Something even more embarrassing than getting caught soliciting an undercover cop?
A video from the early days of a popular singer/songwriter’s career that finds him sporting a white tee, a leather jacket, and no shoes…RAPPING.
While I’d been aware of Wham!’s “Fantastic!” album (and have owned it for years), I had no idea that a video existed for the duo’s first single, “Wham! Rap”, until my friend Dave alerted me of the fact a week or so ago.
If you need some comedy to start off your week, look no further, my friends.
How sad is it that George Michael circa 1982 raps better than most emcees on the charts today?
Those of you who are familiar with “Wham! Rap” will also notice that George re-wrote the lyrics for the single/video version.
Still shaking your head, huh? Don’t say that MHW has never brightened your day.
It’s hard to imagine an album that sold two million copies, spawned 3 (actually, four) top 40 singles and was an international success being underrated, but George Michael’s sophomore release, “Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1” is a gem that has long been overlooked by the general public. The letdown was inevitable after George became a worldwide phenomenon with “Faith”. The album officially announced George as an icon, not as just the lead singer from Wham! For a time, it was a widely held belief that George placed in the pantheon of pop legends that included Michael, Madonna and Prince. “Faith” was nothing less than a juggernaut. Loved by fans and critics alike, it sold over 10 million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year. It spawned six Top Ten pop singles, with another three crossing over to hit the Top Ten on the R&B chart. Additionally, “Faith” broke new ground by becoming the first album by a white artist to hit Number One on Billboard’s R&B Albums list. For a brief moment, the former chubby kid with the unibrow was the biggest artist in the world.
George, to his credit, immediately realized that wasn’t what he wanted. In a move that seemed utterly pretentious at the time but seems somewhat noble in retrospect, he decided that “Prejudice” would be judged solely on the merits of it’s musical content. He didn’t appear on the record’s front cover (actually, neither did the album’s title…it was affixed to the front of the disc on a sticker), he did no pre-release promotion for the album, and he refused to appear in the album’s videos. Pretty ballsy for such a big name to pull such an obvious retreat, and the move was viewed as petulant by some (Frank Sinatra publicly chastised him), but if you did what the title suggested, you were rewarded by the work of an increasingly mature songwriter who had very obvious reservations when it came to playing the fame game.
One thing you immediately notice is that it’s nowhere near as “black” sounding as “Faith” was. George publicly expressed his reverence for R&B musicians like Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, but was stung by criticism from artists (Gladys Knight being the most vocal) who were miffed about him receiving accolades in the soul arena, including two American Music Awards-for favorite Soul/R&B Album and favorite Soul/R&B male artist. The album took it’s musical cues from a variety of different artists and genres. The ghost of John Lennon is all over the socially conscious “Praying for Time”, while the jangly “Heal the Pain” is a tip of the hat to Paul McCartney (Michael later re-recorded the song as a duet with Macca). The mid-tempo “Waiting for the Day” quotes The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” while juxtaposing acoustic guitars against the classic James Brown “Funky Drummer” loop (a practice that became standard procedure half a decade later for femme singer-songwriters like Alanis Morissette and Sheryl Crow), while the haunting “Cowboys & Angels” has a strong jazz influence, complete with a nimble bassline played by George himself.
Lyrically, the album is way more serious than it’s predecessor, and the politically-minded “Praying for Time” and the war-based ballad “Mother’s Pride” both became de facto themes for the 1990-1991 Gulf War (much to George’s consternation). George only truly lets go on the album’s final full track, the brassy, reggae-kissed “Soul Free”. For those not used to pop music asking them to think a little, the seriousness of this album was a bit of a shock.
George Michael is known as many things nowadays. World-class singer and songwriter. King of Stubble (and he’s worked that look for two decades plus now), Public Restroom Inhabitant. But did you know that when George first stepped on the scene with his Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley, he was…
…a rapper?
I’m sure if anyone were to show this 1983 performance to George these days, he would look for the nearest hole to crawl under. However, I (one of maybe 10 people in the U.S. who knew who Wham! was before “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”) find this performance to be quite energetic and charming. I still can’t figure out what the hell Andrew Ridgeley did, though.
Anyway, the song, “Young Guns (Go For It)” appeared on Wham!’s debut album “Fantastic” (actually, for their first album, they were named Wham! U.K. here in The States). A year later, they were global superstars, and a year or so after that, George Michael had officially gone solo. But what of the two fetching young ladies who danced with George & Andrew in that television performance (and whom you might also remember from the “Go-Go” video)? Well…
Their names were Pepsi and Shirlie, and they had a minor U.S. hit in the fall of ’87 with “Heartache”, a pulsing bit of mid-tempo pop that was helmed (as was just about everything else in the late 80s in Britain) by the Stock/Aitken/Waterman team. The production team kept busy with artists like Kylie Minogue, Donna Summer, Rick Astley and Bananarama…one member of whom went on to marry…you guessed it, Andrew Ridgeley. See how everything folds into itself? You gotta love it. Anyway, “Heartache” wasn’t a huge single, but I remember it getting enough airplay in New York that I still remember the chorus after not hearing the song for two decades, and it’s a much better song than you’d expect a duo of background singers to come up with.
Around the same time “Heartache” came out, George Michael went nuclear with the “Faith” album and it’s attendant singles. No matter what radio station you turned on, whether it was the Lite station, the Top 40 station or the R&B station, George was impossible to avoid, and with good reason. “Faith” still stands as one of the 80s’ most irresistible pop albums.
By the spring of ’89, George could sneeze on a record and it would become a hit. This is probably the reason Deon Estus’s “Heaven Help Me” cruised into the pop & R&B Top 5 around that time. Estus (who looked like a cross between Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B, a member of Milli Vanilli and the black dude from Color Me Badd) had previously been best-known (if at all) as George & Wham!’s bassist, with some prominent facetime in the “I’m Your Man” and “Monkey” videos.
“Heaven Help Me” doesn’t have a particularly ingenious bassline, but what it does have is George Michael. LOTS of George Michael. George wrote and produced the song, sang background vocals and handles the chorus damn near on his own. In addition, Deon’s voice is enough of a dead ringer for George’s that you’d be forgiven if you’ve thought for all these years that this is a George Michael record. Estus’ album, called “Spell”, was otherwise George-free and that’s probably the reason it bombed. However, this song is damn good-as good as most of the material on “Faith”. And the video is one of those “so bad it’s good” deals.
While Andrew sits at home and counts checks (and I won’t scare you by putting the video for “Shake” on here), Shirlie from Pepsi & Shirlie is now married to one of Spandau Ballet’s Kemp brothers (man, are all British 80s pop stars married to each other?), Pepsi has settled into civilian , and Deon Estus continues to tour as a support bassist. George Michael seems perfectly content to rake in money re-releasing greatest hits compilations and getting arrested every so often, but at least he’s contributed to some of the Eighties’ most indelible musical moments.
