60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Freedom! ’90”—George Michael

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Rob looks back at the top five songs that make him still feel like a 6-year-old, before turning his attention to the great George Michael. Along the way, Rob highlights a letter written to Michael from Frank Sinatra with his best dramatic reading. Later, Rob is joined by Rob Tannenbaum to discuss whether George Michael is on the MTV Mount Rushmore, and much more. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Rob Tannenbaum Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Chloe Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Galaxy lights, Coachella, Lightning Bolt necklaces. Did you catch all the Scandival clues? Last March, one cheating scandal launched a reality TV investigation that generated hundreds of conspiracy theories, thousands of podcast episodes, and millions of dollars in revenue. I'm Jody Walker, host of an American Scandival. Ahead of the Vanderpump Rules premiere, relive the pop culture phenomenon that rocked a reality nation, starting January 23rd on Ringer Dish. I knew they had it and I wanted it. And they'd gotten it for me, but I couldn't wait for it. And so I crawled under my parents' bed.

I'm six years old. I'm a god-fearing, father and mother honoring, fruity pebbles eating, he-man, big wheel riding, 99th percentile for head-sized goofball, who goes door-to-door reciting Doctor to Door reciting Doctor. for our confused neighbors and sleeps every night in sheets with transformers on them. I'm a pretty weird kid, but a good kid, I think, I hope. I am polite and respectful to the strangers to whom I recite Dr. Seuss. I don't eat my fruity pebbles on the couch or cocoa pebbles.

I alternate. I'm not allowed to watch HBO, so I don't watch HBO, but they had it. I knew they had it. and I wanted it. And I knew it was for me and they were saving it for my birthday or for Christmas or for Easter, perhaps, but I couldn't wait for it. And so I crawled under my parents' bed and I found it in the square cardboard box that had been mailed in, illicit.

And I opened it with great effort, messily, like a cat, like ineptly clawing at the cardboard, right? Cardboard shavings under my fingernails. Cardboard shavings sprinkled all over the carcally. carpet underneath my parents' bed. I'm still there under their bed. I'm too afraid to take this thing to a second more secure location. I ain't moving. I never go in here in my parents' bedroom. I'm not supposed to go in there, and so I don't. The line on the carpet between the hallway in our house and my parents' bedroom is like a paper-thin version of the DMZ between North and South

Korea. I might just stay here under this bed forever, but I got to have it. And like an hour later, I've got it clawed halfway open. And all that clawing has finally revealed two faces, two handsome faces, all that hair, all those eyebrows. They're not smiling. And seeing as there's a pink exclamation point hovering over their faces, you'd think they'd be smiling. But maybe they're not smiling because they're disappointed in me, because I shouldn't be doing this. I'm going to get in so much trouble for this. But now I'm smiling because I wanted this and I couldn't wait for it and now I have it or I will have it soon because eventually I crawl out from under my parents bed and I leave it under there still in the half-clawed open box because I didn't think this through. I'm not going to

steal it, right? I'm not a criminal. I'm not an idiot. And a couple days later my mom finds all the cardboard littered under there and she deduces who is responsible and she sits me down. She's like, Robbie, what are you doing? Robbie with the Y. And I'm like, I'm sorry. And mom just sighs and says, oh, Robbie, it's all right. And then she lets me have it. And now it's mine.

I'm six years old and all I want is a copy of the 1983 Wham album, Make It Big. Because not only is Wham named Wham, one of my favorite words then and now, along with sheesh, yikes, and pants. But also, Wham has an exclamation point at the end. And that exclamation point is audible. This song is called Wake Me Up Before You Go Go. And that title doesn't make any sense to me. But that's okay because it doesn't make any sense to anybody.

And anyway, this song puts the boom boom into my heart. I love this song. I saw these handsome smiling fellas on MTV. Wham. Of course I did. I ain't supposed to watch MTV either. But I do because just try and stop me. I don't want my MTV.

