Speaker 1: He had, in all respects, appeared to be in a
good mood. He had plans to do work with other artists.
And you know, they say this stuff all the time
about people who commit suicide, but with his particular situation,
it does seem very strange that he would have committed suicide.
But he had become involved in a relationship with Bob
Geldolf's wife, Paula Yates, and she was leaving Bob, and
there were custody battles going on in their divorce, and
there was a plan that she and her children, as
well as the child that she had with Michael Hutchins,
Tiger Lily, We're supposed to come to be with him
over the Christmas holiday, and because of the divorce dispute,
that they were not able to come. She called and
gave him that news. He became very depressed. This was
all within the span of a day. Became very depressed,
called a couple of different people to tell them what
was going on and how he was feeling. And one
of those people even came to the hotel room that
he was staying in and knocked on the door to
come and talk to him, even though it was in
the wee hours of the morning, and she didn't get
a response and so left, and sadly, that next morning
they found him hanging in his closet. It's again, not
something that they thought was foul play, but something that
a lot of folks had trouble believing was deliberate, despite
the fact that appeared to be completely alone. So I
don't you know, I don't want to speculate on it,
but the thing is, we lost again another truly great artist.
Speaker 3: And on that happy note, how about we do some viology?
Speaker 2: All right, thank you, Let's transition to something a little happier.
Speaker 5: Final judgment A right, where are you?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: You go first?
Speaker 5: You want me to go first?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: So these two albums I owned both, I love both. However,
I think that Faith has some songs that needed to
be cut. It brings down the album as a whole.
Some of these just kind of hanger ons. I do
think Faith gets a lot of credit with me for
having so many songs, so many different genres, different styles,
certainly styles that were not my favorite at the time.
Jazz was not something I listened to typically, but through
Kissing a Fool I was introduced to that. But a
lot of great songs. I don't think Faith has a
quite as well. I love every.
Speaker 5: Song on Kick. I could pop it in. I could
definitely go jogging to Kick a little bit easier than
I could Faith.
Speaker 2: But my vote as a whole, Kick is the better album,
not a bad song on it.
Speaker 5: Ye.
Speaker 1: Okay, when we started this podcast, I had a decision
in my head. I knew what I was picking in
my head, right. Yeah, And as with many things, as
we revisit and we listen and we go through the
entire album and things appeal to you more on the
second or third or the fourth listen, your perspectives change.
Speaker 3: Now. I'm a rock guy.
Speaker 1: I am not a pop guy. I like some pop music,
and that's I mean, I'm not a snob about it.
It's just not my thing, right, And so what I
have to do in my head is I have to
take that out and say, okay, take your presuppositions and
your predispositions away and look at these albums side by
side for what they were. And even though probably song wise,
I'm going to pick in excess kick, Never Tear Us
Apart is I've said my favorite song. If you put
all of these songs up on the board, I'm writing
number one next to Never Tear Us Apart? And Devil
Inside and Need You Tonight are both fantastic songs. New
Sensation What Yes lows my mind and it's rock, which
I love right, but it's all rock. And so when
we listen to Guns N' Roses versus Back in Black,
what did I say? I said, Appetite for Destruction was
better than Back in Black because it had variety, it
had variation. And so even though when we started I
knew I was picking an excess kick, I gotta say
today I'm picking George Michael Faith love It. Number one
hit after number one hit after number one hit in
completely different genres you have. I mean, I've got songs
on there that I don't like. I would redone them
and done them a completely different way. But when you
look at these albums as a whole. George Michael has
produced a better product. And that's the way people felt
in nineteen eighty eight, nineteen eighty nine, and.
Speaker 3: I gotta say they were right.
Speaker 1: If you if you take out the ones that are
dated and you put them next to the next to
these songs from Kick, taking out the ones that are dated,
I still say, I'm gonna have to say that Faith
wins today.
Speaker 5: Wow, I love it.
Speaker 2: Man, that's great.
Speaker 5: It's crazy for me.
Speaker 3: I would never have expected it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would never have expected to pick that. Never
I'm I'm still I'm probably going to wake up tomorrow
and I'm probably gonna wake up in the middle of
the night and go, what the crap did I just say?
Because I love Kick, I love the rock and oh man,
I'm wavering already. I'm starting to waffle. We better turn
the microphones off before I.
Speaker 2: Hey, I think it's cool for us to grow as
we rediscover these albums together. So hopefully there's somebody out
there who listened to the podcast who changed their mind.
I think that's great when people hit us up on
Facebook and they say, hey, I initially thought this, and
now I think that I just I.
Speaker 1: Would like to point out that this is kind of
momentous because as far as pop and rock are concerned,
You're the pop guy and I'm the rock guy. If
we got to say one's sure, that's true. I just
picked the pop I just picked the pop album, and
you picked the rock album.
Speaker 5: I know, I know. Hey yeah, that's called growth.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, tell us what you guys think.
Speaker 1: Am I crazy? Is Jason crazy? Are they? Is it
an unanswerable question which of these two albums are better?
It might be, but sometimes you just got to put
your foot down and say this is the way it is.
That's great, I feel Jason. It's been fun.
Speaker 5: Yep, D talk to you next week, all right, bye,