George Michael's "Faith" (1987): Track by Track!

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