I need it. I can't be contained. I don't fear God that much. You know what I'm saying? The highest compliment I can pay to wake me up before you go-go is that it is a perfect encapsulation of an ideal six-year-olds mentality. The sunniness, the silliness, the unembarrassed joy, the adorable, nonsensical automotapia of Wham.

Plus, they look like they'd be great lifeguards. at the pool where I take swim lessons. At six years old, I can't yet articulate that George Michael, one of the lifeguards, one of the guys in Wham, I don't yet have the language to tell you that George has absolutely mastered the art of the pre-chorus, but somehow I already know it in my boom-booming heart. In the illicit and irresistible video for Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, George Michael and Andrew Ridgley, the other guy in Wham, they're bopping, around on stage in gleaming teeth white t-shirts that say choose life in giant black

lettering. And Andrew's playing a guitar that's not plugged in anything. And they got a full delighted band with backup singers behind them. And they're all wearing the choose life t-shirts as well. And almost everybody else on stage is black. And this is the best song I've ever heard in my whole entire six-year-old life. Wake me up before you go-go makes me feel like I'm six years old right now. 39 years later, this song still makes me feel like a six-year-old. It empties my still quite large head of everything,

but a six-year-olds bewildered and irrational exuberance. I cannot process this song as an adult, let alone as a rock critic or whatever. I refuse. Matter of fact, look out top five songs that still make me feel like a six-year-old. Here we go. Number five.

But the kid is not my son. What the heck does that mean? Anyway, the kid is not my son. Don't ask me, I'm six years old. Oops. I am unable to provide any critical or historical context for Michael Jackson's Billy Jean because I rewatched part of that video to get that clip. And when the squares on the sidewalk lit up, when Michael Jackson walked on them,

that also lit up a long, dormant, bewildered, and exuberant part of my brain. And now I'm just sitting here, eating fruity pebbles and watching Looney Tunes. Too bad. I don't know anything else about Michael Jackson other than he totally rules. Actually, hearing any Michael Jackson song now also makes me feel like I'm 13 years old again. And it's Christmas morning. And we got a Sega Genesis and a copy of the game, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, where you played as Michael Jackson. And if you spun around real fast, you could make the bad guys.

dance along with you and then they die. The Beat It Dance was my favorite dance in Moonwalker. Do you want to hear a little bit of the Sega Genesis version of Billy Jean, the 16-bit version? The Nintendo has only 8 bits. The Genesis has twice as many bits. Okay, now I want to hear this. Michael Jackson is fighting a bunch of zombies in a cave with his magic powers.

That's what you're hearing there in addition to 16-bit Billy Jean. I'm in the first grade and this is the sum total of my insight into Michael Jackson. That's too bad. Just to remind you, we're doing top five songs that still make me feel like a six-year-old. Number four. When I was six years old, I thought moving in stereo by the cars was sung by Darth Vader. It frightened me quite a bit. This song from a band I dearly love.

Don't even talk to me about fast times at Ridgemont High. What is that? Is that a movie? Is that on HBO? I'm not allowed to watch. HBO. Speaking of being quite frightened. Number three, not this lady again. It's Frida from Abba with her terrifying 1982 solo hit. I know there's something going on. Oh, Frida. I used to cry when this song came on the radio, dude, the icy minimalism, the echoey menace. And my mom would be like,

Robbie, what's wrong? And I just go, Mom, turn it off. I heard this song like two weeks ago in the grocery store. I was getting almond milk. I remember exactly where I was and what I was putting in my shopping cart. And I got a full-bodied, terrified six-year-old chill when I heard, I know there's something going on again. I don't care for it. I have held this song against Abba for 40 years. I won't even watch Eurovision. You keep these people away from me. Keep the Abba holograms away from me as well. Number two. Leather's for it face to face. Stay with me, stay.

Oh, that's nice. Listen to how nice that is. Leather and Lace by Stevie Nixon, Don Henley. Listen to Don, Nailing those high harmonies. Don't give yourself a headache, Don. There's such a pastoral, nostalgic, gentle, and not at all cocaine-based early 80s aura to this song.

