George Michael: The biography

by Rob Jovanovic

  Each leg of the tour was usually heralded by a new single and a press conference. In the summer ‘Monkey’ became the fifth single to be taken from Faith and a remix of the song reached number one on the US dance chart, the first time that either George Michael or Wham! had achieved this. The video was a mix of live footage from the current tour and studio footage of Michael wearing tight black trousers with a white shirt and braces, a hat pushed back on his head like other late Eighties acts.

  As for the press conference, Michael did well to contain his disdain. Normally at such events news journalists would ask the same old questions or make wild speculations, and this time was no exception. There were rumours about Michael’s health; AIDS was mentioned, just as would be the case with Michael Stipe a couple of years later. It seemed as though when any singer of ‘questionable’ sexuality had health issues or wanted to step back from public life a little, the mainly homophobic press of the late Eighties and early Nineties instantly jumped to the conclusion that AIDS was the cause.

  By the time Michael kicked off the North American leg of the tour in the autumn, around six million copies of Faith had been sold in the USA alone. This leg was a real test of his throat condition – he was scheduled to play an exhausting series of over 40 consecutive nights. But his vocal cords passed with flying colours. He was big news in the States and the likes of Madonna, Janet Jackson, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore and Whitney Houston attended his shows. He was also pleasantly surprised that although he had a massive, and loud, female following, the album and tour tickets were also being bought by a whole range of new fans: soul fans, rock fans and pop fans.

  In September the video for ‘Father Figure’ won the award for Best Direction – jointly shared between Michael and Andy Morahan – at the MTV Video Music Awards, and was nominated for both Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography. After more shows the longest tour of Michael’s career came to an end in Florida on Halloween. ‘I expected to be dealing with a completely different audience on this tour,’ said Michael once the dust had settled. ‘I expected a lot less screaming and I didn’t really get what I wanted, so maybe I’m overcompensating in the raunch department to make up for it. I don’t find it shocking though. If I was a guy watching the show I’d think it was funny. If I was watching someone being that cocky up on stage, I’d think it was fun. It’s what made Mick Jagger watchable, it’s what makes Prince watchable. I don’t expect the critics to disassociate that performer from me as a person because they don’t, they just think, fucking big-headed wanker. But it’s difficult for me to think of those repercussions when the audience are obviously getting off on it so much. I think it’s really funny at the end of the show, it’s such a pathetically harmless thing to do, when I put my back to the audience and I take my jacket off really slowly and the place goes absolutely mental. It’s just so funny! It’s really funny.’

  The last release of a busy year was the laid-back jazz of ‘Kissing A Fool’. The black and white video, set in a 1930s-style speakeasy, complete with period microphones, the band on stools and spread between piles of broken crates, captured the song’s mood perfectly. Critics more accustomed to George’s pop and soul leanings weren’t sure he had carried off the shift in direction. In fact it’s a perfectly good, if low-key, end to the Faith cycle.

  The plaudits kept coming at the start of the last year of the Eighties. George Michael had begun that decade singing about being on the dole and had gone on to become the biggest star on the planet. The latest batch of awards were some of his most important and most controversial to date. Faith won Album of the Year at the Grammys and International Hit of the Year at the Ivor Novello Awards, where Michael also won Songwriter of the Year again. In September Madonna presented him with the Video Vanguard Award at the MTV Video Music Awards. But at the 16th Annual American Music Awards in Los Angeles he, or rather the selection committee, stirred up quite a controversy. Michael won the award for Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist, which was usually the preserve of white artists, but he also walked away with the awards for Favorite Soul/R&B Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Album, awards usually presented to black artists. The black community were outraged. Film-maker Spike Lee and rappers Public Enemy started the outcry, claiming that black artists, always bypassed for the mainstream awards, were now even being shoe-horned out of their ‘own’ genre. For George Michael’s part, he was just happy to win. He hadn’t asked for the awards, hadn’t had any say in receiving them, they were just dropped onto his lap.

