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

<v Speaker 1>Welcome everybody to the Shirley 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.
<v Speaker 1>Shake my but.
<v Speaker 3>Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely you Can't Be
<v Speaker 3>Serious Podcast, discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten
<v Speaker 3>of eighties and nineties pop culture with your co hosts
<v Speaker 3>Jane V. Graves and Jason Caliban.
<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 Exit 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. 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 1>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 masacre
<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 impressed 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 but
<v Speaker 1>putting 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 they were young. Guys were
<v Speaker 2>really young, like when they got started they were nineteen yeah,
<v Speaker 2>But George had an ability to write catchy tunes, and
<v Speaker 2>Andrew wanted to be the biggest band in the world
<v Speaker 2>and it'd 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>of 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 2>I saw this. One of the songs that they played
<v Speaker 2>on top of the pops was young Guns go for It.
<v Speaker 2>But these guys had a rap song. These are two
<v Speaker 2>English white guys in nineteen eighty two who were rapping
<v Speaker 2>that was 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 2>If you heard of that one, yeah, Actually, I think
<v Speaker 2>everybody in the world had a copy of This is
<v Speaker 2>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 Minute Work and
<v Speaker 1>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. In the eighties,
<v Speaker 1>aides had just become a thing, and this was a
<v Speaker 1>shocking and scary thing that was associated at the time
<v Speaker 1>with that lifestyle, and so they convinced him at the
<v Speaker 1>time to just keep it a secret, and so for
<v Speaker 1>the 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 whim at the time was a young
<v Speaker 1>lady named Brooke 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 2>George Michael and Brook Shields. That's a pretty powerful early
<v Speaker 2>eighties couple right there. Yeah. Okay, so of those singles
<v Speaker 2>that Wham put out from 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 had
<v Speaker 1>who never had a chance with her. And then you know,
<v Speaker 1>he 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, he happens to a couple of years later,
<v Speaker 1>come across Jane again and she has seen him doing
<v Speaker 1>some DJing and she's now enamored with him, and so
<v Speaker 1>he starts seeing Jane without telling Helen, and he said
<v Speaker 1>this song. He remembers coming up with it on the bus,
<v Speaker 1>like he very very vividly remembers, you know, in the
<v Speaker 1>bus home and as he's handing the money to the
<v Speaker 1>bus driver, as he's about to get off the bus,
<v Speaker 1>this sax solo comes into his head, unmistakable sax ol.
<v Speaker 2>Right, yeah, I heard him say that. At that time
<v Speaker 2>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 sacks 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 1>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 wis 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 Ridgeley co wrote
<v Speaker 2>the song with him. I don't know what do you
<v Speaker 2>think about that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's strange. I haven't been able to find an
<v Speaker 1>answer as to why they did it this way, other
<v Speaker 1>than maybe that George had this kind of deeper, longer
<v Speaker 1>connection with the song. I mean, it was before he
<v Speaker 1>had formed a band with Andrew that he started putting
<v Speaker 1>this song together. So maybe it was just an agreement
<v Speaker 1>between he and Andrew that, hey, this song I just
<v Speaker 1>feel like needs to be my song. That's the only
<v Speaker 1>reason that I can think, because it was. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>they were still Wham together, they were still touring together,
<v Speaker 1>but one album cover just has him. I mean, it's
<v Speaker 1>just George Michael Careless Whisper, and then the alternative one
<v Speaker 1>is one that says Wham on it Careless Whisper featuring
<v Speaker 1>George Michael. So I don't know why this seemed to
<v Speaker 1>be more of a solo single than a Wham single.
<v Speaker 1>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 1>Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic, and it was. It was a
<v Speaker 1>big deal. I mean, that was that allowed other bands
<v Speaker 1>to come in. It kind of improved the relationship between
<v Speaker 1>China and the West and allowing things like that to happen.
<v Speaker 1>But that was that was a huge deal for them globally.
<v Speaker 1>I mean they were already a big success in Europe
<v Speaker 1>and in the Americas, but to do that that created
<v Speaker 1>such a buzz about him that obviously the money just
<v Speaker 1>poured in 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 I know, they're twenty
<v Speaker 2>two years old.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's insane. So at the time that George had
<v Speaker 1>decided to form this band with Andrew, he went to
<v Speaker 1>his father and told him what his plan was, and
<v Speaker 1>his father was like, why do you want to do this?
<v Speaker 1>Why don't you just want to come and run the
<v Speaker 1>restaurant with me. This was what you're supposed to do.
<v Speaker 1>You're never going to amount to anything as a musician,
<v Speaker 1>and so that was kind of a big blow for him. Obviously,
<v Speaker 1>he 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>play China in nineteen eighty five. They also play Live
<v Speaker 2>Aid in nineteen eighty five.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, which was Live Aid produced by Bob Belard, who
<v Speaker 1>later his wife would have an affair and ultimately a
<v Speaker 1>child with Michael us.
<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. These are great catchy.
<v Speaker 1>Pop tunes yep.
<v Speaker 2>But at this point they're still 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 will 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 2>You know he's not wrong about that either.
<v Speaker 1>No. I mean the reason that I Want Your Sex
<v Speaker 1>was the first big boom from this album is because
<v Speaker 1>he wanted to let parents know it's not okay for
<v Speaker 1>you to go out and buy my albums for your kids.
<v Speaker 2>All right. So a lot of people say that his
<v Speaker 2>sort of first steps as a solo artist came with
<v Speaker 2>Careless Whisper, and I would agree with that. But his
<v Speaker 2>leap came not with Faith but with a song that
<v Speaker 2>came out in early nineteen eighty seven. Sometimes it's this
<v Speaker 2>kid's forgotten, I think, But the song I Knew You
<v Speaker 2>Were Waiting for Me 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 if you're counting at home,
<v Speaker 2>that's number One's with Waking Up Before You Go Go
<v Speaker 2>Everything She wants Careless Whisper and Now I Knew You
<v Speaker 2>were waiting for Me with the Queen of Soul.
