I didn’t cry for an hour and a half. I watched dozens of other people weep and shout and wail and fling themselves to the floor with happiness; I watched pundits variously expound thoughtfully, babble incoherently and fumble for words before simply going mute. I did join my wife and kids in dancing with joy to a couple of my favorite – and now forever Obama-rific – songs:

George Michael – Freedom ’90 (live) (download)
Dixie Chicks – Truth No. 2 (download)

But it wasn’t until the close of Obama’s magnificent victory speech, after the pageantry and the big extended-family waveathon … it wasn’t until everyone else had left the stage, and Obama turned back and gave one last salute to the crowd, that I began weeping uncontrollably. A headache I had been nursing all day finally dissipated, and the tension I’d been carrying around for two months … for two years … for eight years, really, finally seemed to melt away.

It was at that moment I realized I couldn’t write the column I was planning for today – the one in which I suggested that after all the name-calling, the vilifying and the brutishness of this campaign, I didn’t feel sorry at all for the emotional pickle in which McCain’s most intemperate supporters must find themselves. Not because this problem doesn’t exist for them, but because Obama’s speech renewed my hope that even those folks will soon cool their jets.

“In this country,” he said, “we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long … And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress … As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection … And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.” (more…)

Sometimes, it’s not whom you know, but whom you call family.

The interwebs are not very forthcoming about the origins and chart history of Boogie Box High, the nom de guerre of one Andros Georgiou. This, of course, assumes that either origins or chart history exist in the first place, and that they consist of something other than “He’s George Michael’s cousin, and he almost had a hit once.” Imagine the sting of humiliation Georgiou must have felt when he got his record deal, released his oh-so-1987 remake of the Bee Gees’ “Jive Talkin’” as a single, positive that he was sitting on a worldwide smash…and then George Michael’s label, Epic, only allows the song to be released if the single makes no mention of Michael appearing on the track. Which is hilarious when you think about it – who the hell else could it possibly be? By the way, Andros, your single will not be released in the US. Tough break, cousin.

And that pretty much sums up the musical career of one Andros Georgiou. Boogie Box High made one album, 1987’s Outrageous (other notable guest appearance: Nick Heyward), and promptly disappeared into the ether. I cannot speak for the quality of Boogie Box High’s full-length long player (though the two people who have submitted votes on Amazon each gave it one star), but Georgiou’s cover of “Jive Talkin’” is pretty damn good. And call me crazy, but I prefer the dated production of the album version to the 12” mix, which is far too similar to the Brothers Gibb’s original. There is something in those hyper-echoed snare hits that has me reaching down to peg my pant legs. I have submitted both the awesomely overproduced LP version of the track, and the subsequent none-more-Gibb 12” mix. Which one do you prefer?

Boogie Box High - Jive Talkin’ (LP Version)

Boogie Box High - Jive Talkin’ (12″ Mix)

The public, by and large, did not respond well to George Michael’s first attempt at career suicide — he’s since found far more effective methods for achieving that goal, and all he had to do was appeal to people’s basic dislike for homosexuals – but Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 (1990), while a grandiose exercise in self-pity, contains many of his finest songs. Where previous efforts sounded like George was just going through the motions singing about universal themes, he’s clearly feeling it this time around. “Something to Save,” “Waiting for That Day” (both versions), and his scorching cover of Stevie Wonder’s “They Won’t Go When I Go” positively reek of heartache.

However, if there’s one song where George bent over backward to prove he was not the same man he was three years before, it’s “Cowboys and Angels.” For starters, it’s over seven minutes long. To a jazz-waltz beat. And he never sings above a whisper. It couldn’t be less of a George Michael song if it tried — its closest relative is the great Faith track “Kissing a Fool” — which is one of the many things I loved about it in 1990. But mainly, I loved it because it was vaguely describing what I was going through at the time.