  While the arguments raged around him he kept a low public profile, taking the time to look back on a fantastic decade. As a solo artist he’d thrown everything into challenging the big two, Madonna and Michael Jackson, the biggest solo stars in the world. During the 1980s Jackson had gained a record nine US number one singles and Madonna seven; Michael was sandwiched between them with an impressive eight. Admitting later that he hadn’t been able to control his ego and had really wanted to try and topple those at the top, he realised in hindsight that he probably would have gained no more happiness from such an achievement. As maturity set in he decided that happiness would come from his private life, not his professional one. It was a real turning point.

  During 1989 he put down more roots, buying a second home in Santa Barbara for $3 million. The house was an architect-designed property, with 16 glass walls affording panoramic views well beyond the five acres that also came in the deal. Built in 1985, the house was constructed as a series of hexagonal shapes inspired by the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright. Michael had various changes made, including a new viewing deck from which he could watch the sunset.

  ‘I must admit I go out less and less,’ he told Q magazine. ‘Now and then I have to go to pretty well the same places where I know I’ll get a bit of breathing space. But I think if you can come through Wham! and the exceptional exposure we had around 1984 and 1985 and you still have a social life, still go out and get pissed out of your head, then you’re doing OK. My big problem is I haven’t got the ability to tell people to fuck off. I have the right to tell people to leave me alone. But it’s not worth it to me now to be in a roomful of people and by the end of the evening five or six people have a real aggression toward you. I’d rather just be pleasant and tell people nicely. When I’m on tour I don’t have any protection so I’m either rude to people and end up with everyone hating me, or I’m polite and waste my evening answering the same questions over and over. So I tend to get pissed out of my head and just try to enjoy myself. It is getting harder and harder but I think compared to a lot of people I still get out quite a lot on my own.’

  Having begun to step back and slow down, at the age of just 26 George Michael decided to write an autobiography. In Bare, put together with the help of author and journalist Tony Parsons, he talked openly about his childhood, Wham! and his fledgling solo career. But he didn’t reveal his biggest secret. On page 222 of Bare, Andros Georgiou talks of the offers he has turned down to tell his cousin’s ‘inside story’. But years later Andros changed his mind and decided that he would be interviewed for the Channel 5 documentary. After the end of the Faith tour, he recalled, Michael had invited him to a meal. With perhaps a little exaggeration, he claimed that George had drunk three bottles of wine before he found enough courage to tell him that he was gay. Andros was stunned, even more so when George told him that he’d been sleeping with one of Andros’ male friends. The world’s biggest hetero-sex symbol was gay.

  The understanding of his own sexuality and the adulation he’d been subjected to on the Faith tour had made Michael realise that the problems he’d encountered towards the end of Wham! hadn’t been solved by going solo. He needed to stop being a star for a while and take a different approach to promoting his music, and most of all work out what he wanted in his private life.

  ‘If I was not someone who knew about women, I wouldn’t have the audience I have,’ he said. ‘People don’t want to hear that, but it’s the truth. I spent the first part of my adulthood not being in love,
fucking around, fucking men, fucking women, thinking I was bisexual. I had no proof of anything deeper. I’d spent most of my professional life being told what my sexuality was, which was rather nice as I didn’t know. It could have gone on indefinitely if I’d kept working and taking public admiration as replacement for the real thing.’

  But the culture of America would probably struggle to understand why someone wouldn’t just want more and more adulation. Michael was bound to suffer something of a backlash. As he said during his evaluation of the end of the Faith period: ‘[I thought], Oh my god, I’m a massive star and I think I may be a poof. What am I going to do? This is not going to end well.’

  SEVEN

  WITHDRAWAL

  1990–1994

  with•draw•al

  The act or process of withdrawing, as: a retreat or retirement.

  retreat of a military force in the face of enemy attack or after a defeat.

  detachment, as from social or emotional involvement.

  a removal from a place or position of something that has been deposited.

  discontinuation of the use of an addictive substance.

  the physiological and mental readjustment that accompanies such discontinuation.