This is a primo, mom's driving me to Dairy Queen's song. Yes. Thanks, Mom. Get yourself a hot fudge Sunday. Maybe Mom will let you get extra hot fudge. Oh, maybe mom will let you get a Butterfinger Blizzard this time. No, wait, scratch that. You can't get a blizzard yet because Dairy Queen didn't start selling blizzards until 1985 when I was seven. Maybe just get a dilly bar. Give me your leather. Take from me my lace. That's what Stevie and Don sing to each other. I wonder what that means. They must be trading something, maybe baseball cards.

Don't ask me. And finally, yes, the number one song that still makes me feel like a six-year-old. Hit it, George. You just picture young George Michael sitting in a tree, leather and lace-bound book of handwritten lyrics in his lap. And he's thoughtfully chewing the cap of his pen and trying to think of words that rhyme with go-go. And then he's like,

aha, I got it. George Michael is absolutely planning on going solo. In all sincerity, that is the falsest statement in pop music history. This statement, also by George Michael, is somehow not as false

as I'm not planning on going solo. Everybody take a look at me. I've got to treat credibility. These are the breaks. I'm English and I'm also white. George Michael literally rapping the words, I've got street credibility, while false is a less false statement than his not going solo thing. To be precise, the full title of this song is Wham Rap, exclamation point, parentheses. Sorry, that's not Wham! exclamation point rap. It's WAM rap, exclamation point, parentheses. Enjoy what you do.

Question mark. Close parentheses. The question mark intrigues me. The question mark adds nuance and uncertainty. Wham rap. Enjoy what you do? This is Wham's 1982 debut single. And given the social unrest and rampant unemployment and Margaret Thatcher of it all in

Britain and the early 80s, this song absolutely counts as jubilant and yet incisive social commentary. And the question mark at the end of Wham Rap, enjoy what you do, implies that maybe you don't enjoy what you do. But speak for yourself, Bub, because young George Michael may not have street credibility,

but these fellas are nonetheless enjoying the bejesus out of themselves. If you're a pub man or a club man, maybe a jet black guy with a hip-hop, a white, cool cat with a chill-be-hack, maybe leather and studs is a way you're at. George Michael was, born your host Kirako Panayotu in East Finchley in North London in 1963. His mother is English,

his father is Greek. I wrote that name out phonetically. Young Yogue, as his friends used to call him, young Yogue met his dearest friend and future bandmate Andrew Ridgley at Bushy Meade School in the mid-70s. First, they were in a ska band called the executive because everyone cool is in a ska band at some point in their lives. Then they formed Wham. By this point, Yogue, having recognized that, quote,

there is a very urgent need for a stage name, end quote. Yogue is taken the name George Michael. It's more like an artistic persona, the name George Michael. It's more complicated

than it first appears. There is a plaque now at Bushy Meade School commemorating the fact that George Michael went there. But that plaque does not mention that George's dear friend and bandmate Andrew Ridgley went there also, and that's too bad, because Wham is very much the story of George Michael and Andrew Ridgley. Even if Andrew's

guitar ain't plugged into anything, and you can't hear his voice most of the time, and George's dominant star power is immediately hilariously apparent, no matter what he says or how he says it, or how hilarious it might sound. I'm in. If that guy, if George Michael gives a wham and a bam but not a damn, then I do, and I do and I don't. Also, I enthusiastically recommend the movie Wham, the documentary Wham, directed by Chris Smith and released in 2023. That's where George expresses the very urgent need for a stage name. It's on Netflix.

