Dear America of 1985: This man is NOT gay. Not at all. Pay no attention to the multitude of clues you are being bombarded with. This guy wants nothing more than to sell records and sleep with chicks. Love, Sony Records.
[*author's note: Props to Jphive, my good friend who is the genesis of this post. Also, there was so much picture-evidence for this topic that I had to create a "George Michael" folder to manage them all. Seriously.]
Georgios Panayiotou. George Michael.
Trivia tidbit: GM also dabbled in Colonel Harlan Sanders fetishism for a bit in 1985.
We all know the story of little Georgios, no need for me to rehash it for you. It breaks down like this: little Greek kid with a huge voice goes to England and gains HUGE success with his schoolmate in a band with an onomatopoeia for a name, dumps that no-talent schoolmate into obscurity, goes solo and has more MASSIVE success world-wide, decides he wants to be a serious artist, stops appearing in videos and has a protracted legal war with his label, then gets arrested for waving his willy at an undercover cop, comes out of the closet, and then seems to make a career out of getting arrested.
The road to fame is paved with community service.
Now don't get me wrong - I love George Michael. I'm not afraid to say it, either. Yes, I own all three WHAM! albums on vinyl. Yes, I have copies of Faith and Listen Without Prejudice, too. I think he is one of the best singers out there; he has an amazing voice. In fact, I would agree with my old friend Matt Sterling and dub him "King of the (Alive) Gay Singers."
Sorry, GM, this guy still holds the title of "King of the Gay Singers." And not just because he already had the cape, sceptre, and crown.
Are all his songs great? No (ever heard "Too Funky"?...terrible). But did he have some massively popular and catchy hits?
Hell yes.
Can you deny the greatness of "Careless Whisper"? "Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go)"? "Father Figure"? what about that duet with Elton John? And did you ever hear his cover of "Somebody to Love"?
The guy had 8 #1 singles in America, as well as 7 #1s in the UK...sold 20 million copies of his first solo record, Faith, as well as 10 million copies of the title single! This guy was a hit machine in the 1980s. I think in 1987 or 1988 he had 3 singles still in the top ten at the same time! Couple that with his successes in WHAM! and you've got a very serious money-maker on your hands.
The double entendres are free, however.
But all this seems to be largely forgotten about GM because of a little legal trouble he had back in 1998 (not to mention all his subsequent legal trouble - lay off the sticky-icky, George). Seems he engaged in a little "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" tit-for-tat (but not really, in this case, is it?) with an undercover LA policeman at a public park/gay hook-up locale. His ensuing arrest made world-wide headlines as now it was clear that one of the the premiere global sex-symbols of the 1980s was batting for the other team. America and Britain were shocked!
Shocked, I tell you.
I mean, you have to understand just how big of a star GM was. From WHAM! to his first solo album, he was everywhere. You couldn't turn on MTV without seeing this guy. And they made sure to sell him to all those hungry teen girls with disposable income the best they could.
Hot pink long-sleeve Tshirt: not gay, as long as you wear it with neon yellow fingerless gloves.
With WHAM!, he and buddy Andrew Ridgeley were popular enough to sell about 20 million albums, have a farewell tour that concluded at Wembley stadium (which was 8 hours long and attended by 73,000 people), and were the first western pop stars to do a concert in communist China. Yeah, WHAM! was the diplomatic unit (no pun intended) sent to extend the hand of goodwill to China in 1985!
Banana-yellow jacket and matching pants (with fringe on each) without a shirt: not gay in the least, as long as your silent partner also wears a get-up that's mono-chromatic and a primary color.
As a solo artist, Faith was HUGE! He made a video for every damn single, each single was catchy and a hit, and he even scored some controversy points with all that "I Want Your Sex" business (but it turns out he didn't want "your" sex, he wanted "that guy over there's" sex).
Suspenders, a high-waisted belt, and an Amish-looking hat: definitely not gay. It was just popular for men to dress like "Downtown" Julie Brown in 1987.
And yet...looking back, did he leave us some clues as to which way he swung? Was it really all so shocking in hindsight (no pun intended, but see what I did there)?
Mesh shirts: not gay as long as they're tucked into your jeans. Without a belt.
To wit:
"Freedom '90."
Here's a song that was released on GM's second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1. Still waiting for Volume 2, actually, but see what GM did there? He was so tired of all the success and money and fame from his first solo album (the multi-platinum Faith, which scored him an endless supply of cocaine, cash, and women, I'm sure) that he wanted to do what all artists do: show the world that they are "serious" about *insert art form here* and focus on that. They want to make sure their audience knows they're mature artists, not just money-grubbing fame-whores. And they want their same audience to come along with them (i.e. keep buying all their albums because they're artistic, not because they want money) for their "journey". Can you please just listen to my music, without prejudice!? So, GM does this and is actually pretty successful with it. Listen Without Prejudice made it all the way to #2 in America, stopped only by this man:
If you dress ridiculous enough, you will be #1 in America.
And, GM did it without ever appearing in his own videos. This was the heyday of MTV, people, so that's a big deal. MTV was literally making pop-stars via videos from 1983 until probably 1996 when they stopped showing videos and replaced them with reality television (and now they're making stars out of those attention whores...this is how a person named "Snookie" can be famous without irony). But GM, who plastered his unshaven face and tight-jeaned ass on everything possible in 1987 and 1988 to promote Faith,
Feathered hair and state-trooper shades: not gay at all. As long as you wear a leather jacket over your wife-beater.
decided to forego all that "promotional" hoopla on Listen and just sing the songs. Often, he would use super-models as the actors in his videos, helping foster a relationship between pop music and fashion that seemed to be something people cared about in the 90s.
An unholy alliance, to be sure.
This brings us to "Freedom '90" and its hidden/not-so-hidden lyrics. The video was the first to use super models instead of the pop star, and was directed by David Fincher, who would later bring you "Vogue", "Janie's Got a Gun", and Fight Club.
All this is fine and good, but it's the lyrics we're concerned with here:
Heaven knows I was just a young boy
Didn't know what I wanted to be I was every little hungry schoolgirl's pride and joy
And I guess it was enough for me
To win the race? A prettier face!
Brand new clothes and a big fat place On your rock and roll TV
But today the way I play the game is not the same
No way
Think I'm gonna get myself happy
Ok, that's not too obvious. Just a guy singing about his boyhood dream of being a little bit famous, being popular, and getting on TV. Cautionary tale though in the last couple lines..."today the way I play the game is not the same"...what could he mean?
But then we get to the pre-chorus bit:
I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I told you so
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone else I've got to be
Take back your picture in a frame
Take back your singing in the rain
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man
These clothes certainly don't make the man...I mean, a lot of people wear sleeveless Ts and bright white shorts that are cut to show off maximum thigh, right? Wham!, indeed.
Oh. I see. Yeah, that's not really veiled at all, is it? People actually thought this was just about GM being a "serious artist" and not "just a pop star" or about him wanting out of his record contract. Sure.
And then the chorus:
All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me
Pretty clear.
In all, knowing what we now know about GM, it makes the song better. He was able to craft a kick-ass pop song (I mean, you can't deny how great the song is) that also had a cathartic element that worked on 3 levels. 1) his opposition to his own fame, a theme that is rampant in music industry whores; 2) his need to get out of his contract with Sony; and then 3) the actual matter of his hidden sexuality, that could have been the catalyst for all the self-loathing and self-promotion in the first place!
It's pretty brilliant, in a way.
Now if only Tom Cruise or Christian Bale had a recording career...
Impossible.