<v Speaker 1>Are We ready to jump into the album.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, let's 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. He wanted to set
<v Speaker 1>himself out as a musical artist who is not the
<v Speaker 1>bubblegum pop artist for kids. 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 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. What is that? And as
<v Speaker 1>I played it in my head, I was like, I'm
<v Speaker 1>singing the lyrics to a different George Michael. No, this
<v Speaker 1>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
<v Speaker 1>it too. I don't know. I don't know which one
<v Speaker 1>of them is the right, but it's either way the
<v Speaker 1>equally the same, same idea. What was before is no longer.
<v Speaker 1>We are now something new.
<v Speaker 2>Okay. 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. 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 2>It's kind of curious of the dates how they had
<v Speaker 2>two singles released before the album was even available. All right,
<v Speaker 2>So Faith is the second single released October twelfth, nineteen
<v Speaker 2>eighty seven. This one hit number one December twelfth, nineteen
<v Speaker 2>eighty seven, only took seven weeks to reach the top
<v Speaker 2>spot on the Hot one hundred. That's like a rocket,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, that's shooting up the charts yep, and was
<v Speaker 2>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 done. No, no, this is that
<v Speaker 1>reimagined it. And so that little guitar beat that he's
<v Speaker 1>got going on is all about the early rock and
<v Speaker 1>roll style. And I mean, crap, he looks like the
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighty seven version of Elvis.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I mean it absolutely got the.
<v Speaker 1>Elvis hair, except it's frosted. The jeans, the leather, the glasses.
<v Speaker 1>I mean it's it is all right there. And then
<v Speaker 1>he's got that guitar and he's swiveling his hips just
<v Speaker 1>like 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'clock's.
<v Speaker 1>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 Dock. Oh yeah, oh, the leather jacket, the ray bands,
<v Speaker 2>the jeans, you know, the boots.
<v Speaker 1>And the guitar. I mean, and the guitar is you
<v Speaker 1>said it's a costume, it's a character. I mean, any
<v Speaker 1>guitar player watching him play is going to go, You're
<v Speaker 1>not playing that guitar. What is he doing? And so
<v Speaker 1>somebody actually asked him the like, okay, you don't play
<v Speaker 1>the guitar, why are you in this video with a guitar?
<v Speaker 1>And he said, Americans, if you stick a guitar on,
<v Speaker 1>you have a big penis.
<v Speaker 2>Something that he's intending to be a lot of things
<v Speaker 2>in this video, including a guitar.
<v Speaker 1>Player, fighter jets, guitars, penises. There you go.
<v Speaker 2>This song is covered by Limp Biscuit. Have you heard
<v Speaker 2>this version of it? Uh? Yeah, I guess it would
<v Speaker 2>be nice touch about it.
<v Speaker 1>I know, not everybody he has got a body like me.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I
<v Speaker 2>just stick with the George Michael version.
<v Speaker 1>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 1>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 Emotional, by Whitney Houston, one of the pop stars
<v Speaker 2>at the time that he was trying to reach that level.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Well, and it had been. The album itself was
<v Speaker 1>in number one in and out several times, knocked out
<v Speaker 1>at one point, I think by Tiffany and her debut album.
<v Speaker 2>Yes. So they asked him, you know, what does faith
<v Speaker 2>mean to you?
<v Speaker 1>You know?
<v Speaker 2>And he said, well, it represents the way I felt
<v Speaker 2>at the moment. It's kind of like another word for
<v Speaker 2>hope or optimism. 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>there's a right choice.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely, all right, moving on to track number two, I
<v Speaker 1>Will Be Your Father Figure.
<v Speaker 3>That's a.
<v Speaker 2>Song same.
<v Speaker 3>So de Sid.
<v Speaker 2>This song's a masterpiece. Okay, this song is a pop masterpiece.
<v Speaker 1>Well it is. It definitely needs to be a part
<v Speaker 1>of the Makeout Slash four Play Slash Finish Off mixtape
<v Speaker 1>of nineteen eighty seven. So you guys know that, Like
<v Speaker 1>we talked back and forth before we have these episodes
<v Speaker 1>and talk what we're about, what we're doing. And Jason
<v Speaker 1>at one for says, I just ran like three miles
<v Speaker 1>and listened to the Faith album and it was a
<v Speaker 1>little weird from time to time. I cannot imagine running
<v Speaker 1>and sweating out in the Oklahoma son to I Will
<v Speaker 1>Be Your Father.
<v Speaker 2>I got to do my research, man. So Father Vigor
<v Speaker 2>was actually the fourth single. It stayed number one for
<v Speaker 2>two weeks. It was released December twenty eighth, nineteen eighty seven,
<v Speaker 2>hit number one February twenty seventh, nineteen eighty eight. Again
<v Speaker 2>that's two months to reach the top. That's really fast,
<v Speaker 2>and it knocked out Never Going to Give You Up
<v Speaker 2>by Rick Ashley, 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 2>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>Nicely to Come a moon Man. Yeah this video, he's
<v Speaker 2>a cab driver and then he meets that high fashion
<v Speaker 2>model and they kind of stare at each other longingly.
<v Speaker 2>That high fashion model is Tanya Coleridge, by the way,
<v Speaker 2>who at the time I thought every woman just wore
<v Speaker 2>garter belts, and you know, like, this is exactly what
<v Speaker 2>I want my life to be.