You know, I owe a debris. the great actress Iyo Adebri, she's in the bear she's in that movie Bottoms etc. Iyo also reviews movies on a letterboxed the film Twitter ass website letterboxed and for the Wham movie

she wrote quote This was cute It's nice when boys are friends End quote I concur Woo woo Uh oh Those boys sound pretty bad

Better not mess with those dudes In this movie, George says, quote, Andrew was this kind of idol that I had. He was the first person that I'd ever hung around with that was much stronger than me. Almost everything came from Andrew. Andrew changed my life in exactly the way someone needed to change my life if I was going to be a pop star. End quote. The first Wham album comes out in 1983 and is called Fantastic and very much sounds like it was made by two best friends having the time of their lives up to that point. And this record starts with

a song called Bad Boys, and both the dudes in Wham aren't into it. In the Wham movie, George says, Bad Boys was simply formula. I just didn't know what to do, and I just wrote to formula. I absolutely hate that single. End quote. All right. Fine. Let's try track two. This is better, but the last word here should be pants. That song's called A Ray of Sunshine and the last word there should be pants. Can't you see I'm ready to dance? I can't stop this rhythm in my pants. That's objectively better. I'm not just saying this because pants is one of my favorite words. It also rhymes. Do I have to think of everything around here? That guitar part is super awesome though. Don't think I didn't notice that. Nonetheless, hit me again. Track three. Oh yeah. Do not try.

try the line, I'm just a love machine and I won't work for nobody but you on the object of your affection. It won't work for you. Ooh, that's a Motown cover. That's a cover of the 1975 number one hit Love Machine by the miracles, by the post-smokey Robinson Miracles. We're getting closer to the essence of Wham, but why don't we just go ahead and jump ahead to the song that Andrew Ridgley himself describes as pure Wham? Here we go. The song Club Tropicana is pure Wham. Heedonist, escapist, frivolous, but inclusive.

The drinks probably aren't free if you aren't George Michael, but you can still have one. They filmed the video in Abitha and everything. That part of the song, when George sings, the drinks are free, is the precise moment when he dumps his whole drink in the swimming pool he's floating in. It's a cosmopolitan. I think, George's drink. Some critics in the UK blanched at the hedonist escapism of Club Tropicana, preferring instead the street credibility and gritty urban realism of Wham rap.

That's a true story. Let me play you one more song off the Wham album, Fantastic. In the Wham movie, George says, quote, about six months before we went to do the video for Club Tropicana, I'd actually had something go on that made my attraction to men fairly clear. I had stayed over at this guy's house. He tried to have sex with me and I'd been too scared. But I realized that I wanted to stay in the bed for the night.

I wanted to be close to this guy, which had never happened before. And I wrote a song about that. The song is called Nothing Looks the Same in the Light. and it is beautiful. And George's falsetto is especially beautiful. And the song is not lying. What makes the song beautiful really is how earnest it is. Write down to the lines,

please be kind. Don't change your mind because you're the first, and I want to stay here with you. But the song is careful about what it reveals and who it reveals. George realizes that he's gay. George comes out to Andrew. He comes out to his bandmate and dear friend, but George decides not to be.

to come out to his parents, nor does he come out in public. Now that he is a nascent English pop star, especially beloved by screaming Beatlemania-type pre-teenage girls, George says, quote, that is a pivotal moment. At that point in time, I really did. I really wanted to come out. And then I lost my nerve completely. And just by necessity, I went with full gusto in the progression of Wham, creating a new character. And you're going to do better and better and shock everyone at how well you can do, forging an identity through my success, end quote. But success is not an identity.

And if your artistic persona is too successful, your persona can become a prison, especially if it's not who you really are. Wham's second album comes out in 1984. It's called Make It Big. It has a few monster hit songs. you definitely know and if you're lucky a few other hit songs you forgot you know so you get to hear them again and be delightfully reminded and i loved the whole album when i was six and i love it even more now because i still feel like i'm six when i hear it and then george michael goes solo and then george michael puts out one of the biggest solo debut albums in pop music history and becomes one of the biggest stars of late 80s mtv and then in 1990, George Michael puts out his second solo album, in which he does not renounce his persona necessarily, and he does not reveal everything, certainly, but George does inform us in no uncertain terms that in a few crucial respects he's been lying about virtually everything this whole time, and he ain't going to do that no more. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 114th episode of 60 songs that explained the 90s.