  ‘I love England. Tax-wise it’s very expensive here but I couldn’t give a toss really. I’ve got more money than I know what to do with anyway. I can’t pretend that I need any more money or that I need to hang on to my tax money. I’ve always paid my full tax. In the Wham! days people were always saying, take a year out of the country, but I just don’t see the point in having money if you’re not where you want to be. It makes the world an open prison if you can’t wake up somewhere you want to be. What’s money for, you know?’

  George Michael

  ‘There will come a day when what I am doing is no longer what the public want. I hope I’ll see it coming. I think there will be a point where I can’t match what I have done before. It happens to just about every artist and the way I am dealing with it is that I hope, because I started so young, that when the time comes there will be other avenues. I want it to happen gracefully because I see so many people fall and it’s terrifying for somebody in my position.’

  George Michael

  The new decade would bring massive changes to the music industry. Grunge and Britpop would rule the airwaves, everyone and their dog would get a home computer and start downloading music, and glorified talent shows like Pop Idol would soon transform the pop scene.

  Having moved to Los Angeles, Andrew Ridgeley made a surprise comeback in 1990. It shouldn’t have been a surprise – George Michael had mentioned it in interviews almost two years earlier – but the money coming in from Wham! had set Ridgeley up for life, so it wasn’t something he had to do. And the fact that he hadn’t been involved in any songwriting for almost ten years made the ‘comeback’ even more of an eyebrow raiser. Not that the album, Son of Albert, was ever going to be given much of a chance by the music press. They’d decided a long time ago that Ridgeley was a ‘talentless hanger-on’ and they weren’t about to change that opinion, no matter how good his album might be.

  Ridgeley had co-written eight of the ten songs, his collaborators including David Austin and Hugh Burns, and he’d co-produced the record with Gary Bromham. The opening ‘Red Dress’ included samples of motor racing cars and heavy guitars; if you didn’t know who the artist was, it sounded like Bon Jovi or Aerosmith. Ridgeley sang in a distinctly American style, if not exactly with an American accent, and as the album progressed it became clear that this was a hair-metal album, without the hair – Ridgeley was going a little thin on top. ‘Shake’ was released as a single but couldn’t crack the Top 50, while Son of Albert peaked at number 130 before sinking without a trace. It was a shame, because there was definitely an audience for this type of music, competent if not wholly original. But fans of Whitesnake were hardly likely to be caught buying an album by an ex-member of Wham!.

  Meanwhile, at the other end of the balance sheet, Forbes magazine named George Michael the biggest earner in the ‘entertainment’ industry, ahead of Michael Jackson and Mike Tyson. ‘Money does give you a lot of confidence,’ admitted Michael. ‘I know that no one can ever pull the rug out from under me. I am worth a lot of money and I know I can spend it on what I like today and it won’t affect my pocket tomorrow. It’s an incredible freedom to have. Money is such a big problem in most people’s lives, but it is a problem I am lucky enough to have avoided. My only extravagance is cars. I spend a lot of money on them because they’re like toys to me. And I buy clothes for prices I wouldn’t have dreamt of paying years ago.’

  Michael spent more time in Santa Barbara and various vacation spots around the USA before heading back to England and the familiar confines of Sarm West Studios in London. The new songs he worked on here signalled that his next album would mark a change in direction. During the quiet period between June 1989 and June 1990 he completed Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, a ten-song collection which took him a further step away from Wham!, and even a step away from the poppier moments of Faith. Holed up with engineer Chris Porter, he had recorded most of the tracks himself, playing bass, keyboards, guitar and percussion, though stalwarts like Deon Estus did make fleeting appearances. This was truly adult music. For George it was an intensely personal album, closer to the music he’d always wanted to make.

  But his label didn’t like where he was going. For George Michael there were problems on the horizon at Sony/CBS. The old guard at the company were being weeded out and the people that Michael had worked with for years, those he knew and trusted, were being ousted. This purge, combined with his desire to change the way he was portrayed in the media, set him on a collision course with the company.