<v Speaker 1>Right. Jason got married and his wife's getting ready. He's like,
<v Speaker 1>are you gonna put on your guard belt. We're about
<v Speaker 1>to head out and forgetting your garter.
<v Speaker 2>That's right, don't put your launch I'll take yours beds
<v Speaker 2>off and put on your lingerie.
<v Speaker 1>Let's go. It's hilarious. So I don't know if you
<v Speaker 1>have you seen the movie Atomic Blonde, I have not. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>talk about a sensual movie. It's not a sentual movie.
<v Speaker 1>There's a there's a few pretty central parts in it,
<v Speaker 1>but this song is essential as it is is part
<v Speaker 1>of this huge fight scene in it. And to throw
<v Speaker 1>it back to the Tom Cruise top gun thing, the
<v Speaker 1>producers actually wanted to use take My Breath Away by
<v Speaker 1>Berlin in the scene, but they couldn't clear it, and
<v Speaker 1>so instead they use this in a kick but Charlie's
<v Speaker 1>Throne beautiful and bad a making it awesome.
<v Speaker 2>Nice cool, that's really cool. Father Figure was sampled in
<v Speaker 2>PM Don's Looking Through Patient Eyes nineteen ninety three. It
<v Speaker 2>was sampled in the song Father by Ill COOLJ. And
<v Speaker 2>it was sampled by Destiny's Child in Winter Paradise. Pretty
<v Speaker 2>impactful song. Absolutely, Okay, what's your feeling on this song?
<v Speaker 2>You like this one?
<v Speaker 1>Oh? Man? I love it so far. I mean, I'll
<v Speaker 1>just say the first the first several song, the first
<v Speaker 1>four songs at the very least, and we'll have to
<v Speaker 1>go through but out of the box are fan freaking
<v Speaker 1>tastic Faith Dynamo. I mean, the throwback to the fifty
<v Speaker 1>sixties rock and the poppy drums and hooks. It's amazing.
<v Speaker 1>And then father figure, my gosh, I mean the song
<v Speaker 1>was made to make out too, and so why wouldn't you, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>why wouldn't you at my age, which would have been thirteen,
<v Speaker 1>love that song.
<v Speaker 2>Right all right? So that brings us to the most
<v Speaker 2>controversial song on the album. This song is called I
<v Speaker 2>Want Your Sex.
<v Speaker 1>So you want to tell me what you said you
<v Speaker 1>thought the music sounded.
<v Speaker 4>This song and juicy, Yep, there's something very sex sounding
<v Speaker 4>about this music.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what they did, how they made the
<v Speaker 1>plunking and the blipping and the blooping and all of
<v Speaker 1>that with the instruments. I don't know how they did
<v Speaker 1>what they did, but it just it's just like, man,
<v Speaker 1>it sounds like doing it.
<v Speaker 2>It does. It sounds like yes, like a wet porno
<v Speaker 2>at the beginning of the song. This song was released
<v Speaker 2>originally on the Beverly Hills Cop two soundtrack.
<v Speaker 1>Really, I did not know that it was one of
<v Speaker 1>the hits.
<v Speaker 2>So like Shakedown, Cross My Broken Heart, and I Watch
<v Speaker 2>Your Sex. It was actually played in the movie during
<v Speaker 2>the strip club scene. But this was released June first,
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty seven. And like you said, this was a
<v Speaker 2>stark difference from Wham. Right out of the gate. He's
<v Speaker 2>demonstrating I'm done with that teeny bopper crap. I'm making
<v Speaker 2>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 to, then you're probably going to have
<v Speaker 1>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 out front. You know, Delirious was out front.
<v Speaker 2>This is the first song that was like a hit
<v Speaker 2>song had the word sex in it. This, yeah, only
<v Speaker 2>reached number two. So it only reached number two because
<v Speaker 2>at the time that was based on sales like single
<v Speaker 2>sales and radio play, and there were a lot of
<v Speaker 2>radio stations around the country that refused to play the song.
<v Speaker 2>I remember there were certain radio stations that had alternate
<v Speaker 2>versions of it that the song was called I Want
<v Speaker 2>Your Love, and it was this loop from the song
<v Speaker 2>where they've played I Want Your Love, I Want you 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 A 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 1>Like this, start your mouth he is, he's a good
<v Speaker 1>girl alone, stop pressuring her.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, a man's got his patience and that is where
<v Speaker 2>his ended. 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 1>One on one. Although I'm not really sure if he
<v Speaker 1>bought into that line, I don't know if he believed.
<v Speaker 2>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 that even MTV was resistant to playing the
<v Speaker 1>video until they put that part in where he's writing
<v Speaker 1>on the girl explore monogamy. He's like writing with lipstick
<v Speaker 1>on the girl, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that was a big deal. Yeah, even MTV was
<v Speaker 2>carried off by this song. I do want to mention
<v Speaker 2>one other thing before we dive into the video, because
<v Speaker 2>I do want to get into the video. Casey Cason
<v Speaker 2>would not say the title of this song during the
<v Speaker 2>Top forty countdown. He would say things like George Michael's
<v Speaker 2>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 we have Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I've got my sex, but I want your sex together
<v Speaker 2>we have sex. Yeah, Okay, So let's talk about the
<v Speaker 2>video for a second. Okay, Like you said, MTV made
<v Speaker 2>him because they were concerned about the AIDS epidemic. They
<v Speaker 2>were concerned that this was going to be promoting promiscuous activities,
<v Speaker 2>and so they made him put this little PSA at
<v Speaker 2>the beginning of the video where he's talking about this
<v Speaker 2>is not about crazy sex. 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. It's it is.
<v Speaker 1>It is amazing. What when somebody finally just goes, oh,
<v Speaker 1>there's the line, yeah, I'll just go ahead and step
<v Speaker 1>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 on 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. Okay music video when we talk about.