The fall of ‘90 was not a fun time for me. My relationship with College Ex #2 was wildly unstable, and it was almost entirely my fault. I was still hung up on College Ex #1, even though that relationship ended a year and a half earlier — and I was the one who ended it. (I was confused. Mistakes were made.) So when I heard George singing about when your heart’s in someone else’s hands, and how there’s a trace of someone else in the heart of your lover, I could relate. It was ridiculous that I could relate, but I could relate, and the song became strangely comforting. “You’re not to blame / Everyone’s the same,” he assured me. Of course I was to blame, and everyone isn’t the same, but I was bound and determined to be the victim of this mess I made, and George was only happy to enable me.

Such melodrama. It all seems so silly now. I wonder if George would be pleased or disappointed to discover that someone could relate to such a sad song.

That’s it for this week. Join me in two weeks when we cover a song by a Canadian quartet that Q magazine once described as “the best song Neil Finn never wrote.” Intrigued? You should be — the song is awesome.

George Michael – Cowboys and Angels

WHAM! BAM!

Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou seemed an unlikely choice to become a pop music superstar. However, after meeting schoolmate Andrew Ridgeley and forming a group called Wham!, a pop star is exactly what the rechristened George Michael became. They were young guns and they were going for it. Beginning in 1982, Wham! spun off massive hits in a variety of genres, including shimmering pop, uptempo dance, slow, sensual ballads, and even rap. Serving as charismatic lead singer and cunning songwriter, George quickly eclipsed the group itself. After achieving massive success around the world, Wham! went Bam! and chose to disband so that George could be free of what he felt were the group’s musical limitations.

YA GOTTA HAVE . . .

Expectations were running high for George’s inevitable solo career. However, nobody could have predicted just how supersonic his career was about to become. As a precursor to his debut album, the controversial single “I Want Your Sex” was released in 1987 and immediately garnered huge acclaim, as well as widespread criticism for its overt themes. With one song, it became clear that this was the new George Michael. No more feathered hair or day-glo casual wear, kids.

The album Faith followed and quickly took George’s career into the stratosphere. A seemingly endless series of hit singles and smoke-filled videos followed while the album bulldozed its way to mega-platinum status. George Michael was now officially a pop music God. Arguably, his only real rivals in that arena were the guy with the one glove and that girl who rolled around on the floor in a wedding dress. Esteemed company, indeed.

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It is an inescapable fact that while George Michael left Andrew Ridgeley far behind in his rearview mirror, and while the Faith album proved Michael was capable of being the British Prince — writing, playing, and producing virtually everything, and doing it well — a certain craving for musical partnership has kept him coming back to collaboration time and time again. You can definitely see it here in the tracks connected to this, the fifth and final post of my All Wham! weekend.

And while George Michael likely contained close to 99% of the musical talent that made up the Wham! partnership, there is still an extremely large percentage of people who long for a Wham! reunion. Mind you, these may be the same people who love “Last Christmas” to such a degree that they don’t even know if they love it ironically or not. On top of that, there is a great nostalgia factor involved that continues to allow (much) lesser ’80s acts like Bananarama and Rick Astley to sell a cartload of tickets as part of package shows throughout the British Isles and select parts of Europe. And as the world moves so quickly in this age of lightning-fast technological advancement and instant gratification, most of what we deal with in our lives changes from “now” to “nostalgia” in the blink of an eye. And with nostalgia comes that warm and fuzzy feeling that softens the edges of our memories, or at least coats our mental lenses with a bit of Vaseline. (more…)

When I was 17 years old, I had my first serious makeout session. When George Michael was 17, he wrote the song that has arguably led to more makeout and baby-making sessions than any other ’80s song: “Careless Whisper“. Damn, Larry and Balki almost got busy with their stewardess girlfriends on an episode of Perfect Stangers because of it. Historically, it was a song that predated Wham!, and one whose success expedited George Michael’s solo career, and the end of Wham!.

The song also had a extra kick in the teeth for both men in Wham!. Ridgeley had to deal with the song being labeled as a George Michael solo single in the UK, and as “George Michael feat. Wham!” in the United States. And Michael had to deal with the fact that the song was listed as being written by both Michael and Ridgeley, even though Michael wrote it by himself, and Ridgeley didn’t even appear on the recording. Why was this? Well, when the group started out, there was an initial agreement that their first few completed songs would go the Lennon-McCartney route, and they’d each be listed as co-writer, no matter who the main writer was. However, that agreement soon ended, as it became clear that Ridgeley really had nothing to contribute in the way of songwriting. Or singing. Or instrumentation. In fact, though he would “play” an electric guitar in their concerts and videos, it is widely believed that it was never plugged in.