  After Faith and the accompanying furore of 1987–88, he wanted to step back from the chores of promotion. He expected that the album would sell well – as would anything he released – without him whoring himself to every newspaper and teen magazine. ‘I think if I step outside the promotion and marketing of George Michael, doing all the videos and the big tours and interviews, then I have every chance of surviving as a successful musician and a balanced human being,’ he said. ‘I’ve achieved every other goal, I’ve done just about everything that I could and that’s my goal now. I hope the public understands. I don’t want people to feel pissed off or to feel Madonna is trapped in the way that Jackson’s become trapped. And that was my next option. There’s a point of no return, and I think I’ve stopped just short of it. I’m lucky, I know, because I still live the life I want to live. I do what I like. I still travel about. I’m quite sure Madonna can’t remember the last time she travelled from country to country on her own. Obviously this isn’t an ordinary life. But I do normal ordinary things, and I know, with time, I’ll be able to do more and more ordinary things. If I don’t do that much promotion, if you don’t push, it gets easier.’

  When the ‘suits’ at Sony heard the tapes of Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 they were stunned and disappointed. Obviously they were expecting Faith Vol. 2. One of them went so far as to quip that this was George Michael’s Nebraska. (Nebraska, released in 1982, had been Bruce Springsteen’s acoustic album. Springsteen had decided that the stark demo versions of the songs he’d written for the album were more powerful than the band versions he’d tried to record and so he’d used them on the album. Critics loved it but it sold poorly, fans finding it too much of a departure from his normal output.)

  What was more, he didn’t want to tour and wasn’t keen on filming videos for any singles that might be issued. ‘I had to walk away from [touring in] America, and say goodbye to the biggest part of my career,’ he said. ‘I knew [that] otherwise my demons would get the better of me.’ Michael wanted people to listen to the music on this album without an image with which to prejudge it.

  ‘I’ve realised that I have a lot more respect for my own music than I used to have,’ he explained. ‘I actually believe in what I do as a musician now, divorced c
ompletely from the imagery. And I’ve come to the point where I know that creating imagery makes me unhappy now.’ He emphasised that his purpose in withdrawing from the public gaze was not to create some kind of mystique around himself, but warned: ‘I want people to know that for the foreseeable future, unless there’s something really important to say, which I don’t think there will be, I’m going to kind of disappear. I’ve made a platform for myself now from which I can make music and that’s all. It’s not me going, oh, I’m such a serious musician who takes himself so seriously that people should only hear the music. It’s just now I think the music is strong enough to stand up on its own, and my priority now is to keep myself happy.’

  His decision to hold himself back drew comment from the strangest of places. Frank Sinatra was moved to write a letter to the Los Angeles Times on the matter:

  When I saw your Calendar cover today about George Michael ‘the reluctant pop star’ my first reaction was he should thank the good Lord every morning when he wakes up to have all that he has. And that’ll make two of us thanking God every morning for all we have. I don’t understand a guy who lives ‘in hopes of reducing the strain of his celebrity status’. Here’s a kid who ‘wanted to be a pop star since I was about seven years old’. And now that he’s a smash performer and songwriter at twenty-seven he wants to quit doing what tons of gifted youngsters all over the world would shoot Grandma for – just one crack at what he’s complaining about. Come on, George. Loosen up. Swing, man. Dust off those gossamer wings and fly yourself to the moon of your choice and be grateful to carry the baggage we’ve all had to carry since those lean nights of sleeping on buses and helping the driver unload the instruments. And no more of that talk about ‘the tragedy of fame’. The tragedy of fame is when no one shows up and you’re singing to the cleaning lady in some empty joint that hasn’t seen a paying customer since Saint Swithin’s day. And you’re nowhere near that; you’re top dog on the top rung of a tall ladder called Stardom, which in Latin means thanks-to-the-fans who were there when it was lonely. Talent must not be wasted. Those who have it – and you obviously do or today’s Calendar cover would have been about Rudy Vallee – those who have talent must hug it, embrace it, nurture it and share it lest it be taken away from you as fast as it was loaned to you. Trust me. I’ve been there. Frank Sinatra.