<v Speaker 1>Music video, Yeah, just to quote here, Okay. So, I
<v Speaker 1>mean this is the time of AIDS being a very
<v Speaker 1>huge factor. Safe sex was what everybody was all about
<v Speaker 1>at the time that this thing came out, and George
<v Speaker 1>said this, He said, the media has divided love and
<v Speaker 1>sex incredibly. The emphasis of the AIDS campaign has been
<v Speaker 1>on safe sex. But the campaign has missed relationships. It's
<v Speaker 1>missed emotion, it's missed monogamy. I Want Your Sex is
<v Speaker 1>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 coolest thing that one
<v Speaker 2>could possibly do. I would have written the words I
<v Speaker 2>Want Your Sex in lipstick. But you know, okay, one
<v Speaker 2>of the things I want to mention on the album
<v Speaker 2>on the LP. On the CD, I Want Your Sex
<v Speaker 2>Part one and Part two are lumped together in this
<v Speaker 2>big long song. Oh yeah, see that bothers me. I
<v Speaker 2>take I separate those.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you should. This is a pop single, and no
<v Speaker 1>pop single needs to be nine minutes long. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>save that for the album Rock of Lynyrd Skinnyard. If
<v Speaker 1>the song lasts longer than the sex last made the
<v Speaker 1>song too long, 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 2>Okay, all right? So, so Part one of I Want
<v Speaker 2>Your Sex is 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 1>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>it's the version of the great song that I don't
<v Speaker 2>want to hear. I don't like it at all.
<v Speaker 1>What do you think? It is unnecessary? And it doesn't.
<v Speaker 1>It takes away from the first song instead of adding
<v Speaker 1>to it. I mean, as far as quality and listenability
<v Speaker 1>is concerned, it's not. I don't don't care.
<v Speaker 2>For it me too. Just leave it off, Just leave
<v Speaker 2>the great song. Yeah, cut trim the fat here.
<v Speaker 1>I'm doing this just to let you know. As to
<v Speaker 1>those weird sounds that we were talking about, they were
<v Speaker 1>generated with a very early sampling device called a green
<v Speaker 1>Gate DS three, which ran on an Apple two computer.
<v Speaker 2>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 a sampler. The devices were connected to
<v Speaker 1>a MIDI 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 2>One more try?
<v Speaker 1>This song is friggin beautiful.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this is an amazing song. In my opinion, this
<v Speaker 2>is either the first or second best song on the album,
<v Speaker 2>this or Father Figure.
<v Speaker 1>I love this song.
<v Speaker 2>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. It's just an amazing ballad.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this one almost feels gospel to me.
<v Speaker 1>You know.
<v Speaker 2>It starts out with that synth that almost feels like
<v Speaker 2>church music. And I think the video kind of backs
<v Speaker 2>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 2>Okay. So this song reached number one on the Hot
<v Speaker 2>one 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 are 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.
<v Speaker 2>Well that's a little bit hard to believe at that time.
<v Speaker 2>But this song is just so good. The interesting So
<v Speaker 2>there's a couple of interesting things about this song that
<v Speaker 2>I think are worth mentioning. So this is the third
<v Speaker 2>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. It reached number eight on the
<v Speaker 2>UK charts, so he was not doing as well in
<v Speaker 2>his home country as he did in America. It seems
<v Speaker 2>kind of crazy. This is the sixth number one.
<v Speaker 1>For George Michael. Yeah, that's awesome and 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 1>That's incredibly fast, and to do that well, the song
<v Speaker 1>has to have merit on multiple levels. Obviously, the hook
<v Speaker 1>is there, I mean, the melody on this one is
<v Speaker 1>flat out awesome. The instrumentation for the eighties was spot on.
<v Speaker 1>His voice is incredible and soulful. And then the lyrics,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, the lyrics tell you a story of a
<v Speaker 1>man who has been in bad relationships before, who's trying
<v Speaker 1>to say no to a relationship that's in front of him,
<v Speaker 1>only to be ultimately overcome the end and fall in
<v Speaker 1>love and be part of the relationship as 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 1>That's great, that's a great comp.
<v Speaker 2>Mariah Carey covered this song in twenty fourteen. Have you
<v Speaker 2>listened to that version of it?
<v Speaker 1>Oh?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so I listened to it. I also listened to
<v Speaker 2>her version of def Leppards bringing on the Heartbreak Not
<v Speaker 2>so good, all right, not the best, but this one
<v Speaker 2>because it's that softer, more soulful ballad. She actually does
<v Speaker 2>have a good version of this. I 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 2>It's not as good as the first one. Let's talk
<v Speaker 2>about the video for a second, Okay. This video was
<v Speaker 2>directed by Tony Scott. Tony Scott is the director of Thailand.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, yeah, well, I mean and you can definitely see
<v Speaker 1>the top gun like the take My breath Away part
<v Speaker 1>of Top Gun exafinitely the style of this video for sure,
<v Speaker 1>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 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 1>Okay. The first song on side two is hard Day.
<v Speaker 2>Don't Bring Me Down. Okay. This song is actually the
<v Speaker 2>third single of the Fate, which to me was kind
<v Speaker 2>of a surprise because I wasn't familiar with the song.
<v Speaker 2>They didn't make a video for this song. I didn't
<v Speaker 2>know it. I didn't hear it. But it's good.
<v Speaker 1>I like it. It's got that funk. It's one of the
<v Speaker 1>funky songs on the album. It's and I dig it.
<v Speaker 1>But I feel like they just kind of missed the
<v Speaker 1>mark a little bit. It's not bad. It just I
<v Speaker 1>heard this and I was like, this could be a single,
<v Speaker 1>but it's just missing something and I can't even put
<v Speaker 1>my finger on it. But I guess they felt like
<v Speaker 1>it wasn't missing anything because obviously they released it as.