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It’s Saturday night, and it’s time to get back out on the dance floor as the all Wham! weekend continues. This time around, I’ve got a batch of Wham!-related extended dance remixes.

As I’ve said before, there’s some sort of bizarre cult following for “Last Christmas,” so a third of these remixes are various versions of that song. I’m not sure why people would go to such lengths, but I guess you have to find some way to feel you’re making use of your Pro Tools on a regular basis. Also, I think that…hey…are you paying attention?…Oh, it’s that photo over to the left, isn’t it? I thought so. Yeah, I guess you didn’t expect you were gonna come to Popdose this weekend and see something that would haunt your dreams for the rest of the winter, but sometimes life just isn’t fair, is it? Remember, though — when life hands you pale shirtless Brits in leather posing homoerotically, you make leatherade…wait a minute. (more…)

This part of the weekend covers…covers; both Wham! and George Michael covering other people, and a couple of acts covering Wham! and George Michael (and no, none will be the ironic, nu-metal cover of “Faith” by that horrible band led by a certain poseur Interscope A&R executive who formed a band in order to bang more skanks).

While George Michael leaned more toward classic R&B and soul during the peak years of his career, he — like many of the better singer/songwriters — both enjoyed and absorbed a wide variety of music, which in turn influenced his own songwriting and performances. He “paid back” these influences to a degree on his 1999 covers collection Songs from the Last Century (a failure in the U.S., but a success to varying degrees throughout Europe), which pretty much covered the entire 20th century (ranging from 1928’s “My Baby Just Cares for Me” to 1995’s “Miss Sarajevo”). Even in this abbreviated selection, we have tracks by Don McLean and Was (Not Was) rubbing up against Stevie Wonder and the Isley Brothers.

But I’m going to start off this list with what I think is the best of the bunch, George Michael’s transcendent cover of Stevie Wonder’s “They Won’t Go When I Go,” from Michael’s highly underrated 1990 Faith follow-up, Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1.

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Backstory:
About fifteen years ago, I was visiting my hometown outside of Los Angeles, tooling around with a couple of friends around the local colleges. I remember where we were because we were able to get excellent radio reception from the nearest school’s radio station. Anyway, we were listening to the end of the traditional hourly campus radio raga-indie-funk-chant mashup, when the DJ comes back on and says:

“That’s it for me. Coming up next…..” at which point my friend Amit blurts out: “All Wham! All Weekend!”

Needless to say, there was much cracking up to be had. But whereas your normal human being probably would have let that moment slip into the ether, Amit’s phrase has stuck with me through the years, to the point where (now that I have the potential to captivate the world with my awesome writing) I can actually make an all Wham! weekend a reality. And why wouldn’t I? Their best stuff stands out among the best of what has been forever snarkily branded as being “So ’80s!”, and George Michael is an important, quality artist in the history of popular music (or at least he was until the mid-’90s, but that’s best left for another series, possibly titled All Wasted Talent All Weekend).

Now, Wham’s! (or is it Wham!’s?) output wasn’t all that large: even with remixes, you couldn’t fill up a whole weekend with Wham! (oho! the power of alliteration entrances you, does it not?!). So the music featured here is going to be related to both Wham! and George Michael as a solo artist (Andrew Ridgeley’s single solo output, Son of Albert, was already covered by Jefito in this site’s previous incarnation, and you will all thank me for staying away from it). Also, I doubt you’d expect me to give you a whole 48 hours of music, do you? (Answer: No.) What I am going to give you are five posts to encompass the weekend: one for Friday night, and two each for the a.m. and p.m. hours of Saturday and Sunday. Each post revolves around a specific style or theme. Those are the “rules”: Pretty simple, huh?

Well then, bitches, let’s get this started! (more…)