And this week we are discussing Freedom 90 by George Michael from his 1990 album, Listen Without Prejudice. That's freedom exclamation point apostrophe 90, as in shorthand for the year in 1990. The apostrophe, the little curly dude at the lower end of the apostrophe faces away from the nine, not toward the nine. That's very important. The title of this show, for example, looks very wrong to me if the apostrophe is not pointing away from the nine in 90. indulge me on this. When you hear a pop song a lot in the background, when it's playing so softly

or so far away that you can't quite physically hear the lyrics, maybe you're distracted, maybe you're doing your homework, maybe you're watching the video, but there's literally five literal supermodels in the video, so maybe you're not giving the lyrics your full attention. Do you ever just fill in the lyrics in your head perhaps erroneously? You just assume, You try to guess the next line and then you convince yourself that your assumption must be correct, even if it's not. I did not mishear the chorus to Freedom 90 exactly, but I did just naturally assume at first that the line here must be, and I don't love you and you don't love me. But that's very wrong. And this is not the sort of song George Michael wants you to mishear.

I don't belong to you and you don't belong to you. to me. That is just slightly clunkier, rhythmically, than I don't love you, but he does. George Michael loves you. But at the very least, he loves that you love him. But loving a pop star does not mean you own and therefore control that pop star. And Freedom 90 is a song about George Michael declaring his freedom from your expectations, starting right here in 1990. He is severing his previous contract with his devoted love-struck, often paralyzingly horny, and occasionally quite overbearing fan base. And he is proposing a new one, a new understanding, a new agreement between pop star and devoted global fan base, based on love and mutual respect and healthy personal boundaries.

Also, on this particular song, this particular contract will be overseen. It will be notarized in a sense by literally five literal supermodels because part of the new contract is that George Michael don't want to be in the videos no more. Quick question for you. Who are the four most famous MTV stars of the 1980s? When I was 11 years old, I used to pretend that that sound in Come Back to Me by Janet Jackson was made. by a toilet plunger. Do do, do, do, do, do, do, I was and I remain immature for my age. Who is the fourth biggest MTV star of the 80s?

Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, and Who? The top three are locked in, me thinks. There's a very funny conversation in I Want My MTV, the book, The Great MTV Oral History by Rob Tanenbaum and Craig Marks, we'll be talking to Rob later, where people just complain about how half-assed Prince's videos were. Like, the Little Red Corvette video is not a sumptuous, innovative visual feast on par with Peter Gabriel's sledgehammer or aha's take on me. But two things Prince's video for Little Red Corvette does have going for it

is that Little Red Corvette is playing the whole time and Prince is in it. Prince makes the list. Who's the fourth? Historically, I have gone with Janet Jackson. And she's probably still my pick, but I talk about her too much. Who else? Bruce Springsteen? I always like the part of the Glory Days video where Bruce Springsteen's sleeping and his cute little kid wakes him up by whacking him with a wiffle ball bat.

But I never got up to courage to try that on my dad. David Lee Roth? Give me a bottle of anything and a glazed donut to go. No thanks. Axel Rose? No. Cindy Lopper? Thanks to the girls just want to have fun video.

Captain Lou Albano is canonically Cindy Lopper's father, as far as I'm concerned. Closer. Tina Turner, Annie Lennox. You know who's up there as the fourth face on the 80s MTV Mount Rushmore? If you'll pardon the expression? This fella. Michael Hutchins, lead singer of In Excess, owned late 80s MTV. dude the video for need you tonight slash mediate ruled so hard dude in excess won like 400 mtv video music awards

in one year it was five in 1988 but it fell like 400 a lot of george michael crossover in terms of the appeal here michael hutchins phenomenal hair michael hutchins looks phenomenal in a leather jacket Michael Hutchins radiates smoldering intensity. Michael Hutchins, one-man Australian tourism campaign. This girl in my homeroom in seventh grade was obsessed with Michael Hutchins. She talked about him constantly wrote erotic poetry about him, I assume, the whole deal. And I'm like, what's he got that I haven't got? And she's like, homeroom is like 10 minutes long.

