George Michael
Birth name Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou
Born June 25, 1963
Origin London, England
Genre(s) Pop
Years active 1981–present

George Michael (born June 25, 1963) is an English pop singer/songwriter who (as a solo artist and one half of the duo Wham!) has sold an estimated total of 80 million records

Wham!

George Michael was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (in Greek G??????-???????? ?a?a???t??) in East Finchley, London, to a Greek Cypriot father and an English mother, He began his career by forming a short-lived band called The Executive together with his best friend Andrew Ridgeley, a fellow pupil at Bushey Meads School.

It wasn’t until he formed the duo Wham! together with Ridgeley in 1981 that the success came for the Michael. The band’s first album, Fantastic!, was an instant success, and within a year they had released their classic debut single, Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do). Their second single, Young Guns (Go For It), became the first in a string of Top 10 hits in the UK singles chart. They were rapidly followed by titles such as Bad Boys, Club Tropicana, Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, Freedom, Last Christmas/Everything She Wants, I’m Your Man and a second album, Make It Big. George also sang on the original Band Aid recording of Do They Know It’s Christmas and donated the profits from Last Christmas/Everything She Wants to the charity. He also added background vocals to David Cassidy’s 1985 hit The Last Kiss.

With the success of his solo releases Careless Whisper (1984) and A Different Corner (1986) stories of an impending Wham! split intensified, and Wham! separated in the summer of 1986 after a farewell single, The Edge of Heaven and album, plus a sell-out concert at Wembley Stadium.

Solo career

George Michael performing Fastlove

Some of his biggest hit singles as a solo artist include the single “Faith,” taken from his debut album Faith. The album not only became number one on both sides of the Atlantic but also resulted in four number one singles in America. In 1986 he dueted with both Aretha Franklin and Jody Watley. In 1989 he again sang backing vocals on a record called Heaven Help Me with longtime friend Deon Estus. The song was written by both of them, and just missed out on the British the top 40, reaching #5 in America.

“Careless Whisper” (written when he was seventeen) became one of the most played songs of the decade and voted Londoner’s Favourite record of all time in January, 1995, in a competition run jointly by the capital’s leading evening newspaper and radio station. He was then also voted Best Male Singer by the same radio station and by the readers of a national newspaper. Some of his other hits include “Father Figure”, “Kissing a Fool”, “One More Try”, “Freedom 90″, “Fastlove”, “Jesus to a Child”, “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” (a duet with Elton John), 2002’s “Freeek!” and the controversial anti-war/anti-Bush song and music video “Shoot the Dog” .

His work covers a variety of pop styles, from ballads to funky dance tracks. In a career spanning more than twenty years, George Michael has been responsible for more than 80 million album sales.

Having decided to release his new material through a number of labels on a single-by-single basis, Michael found a home at Sony for his new, highly anticipated album Patience. It was released in March 2004 after two popular singles released through Polydor Records. Patience debuted at number one on the UK album charts and number two in Australia.

During the 2005 event Live 8, George Michael joined Paul McCartney on stage, harmonizing on “Drive My Car”. He couldn’t perform a separate set himself because of a head cold. At the event, Michael told BBC Radio 1 that he’s writing and recording music at home and hinted that was considering a tour in 2006.

It was announced on April 21, 2006 that he would embark on a 50 date tour in 2006 called “25 Live” to commemorate 25 years of being in the music business. The tour is set to kick off September 27, 2006 in Madrid, Spain. A new greatest hits package will be released to coincide with the tour. The new album will feature four new tracks.

This will be the fourth “best of” package of George Michael material after 1986’s “The Final”, 1997’s “If You Were There” (both Wham! collections) and 1998’s solo collection “Ladies & Gentlemen”.

Michael has also stated that he’s recording a new version of “Heal the Pain” with Paul McCartney. “We’re doing some recording later this week actually. We’re gonna do another version of one of my old songs called “Heal the Pain” – which I wrote as a tribute to him and so I’m incredibly honoured that he’s gonna sing it for me,” Michael said.

Publicity, notoriety, & depression

Michael’s lover of two years Anselmo Feleppa died of an AIDS-related brain haemorrhage in 1993. The death plunged Michael into clinical depression, which can reasonably be at least partially attributable to some irresponsible acts. His mother died soon after seeing her father and brother’s heads in gas ovens, according to a Guardian interview.

Michael was involved in a 1993 court case concerning his record contract after his record company CBS was taken over by Sony. Amongst Michael’s complaints was that Sony had not fully supported the release of his second solo album resulting in its poor performance in the U.S. compared to Faith. Sony responded that Michael had refused to appear in promotional videos and it was this that had caused the poor response to the album. The case was heard in London and was found against Michael. As a consequence, Michael declared he would not release any new material until he had completed the minimum of his contractual obligations to Sony.