<v Speaker 2>A single Father Figure be a hit today, kissing it
<v Speaker 2>to be a hit today. This one, it's a little
<v Speaker 2>bit eighties.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, let me let me listen to this.
<v Speaker 2>Which we love eighties. We love eighties, so don't get
<v Speaker 2>me wrong on that. I really like the chorus in
<v Speaker 2>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 describe that, and then it comes with the en
<v Speaker 1>with a total dance funk. Okay. So my feeling on
<v Speaker 1>this song is that the bass line overwhelms the song
<v Speaker 1>main don't but no No, Main New bound Down. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>it's just in your face if you had that organ
<v Speaker 1>instead of that synthesizer there, or even just a piano
<v Speaker 1>or something. I don't know that. It's just it kind
<v Speaker 1>of misses the mark for me. 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 you
<v Speaker 2>record companies do these types of things. Either release it
<v Speaker 2>or don't release it. But anyway released October thirtieth, nineteen
<v Speaker 2>eighty seven. It released it. It reached the top five
<v Speaker 2>on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart and it
<v Speaker 2>was the top It was in the top forty of
<v Speaker 2>the US R and B chart. So this song was
<v Speaker 2>the B side of the I Wancher Sex single and
<v Speaker 2>when they released Hard Day as a single. On the
<v Speaker 2>B side of Hard Day was an extended version of
<v Speaker 2>I Want Your six. So the lyrics are addressed to
<v Speaker 2>a woman that the singer is like obsessed with. But
<v Speaker 2>in the last verse, George Michael is like singing a
<v Speaker 2>duet with himself, so it's it's his male voice and
<v Speaker 2>then this sped up, pitched up version of himself as
<v Speaker 2>the female.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, listen
<v Speaker 1>to this sweet.
<v Speaker 2>Little mouths and gets in the when the people don't understand.
<v Speaker 1>You're telling me that this is George Michael.
<v Speaker 2>That's yes, no freaking way, yes, yes, And you know
<v Speaker 2>where he got the idea from, Dodge 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 2>Yes, that's exactly right.
<v Speaker 1>That's fan freakantastic. 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. Prince's
<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 2>Awesome. I can't wait to get into that one.
<v Speaker 1>But oh, it's gonna be fantastic, but I'm sorry. So
<v Speaker 1>George Michael is listening to Prince do some stuff off
<v Speaker 1>of Sign of the Times and comes up with 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 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 going to 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. I'm
<v Speaker 1>just floored. Thank you, thank you for blowing my mind today.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, you're welcome.
<v Speaker 1>Moving on. Next song is hand him out? Okay, so
<v Speaker 1>is this intro is in? I have an expectation of
<v Speaker 1>a song, right you get very the drums are solid
<v Speaker 1>in here, and then you get the piano coming in,
<v Speaker 1>and then you get that bass again that I thought
<v Speaker 1>was kind of overwhelming on hard day. But it's not
<v Speaker 1>so overwhelming. It's just a simple bassline and then the
<v Speaker 1>lyrics I love in his voice. I love, but this
<v Speaker 1>melody doesn't belong with these drums, Like I feel like
<v Speaker 1>it was a great song that somebody bought brought a
<v Speaker 1>drum machine to and it's like, oh hey, let's put
<v Speaker 1>these drums to this. And if I was there in
<v Speaker 1>the studio. I'd be like, yeah, that's a nice trick,
<v Speaker 1>but take that crap out of here. This is good.
<v Speaker 1>They don't need these drums in here. This is like
<v Speaker 1>in the Ghetto by Elvis. This needs to be slowed
<v Speaker 1>down a little bit, have real instruments and no drums
<v Speaker 1>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 could see that the choice to leave the drums
<v Speaker 1>in I think it was a bad choice. And I've
<v Speaker 1>heard him. I try to look. Once I heard the song,
<v Speaker 1>I was like, I know he did an MTV unplugged,
<v Speaker 1>I know he did some other stuff maybe, and he did,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm TV unplugged in this of this song, and
<v Speaker 1>it sounds better because he's got pianos in there instead
<v Speaker 1>of the synthesizer, but it's still got the drums in there.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm just like, no, this if I could, you know,
<v Speaker 1>if I had these tracks that I could break up
<v Speaker 1>I boot that drum. I would make it a real
<v Speaker 1>piano and not this synthesizer. And if you had that,
<v Speaker 1>you got a fan freakantastic song. As it is, I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna listen to it for about a minute, and I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna get tired of this repetitive drum beat and I'm
<v Speaker 1>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 it 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
<v Speaker 2>kind of the.
<v Speaker 1>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 Blue by Prince. Different tone,
<v Speaker 2>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 bas on that that
<v Speaker 2>sounded very.
<v Speaker 1>At all, No, very similar. Okay, So this song is
<v Speaker 1>different from the other songs on the album because it's
<v Speaker 1>kind of a social commentary. This isn't about sex, this
<v Speaker 1>isn't about love, this isn't about relationships. This is about
<v Speaker 1>people on the streets, people who lose themselves to poverty
<v Speaker 1>and to drugs, and that's that kind of thing, and
<v Speaker 1>where their children are left. It's definitely an entirely different
<v Speaker 1>storyline than the other stuff that we have 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. Again, I just think that
<v Speaker 1>the instrumentation they missed the they missed the mark on it.
<v Speaker 1>Next track on the CD tape or LP is look
<v Speaker 1>at Your Hands.