I literally do not have time to elucidate the thousands of, the primary reason the need you tonight slash mediate video rule so hard is that it ends with everyone in excess hanging out in an active construction site and taking turns running through cue cards for each word Michael Hutchins sings. And he starts with the cue cards and he's wearing a super fringy leather jacket that I for sure could not have pulled off in seventh grade or at any other time in my life. So there you go. There's another thing he's got that I haven't got. In this video is the coolest thing you've ever seen in your life, though it certainly helps if you're only vaguely aware that Bob Dylan exists. And at the end, there's a sax solo, because InexS has a dedicated saxophone player.

And all the other dudes in NXS walk away slowly from the active construction site during the sax solo. Looking super cool, of course. And I remember as a kid being very concerned that, A, one of the trucks loaded up with coal or whatever was going to run over Michael Hutchins. And B, are they just going to leave the sax player there? I remember being genuinely concerned for the sax player that he might feel lonely and perhaps even scared to be left there alone because the thought of being left alone in a public place scared me very much from the ages of six to 19. Kick by NXS was a massive album in 1987.

Six million copies sold and four top ten hits in America. In ascending order of greatness, those four top ten hits are, New sensation, devil inside, need you tonight, and never tear us apart, which has an even better saxophone solo. Inexe had vague bad boy rock and roll energy, but also a quite familiar sense of hedonist, escapist frivolity. They were best case scenario 80s pop stars. In the NXS story, the Michael Hutchins story,

does end with profound sadness, with tragedy, with his death in 1997. But it did feel, at the height of his powers, that another thing Michael Hutchins had that I didn't was a phenomenal social support system. He had a gang. He had a band. And you don't have to ever learn the names

of any of the other dudes in excess, even the saxophone guy, for the band part to be vitally important, both to his artistic persona and his personal well-being. In excess only works as a band. even if it's a band dominated by one absurdly smoldering person. Wham worked like that also, though George Michael needed just the one other guy.

Oh, goodness gracious, I'd forgotten about this song. It's called Freedom. It's on Wham's Make It Big from 1984. It sounds like a cover of a Motown hit, even though it ain't. And I think we've established that the best feeling in the world, what is best in life, you ask? What is best in life is when you love a song, but then you totally forget that song exists because there's too much other stuff to remember, right? Like the names of all your He-Man guys and all your Transformers. But then you hear that song again and remember that you love it. But simultaneously, it's like you're hearing it for the first time again. I love that feeling so much. Hit the high note, George. What a lucky girl. Seems relevant that even in 1984, even in Wham, even before he gets like ultra famous. George Michael is always. already puzzling out the relationship between love and freedom.

He understands that loving someone does not require imprisonment. Quite the opposite, as pop music has often tried to tell us. I keep meaning to bring up that Wham also featured a few backup singers and dancers. First, D. C. Lee and Shirley Holliman, and then D. left, and she was replaced by Helen DeMack, better known as Pepsi. And then Pepsi and Shirley had a duo for a while. Those ladies don't make the album covers, but they're important. Wham was a band, in addition to being a hunky teen pop duo,

in addition to being a blatant delivery system for George Michael solo megastar. We got to do it, right? We got to do both of them, really. All right, then, let's do both of them. Here's the true space shuttle launch, right? This song is Cape Canaveral. You picture the saxophone player on Careless Whisper. No offense to In excess, but Inex's ain't got a song with a sax riff half as rad as Careless Whisper, obviously.

You picture this saxophone player here emerging from the colossal plumes of smoke generated by George Michael right here, as George bellows every individual, iconic, angst-ridden syllable of, we hurt each other with the things we want to say. Careless whisper in its way is also pure wham. and that this song had been around for the entirety of Wham. It's on the first Wham demo tape, along with Club Tropicana and Wham rap. Andrew worked out the chords. George fleshed it out and wrote the words and gradually shepherded this song to all-time pop greatness. Careless Whisper is both pure Wham and pure not Wham. And that officially the single is billed as Wham featuring George Michael.