Michael is also well known for his April 7, 1998, arrest for “engaging in a lewd act” in a public restroom in a Beverly Hills city park. He was arrested by an undercover Beverly Hills police officer named Marcelo Rodriguez.
George Michael: “Well, I was followed into the restroom, and then, this cop – well, I didn’t know he was a cop at the time obviously – he started playing this game. I think it’s called ‘I’ll show you mine, you show me yours, and then when you show me yours, I’m gonna nick you!’” [1]

After pleading “no contest” to the charge, Michael was fined $810 and sentenced to 80 hours of community service. After that incident, he became open about his homosexuality.

Soon afterwards, Michael made a video for his single “Outside” which was clearly based on the public restroom incident and which featured men dressed up as policemen kissing. Rodriguez, the police officer, claimed that this video “mocked” him, and also that Michael had slandered him in interviews, and in 1999 filed a ten million dollar lawsuit in California against the singer. The court dismissed the case on the grounds related to the officer’s status as a kind of public official, but an appeals court reinstated the case on December 3, 2002.

Michael has often taken a public political stance. In 1984, he sang as part of Band Aid on the charity song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” for famine relief in Ethiopia. This single held the number one position in the UK music charts over Christmas 1984, holding Michael’s own song, “Last Christmas” by Wham!, at number two. Michael donated the royalties from “Last Christmas” to Band Aid and subsequently sang with Elton John at Live Aid (the Band Aid charity concert) in 1985.

In the 1980s, George Michael was very critical of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government and its cruise missile alliance with the United States. George said that he felt bad, since through his taxes he was paying for these weapons, yet was obliged to never dodge his tax obligations to his home country.

In December 2004 Elton John stated in an interview that he believed George Michael should “get out more”. As both John and Michael were openly gay and seemingly friends, many were surprised at the public spat. In an open letter response in “Heat” magazine, Michael claimed he and John were not good friends and that John had little knowledge of his personal life other than what he might glean from gossip (or the “gay grapevine”, as Michael termed it).

In July 2005 it was reported that the two had ended their nine month feud over a dinner at Michael’s North London home (apparently prepared by “celebrity chef” Gordon Ramsay). The two singers further agreed that John will re-release their 1991 duet “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” on an upcoming album.

This was not the first time that George had a negative camaraderie with fellow gay artists. During the early 80s singer Boy George was rather vocal in his dislike of George Michael, some of which is caught on video during the filming of the Band Aid collaboration. While recording harmonies, Boy George questioned the studio engineers whether one of the voices he heard on the vocal track was “Alf” [British singer-songwriter Alison Moyet, who did not participate in the charity single]. When the engineer indentified the voice as that of Michael, Boy George replied, “God, he sounded camp. But then he is.” The singer Morrissey (who many suspect to be gay) has also been critical of Michael, stating that he is “not impressed”.

Although Michael had tried to escape from his problems and depression by taking Prozac, smoking pot, and buying a Labrador Retriever that died in the Thames, a love-starved Michael appears to have risen from his depression through his relationship with Kenny Goss, his partner for nearly a decade. In late November, 2005 it was reported that Michael would wed Goss early in the following year in the UK (making it, technically, a “civil partnership”). It was announced on 26 February 2006 that George had been arrested for possession of Class C drugs, an incident that he described as “my own stupid fault, as usual.” He was cautioned by the Police department and let go. [2] [3].

Future career

In a recent interview with Michael Parkinson on Britain’s ITV Network, Michael announced his intention to tour for the first time in 15 years.

He announced that he would embark on a 50-date European tour entitled 25 Live beginning in Barcelona on September 23rd, 2006, and winding up at Wembley Arena in London in December.

He also confirmed his intention to tie the knot with long time partner, Kenny Goss. He told Parkinson “they will do the legal formal thing, then a party”.

He also quipped that “none of them would be donning a dress”.

To coincide with the tour a new greatest hits collection will be released in the fall, including four new tracks. The lead single “An Easier Affair” debuted on radio on May 24, 2006 and was released by Sony BMG as a download on 19th June and as a CD release on June 26. This new single has become a #1 in the UK Dance Charts and reached #13 on the UK Singles Chart upon physical release (download debuted at #74).

Discography

For a detailed account of album and single releases, please see the George Michael discography.

Faith (1987)

Listen without Prejudice, Vol. 1 (1990)

Older (1996)

Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael (1998)

Songs from the Last Century (1999)

Patience (2004)

Hits25 (2006)