<v Speaker 2>So this one's a little bluesy. There's more horn. It's
<v Speaker 2>interesting to see how he moves from ballad to dance
<v Speaker 2>song to jazz. We haven't got to yet and this
<v Speaker 2>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 feel about it. I
<v Speaker 1>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 saxophone in there like the Xcess has,
<v Speaker 1>and then the piano like it. Yeah, this is strong
<v Speaker 1>in excess to me, strong in excess feel on this one?
<v Speaker 2>Interesting? Okay?
<v Speaker 1>Cool. Sometimes it just takes hearing a song about four
<v Speaker 1>or five times and then you fall in love with it.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 2>That happens to me quite a little bit actually.
<v Speaker 1>So this song is about a guy who is unhappy
<v Speaker 1>with is unhappy with the way that his ex girlfriend's
<v Speaker 1>life has turned out. He got two fat children and
<v Speaker 1>a drunken man. Bet you don't, bet you don't like
<v Speaker 1>your life. Uh So this one's I don't know if
<v Speaker 1>this one is pleading with her or if it's just yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I know he's just he says, I still want you tonight.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, he's telling her she's made a big mistake.
<v Speaker 1>Your kids are brats and your your man's a dirty drunk.
<v Speaker 1>You should be with me. That's I love that's some
<v Speaker 1>that's some solid, all right. So this one is back
<v Speaker 1>to the funk. You're right, yeah, I love it. I
<v Speaker 1>mean this is the eighties music that I go back
<v Speaker 1>to and revisit and I'm just like, yeah, give me
<v Speaker 1>eighties all about it.
<v Speaker 2>So this song is called Monkey. This is the sixth
<v Speaker 2>single released July third, nineteen eighty eight. This one hit
<v Speaker 2>number one on the Hot one hundred. Man, this is
<v Speaker 2>just a string of number one hits. The song on
<v Speaker 2>the LP is not as good as the song in
<v Speaker 2>the video, so it's two different versions of it. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>so this song.
<v Speaker 1>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 Rhythmnation 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 in.
<v Speaker 2>The Can we please go?
<v Speaker 1>I'm glad?
<v Speaker 2>So this music video directed again by Andy Morahan. It
<v Speaker 2>was choreographed by Paul Abdul.
<v Speaker 1>How many times has a made appearance on our podcast?
<v Speaker 2>Was Nuklalush paula Abduel? George Michael. Yeah, So it's intercut
<v Speaker 2>with him in his concert footage and he looks awesome.
<v Speaker 2>The denim jacket's running around singing looking cool, and then
<v Speaker 2>they interspliced the white shirt and black hat, which I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>oh man, not a good look for him.
<v Speaker 1>Think about this, Think about this? Okay. There were guys
<v Speaker 1>that existed in nineteen eighty seven nineteen eighty eight that
<v Speaker 1>knew that girls liked George Michael, and they knew that
<v Speaker 1>George Michael wore that hat, and so they went out
<v Speaker 1>and bought a hat so that they could look like
<v Speaker 1>George Michael.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I think you are probably right about that.
<v Speaker 1>They also wore suspenders with blue cheeses.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yes, and the five o'clock shadow was definitely in
<v Speaker 2>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 and it I don't get the reference.
<v Speaker 2>But the song is about a drug habit. The monkey
<v Speaker 2>on your back is a drug habit. Do you love
<v Speaker 2>your 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 1>Yeah, I'll turn it on. I like it.
<v Speaker 2>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 stayed there for two weeks. So with this,
<v Speaker 1>he joined Michael jacks and Whitney Houston as three artists
<v Speaker 1>who had four or more consecutive number one singles during
<v Speaker 1>the nineteen eighty seven eighty eight era. 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 2>That's incredible. It's incredible.
<v Speaker 1>It was off two albums. But that's pretty that's pretty impressive.
<v Speaker 2>It's impressive.
<v Speaker 1>Monkey also reached number one on the US Hot Dance
<v Speaker 1>Club Play chart, and it was his first dance number
<v Speaker 1>one when they released the single version was that remixed
<v Speaker 1>version by Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis.
<v Speaker 2>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 Singapore.
<v Speaker 2>It's beautiful. Another stone cold killer on this album. So
<v Speaker 2>Kissing the Fool was the seventh single released November twenty
<v Speaker 2>first nineteen eighty eight. This song, to me sounds something
<v Speaker 2>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 1>I can give you. I can give you old school piano,
<v Speaker 1>old school stand up bass, and me singing the blues,
<v Speaker 1>and you're gonna follow him 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 that.
<v Speaker 1>I was drinking himself to sleep.
<v Speaker 2>This album was originally supposed to be called Kissing It Full.
<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 at 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 Bubla, and it is whereas you can listen to
<v Speaker 1>so many of the songs on this album and go, yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 1>this is kind of dated. I can say this is eighties.
<v Speaker 1>This song is timeless.
<v Speaker 2>It is timeless. Yeah, okay, great song. I love this song.
<v Speaker 2>It's beautiful.
<v Speaker 1>How did it feel when you were running and listening?
<v Speaker 2>Yes? Again, a little bit weird exercising while listening to
<v Speaker 2>this album. Okay. So that brings us to the last
<v Speaker 2>song on the tape, at least a last request, I
<v Speaker 2>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. 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? Give it up? I mean,
<v Speaker 1>just let it go. She's not interested.
<v Speaker 2>She's very tired and has a hitdache.
<v Speaker 1>And again this horribly dated with this synthier 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 1>I don't know if that's a confession you want to
<v Speaker 1>make on the air, bro.
<v Speaker 2>This has the cinemax after a dark type.