And the video is George Michael featuring George Michael. And no offense, but nobody. listens to this song for the chords. Hit the high note, George, and I'm never going to dance again the way I danced with you. Is this song about Wham? Is this song George apologizing to Andrew for breaking up Wham? No. No, it's not. Don't overthink it. Let's not get cute. This isn't an especially cute state of affairs. In the Wham documentary, George Michael says, quote, in reality, the turning point with Wham was nothing to do with Wham. The turning point with Wham was me, as I suddenly thought, oh my God, I'm a massive star and I'm gay. And the depression was about that.

It was about the way I'd boxed myself in. You know, careful what you wish for. End quote. What George Dad wished for was pop superstardom. And the songs he was writing had already pretty much gotten him there. How many seconds of last Christmas, you require to reacquaint yourself with the all-time pop greatness of last Christmas. Seven seconds? Let's try seven seconds. That'll do it. Shout out to George Michael and Mariah Carey for accidentally discovering the 20th century

pop star life hack for staying ubiquitous in the 21st century. Write a Christmas song. That's all you got to do. Write a hit Christmas song. You might top the charts for one month a year for, in the movie they talk about getting extremely drunk while shooting the last Christmas video. The theme of the last Christmas video is majestic plumage and romantic intrigue on a ski trip. And also George.

All of George's interviews are archival audio, of course, but he feels absolutely present tense in this movie in the best way. George talks about how one day he and Andrew are just hanging out and watching TV or something. and George goes, hold on a second, I got an idea. And George runs upstairs and writes last Christmas. And he comes back downstairs and says, I did it. And how you feel ultimately about Wham as a band, as a partnership, as a balanced collaboration between two dear childhood friends, it comes down to whether you'll grant that Andrew plays a crucial role in that story in the creation of last Christmas.

Andrew does not play a songwriting role or a producing role or a performing role necessarily, but he is still crucial to this process. Andrew is not crucial to the song, no, but Andrew is crucial to George as George creates this song. And George will not realize how crucial Andrew is on a personal level until George has skyrocketed to legit solo fame and Andrew is no longer there at all. I gotta have faith. It's awfully tempting to just skip Faith, the album, the 1987 George Michael's solo debut album. I'm tempted to just skip Faith in its entirety because the obviousness, the ubiquity, the absurdly bonkers success of Faith. If I'm counting right, Faith is the 50th best-selling album of all time. Roughly 25 million copies sold worldwide.

And Elton John's greatest hits is 51st. The suffocating ubiquity of faith is the whole point of the story, Freedom 90, is telling. Faith is the unprecedented and nearly unbearable success that must be dismantled and renounced. The pop iconography of the video for faith, the song, the jukebox, the leather jacket. George's whole irresistible reincarnated Elvis Stees, if you will. This is the iconography that must be destroyed, literally. on camera later. It is George Michael, the person who must resist the prison of George Michael, the pop star.

But if there's a case to be made, then right here is where we make the case that George Michael is, in fact, the fourth person on the 80s MTV Mount Rushmore. That it's MJ, Madonna, Prince, and him. And there is indeed an argument for that. But let's not argue. And while we're not arguing, let's not argue. let's not argue about the fact that father figure is the best thing George Michael ever did. Get the fuck out of here. Father figure is the best, the opulence, the ludicrous sultriness,

the way George and his sultry buddies hammer at every syllable of, I have had enough of crime. That's the line, apparently. I had always thought that line was I have had enough of crying. But no, apparently, it's I. have had enough of crime, which dovetails with the line, that's all I wanted, but sometimes love can be mistaken for a crime. I keep trying to find a non-awkward way to say that it is bizarre to me, in retrospect,