<v Speaker 1>You're saying this is the eighties version of boun 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 1>They wisely left it off of the LP. I'm not
<v Speaker 1>sure why they brought it back for the CD and
<v Speaker 1>the tape as a bonus track. I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>So I did want to bring this up. I don't
<v Speaker 2>know if we really got into this when we covered
<v Speaker 2>I Want Your Sex. For a song to show up
<v Speaker 2>in three parts on an album, I mean it was
<v Speaker 2>a huge hit. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying
<v Speaker 2>it wasn't big hit, but for three versions of basically
<v Speaker 2>the same song, and then from this point on he
<v Speaker 2>ignores it. They don't play it live, he doesn't mention it,
<v Speaker 2>he didn't talk about it. It's very interesting his relationship
<v Speaker 2>with that song.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, we're getting big picture here, and I'm going to
<v Speaker 1>say this. He reinvents himself. And he does that deliberately,
<v Speaker 1>at least throughout the eighties, right, I mean, and when
<v Speaker 1>he does his next album, the first video that comes out,
<v Speaker 1>he's blowing up the jacket, he's blowing up the jukebox,
<v Speaker 1>he's blowing up the guitar. I mean, he's getting rid
<v Speaker 1>of all of that. He's like, that ain't me. You're
<v Speaker 1>not going to define me. That's not who I am.
<v Speaker 1>I can do it all. I am not just a
<v Speaker 1>pop person. I'm not just a I want your sex person,
<v Speaker 1>not sex symbol only. I'm not any of those things.
<v Speaker 1>You can't put me in a box. And so I'm
<v Speaker 1>going to redefine myself. And when we talked about Michael Jackson,
<v Speaker 1>I talked about how I didn't feel like Bad was
<v Speaker 1>a better album because I felt like it was really
<v Speaker 1>just 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, Ye 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. That's something impressive.
<v Speaker 2>It is impressive. It is impressive, and I marvel at
<v Speaker 2>not only did he completely change his image from this
<v Speaker 2>album to the next album, but he weaves his way
<v Speaker 2>in and out of different genres of music on this album,
<v Speaker 2>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 2>Oh my gosh, so rap? Initially his first success was
<v Speaker 2>in rap, bubblegum pop with wham right, I mean mainstream pop, rock, jazz,
<v Speaker 2>R and B, R and B adult contemporary dance, dance,
<v Speaker 2>fun funk.
<v Speaker 1>It's pretty, it's pretty freaking impressive, it's 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. Interesting so
<v Speaker 2>a white artist winning the R and B Best Artist Award,
<v Speaker 2>this was not looked upon very favorably. Although it's admirable
<v Speaker 2>that he crossed over into black audiences, he made it.
<v Speaker 2>The album was number one on the R and B charts,
<v Speaker 2>and for him to be the first white solars to
<v Speaker 2>do that super impressive. But people like Gladys Knight was
<v Speaker 2>very vocal and criticized him for that, even though it's
<v Speaker 2>not his fault, all right, I do think it's interesting
<v Speaker 2>when he when he sang Careless Whisper as the last
<v Speaker 2>song on the last concert of the Faith tour, he
<v Speaker 2>said to himself, I don't know if I'll ever do
<v Speaker 2>this again. For him to work so hard, gain so
<v Speaker 2>much success and get to the top and say I'm
<v Speaker 2>not sure I'm going to do this ever again kind
<v Speaker 2>of interesting.
<v Speaker 1>It is. It's crazy. So just to touch on the
<v Speaker 1>awards real quick, okay, yep nominated for Album of the
<v Speaker 1>Year and one Yes Father Figure was nominated for Best
<v Speaker 1>Pop Vocal Performance by a Male. This also received the
<v Speaker 1>Favorite Soul R and B Album for the American Music Awards,
<v Speaker 1>as well as the Favorite Soul R and B Male
<v Speaker 1>Artists MTV Video Music Awards. Both Faith and Father Figure
<v Speaker 1>were nominated, and Father Figure one for Best Direction in
<v Speaker 1>a Video, Father Figure one for Best Direction in a Video.
<v Speaker 1>He had other nominations, but ultimately he received the Video
<v Speaker 1>Vanguard Award and he won. For the brit Awards, won
<v Speaker 1>Best British Male Artist.
<v Speaker 2>It's impressive. I mean, that's a heck of a year, man. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I was gonna mention this too. Faith was the best
<v Speaker 2>selling album of nineteen eighty eight in the United States,
<v Speaker 2>eleven million copies in the United States alone, twenty million
<v Speaker 2>copies of Face sold worldwide. That's the fifty second best
<v Speaker 2>selling album of all time. In the US.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, wow, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So this is an interesting tidbit just regarding the show
<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, covered
<v Speaker 2>by The Shore that you Can't Be Serious Podcast. The
<v Speaker 2>number two best selling album of eighty eight the Dirty
<v Speaker 2>Dancing Soundtrack, which we have slated sometime maybe in twenty
<v Speaker 2>twenty one. Number three that year, Hysteria covered by The
<v Speaker 2>Shore 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. We don't pick losers.
<v Speaker 2>That's right. Debbie Gibson at number seven, I'm not sure
<v Speaker 2>that was going to make the.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, dude, We're definitely doing a Debbie Gibson versus
<v Speaker 1>Tiffany episode. 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 1>Yeah, okay, all right, So all the success in the
<v Speaker 1>world can always save you. Tragically, with both of the
<v Speaker 1>bands that we're comparing, we lose an artist without comparison.
<v Speaker 1>The world has lost something special in both of their deaths.
<v Speaker 2>And it's tragic, true, it is. It is so Georgia.
<v Speaker 2>Michael died Christmas Day, twenty sixteen, at age fifty three.
<v Speaker 2>The autopsy report was indeterminable, but I think it's just
<v Speaker 2>in general, drugs and alcohol got him in the end.
<v Speaker 2>Michael Hutchins died November twenty second, nineteen ninety seven.
<v Speaker 1>His death was very unusual. He had, in all respects,
<v Speaker 1>appeared to be in a good mood. He had plans
<v Speaker 1>to do work with other artists. And you know, they
<v Speaker 1>say this stuff all the time about people who commit suicide,
<v Speaker 1>but with his particular situation, it does seem very strange
<v Speaker 1>that he would have committed suicide. But he had become
<v Speaker 1>involved in a relationship with Bob Geldolf's wife, Paula Yates,
<v Speaker 1>and she was leaving Bob, and there were custody battles
<v Speaker 1>going on in their divorce, and there was a plan
<v Speaker 1>that she and her children, as well as the child
<v Speaker 1>that she had with Michael Hutchins, Tiger Lily, We're supposed
<v Speaker 1>to come to be with him over the Christmas holiday,
<v Speaker 1>and because of the divorce dispute, that they were not
<v Speaker 1>able to come. She called and gave him that news.
<v Speaker 1>He became very depressed. This was all within the span
<v Speaker 1>of a day, became very depressed, called a couple of
<v Speaker 1>different people to tell them what was going on and
<v Speaker 1>how he was feeling. And one of those people even
<v Speaker 1>came to the hotel room that he was staying in
<v Speaker 1>and knocked on the door to come and talk to him,
<v Speaker 1>even though it was in the wee hours of the morning,
<v Speaker 1>and she didn't get a response and so left, and sadly,
<v Speaker 1>that next morning they found him hanging in his closet.
<v Speaker 1>It's again, not some thing that they thought was foul play,
<v Speaker 1>but something that a lot of folks had trouble believing
<v Speaker 1>was deliberate, despite the fact that he appeared to be
<v Speaker 1>completely alone. So I don't you know, I don't want
<v Speaker 1>to speculate on it, but the thing is, we lost
<v Speaker 1>again another truly great artist. And on that happy note,
<v Speaker 1>how about we do some vile.
<v Speaker 2>Y all right, thank you, Let's transition to something a
<v Speaker 2>little happier. Final judgment, where are you? No?
<v Speaker 1>You go first?
<v Speaker 2>You want me to go first?
<v Speaker 1>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 aged
<v Speaker 2>quite as well. I love every song on Kick. I
<v Speaker 2>could pop it in. I could definitely go jogging to
<v Speaker 2>Kick a little bit easier than I could Faith. But
<v Speaker 2>my vote as a whole, Kick is the better album,
<v Speaker 2>not a bad song on it. 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 perspective's change. Now.
<v Speaker 1>I'm a rock guy. I am not a pop guy.
<v Speaker 1>I like some pop music, and that's I mean, I'm
<v Speaker 1>not a snob about it. It's just not my thing, right,
<v Speaker 1>And so what I have to do in my head
<v Speaker 1>is I have to take that out and say, okay,
<v Speaker 1>take your presuppositions and your predispositions away and look at
<v Speaker 1>these albums side by side for what they were. And
<v Speaker 1>even though probably song wise I'm going to pick in
<v Speaker 1>excess kick, Never Tear Us Apart is I've said my
<v Speaker 1>favorite song. If you put all of these songs up
<v Speaker 1>on the board, I'm writing number one, next two, Never
<v Speaker 1>Tear Us Apart and Devil Inside and Need You Tonight
<v Speaker 1>are both fantastic songs. New Sensation What Yes lows my
<v Speaker 1>mind and it's rock, which I love, right, but it's
<v Speaker 1>all rock. And so when we listen to Guns n'
<v Speaker 1>Roses versus Back in Black, what did I say? I said,
<v Speaker 1>Appetite for Destruction was better than Back in Black because
<v Speaker 1>it had variety, it had variation. And so even though
<v Speaker 1>when we started I knew I was picking an excess kick,
<v Speaker 1>I gotta say today I'm picking George Michael Faith love It.
<v Speaker 1>Number one hit after number one hit after number one
<v Speaker 1>hit in completely different genres you have. I mean, I've
<v Speaker 1>got songs on there that I don't like. I would
<v Speaker 1>have redone them and done them a completely different way.
<v Speaker 1>But when you look at these albums as a whole.
<v Speaker 1>George Michael has produced a better product. And that's the
<v Speaker 1>way people felt in nineteen eighty eight, nineteen eighty nine,
<v Speaker 1>and I gotta say they were right. If you if
<v Speaker 1>you take out the ones that are dated and you
<v Speaker 1>put them next to the next to these songs from Kick,
<v Speaker 1>taking out the ones that are dated, I still say,
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna have to say that Faith wins today.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, I love it, man, that's great. It's crazy for me.
<v Speaker 1>I would never have expected it. Yeah, I would never
<v Speaker 1>have expected to pick that. Never I'm I'm still I'm
<v Speaker 1>probably going to wake up tomorrow and I'm probably gonna
<v Speaker 1>wake up in the middle of the night and go,
<v Speaker 1>what the crap did I just say? Because I love Kick,
<v Speaker 1>I love the rock and the ah. Man, I'm wavering already.
<v Speaker 1>I'm starting to waffle. We better turn the microphones off before.
<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.
<v Speaker 1>I would like to point out that. This is kind
<v Speaker 1>of 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 2>I know, I know. Hey yeah that's called growth.
<v Speaker 1>All right, Well, tell us what you guys think. Am
<v Speaker 1>I crazy? Is Jason crazy? Are they? Is it an
<v Speaker 1>unanswerable question which of these two albums are better? It
<v Speaker 1>might be, but sometimes you just got to put your
<v Speaker 1>foot down and say this is the way it is.
<v Speaker 2>That's great.
<v Speaker 1>I feel Jason has been fun.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, de tax you next week.
<v Speaker 1>Al right, bye,