that I ever thought George Michael wasn't gay. This seems quite obvious to me now, of course. It is tremendously challenging for me to even try and hear any of these songs or watch any of these videos now and make myself believe that I totally use. used to believe that George Michael was straight. But then I remember, and I've said this before, and it's embarrassing, and yet I keep saying it. Then I remember that I used to think that Michael Stipe and Natalie Merchant made a cute couple. And so why don't I just shut up about it? Yeah? Hit the high note, George. Goodness gracious, for the first half anyway, Faith has automatic greatest hits

album energy. Does it not? That's one more try. That's the power ballad. This next song is not the power ballad. When I was not six anymore, but when I was still very much a kid, mentally at least, my mom decides that it's time for young Robbie to learn about the birds and the bees. And so my mom buys a book, right? A book of cartoons, tastefully but thoroughly explaining the deal, right? When two people love each other very much and so on. And we're in the car. She hands me this book. I'm in the back seat, a booster seat, possibly. She's driving. I'm reading this book and it's got like not diagrams, but silence in the car for a long time as I absorb this new. The radio is off even, and that's how you know it's serious. Silence. And finally, my mom's still driving. She goes, Robbie, are you okay?

Do you have any questions? And I go, Mom, did you look at this book before you gave it to me? This song, this video is why I wasn't supposed to watch MTV. This song is unbelievable. The title, I Want Your Sex, is somehow the least pornographic element of the song, I Want Your Sex. Ridiculous. The cowbell alone constitutes a crime in several countries. This song is an even HBO.

This song is, you know what? You know what? I'll tell you, you know what this song is? It's Cinemax. Ridiculous. But we're over here cracking jokes and buying 20,000. million copies of this record, and George Michael is now in super hardcore, careful what you wish for. Territory.

In the documentary, George Michael, Freedom Uncut, which also came out in 2023. George Michael co-directed it with his close friend David Austin. This movie is billed as George Michael's final work. In this movie, George reflects on the faith era, saying, quote, I lived in fucking sunglasses. I couldn't make eye contact. with people. It's bizarre. End quote. He talks about feeling terribly lonely.

He talks about feeling out of control. He says, quote, music was my very controlling lover. End quote. And then, in 1990, George Michael talked to the Los Angeles Times. He appeared on the cover of the LA Times

magazine calendar, talking about his new album, his second solo album called Listen Without Prejudice, Volume one. You got to love the volume one part, right? Classic pretentious pop star move. You call it volume one to imply the threat of a volume two. It's great stuff. George Michael now explains that he will no longer appear in his music videos. He will do very few interviews, and he will not tour extensively. He says he's sure that some people will assume that this new reticence to publicize himself is all a publicity stunt. So he says,

quote, but I'm also sure that most people find it hard to believe that stardom can make you miserable. After all, everybody wants to be a star. I certainly did, and I worked hard to get it, but I was miserable, and I don't want to feel that way again. End quote. Now, I had hoped to avoid this, but there is no avoiding this. I am now going to provide a dramatic reading of the letter that Frank Sinatra, the Frank Sinatra, wrote to the George Michael on September 9th, 1990. Frank read the L.A. Times thing, and he had some thoughts.

It's typed up this letter on Frank Sinatra letterhead. Great font. And it's neatly signed Frank Sinatra in ink and copyrighted. Copyright 1990 Frank Sinatra. George Michael thinks that Frank. didn't write this, he thinks that Frank's publicists wrote it, just so you know. I can sense your concern. Dramatic reading does not mean I'm going to read it in a Frank Sinatra accent, nor am I going to read it all that dramatically. I'm just reading this. Okay, don't worry about it.

Frank Sinatra's letter to George Michael. Here we go. When I saw your calendar cover today about George Michael, the reluctant pop star, my first reaction was he should thank the good Lord. every morning when he wakes up to have all that he has. And that'll make two of us thanking God every morning for all that we have. I don't understand a guy who lives in hopes of reducing the strain of his celebrity status. Here's a kid who wanted to be a pop star since I was about seven years old. And now that he's a smash performer and songwriter at 27, he wants to quit doing what tons of gifted youngsters all over the world would shoot grandma for.

Just one crack at what he's complaining about. Frank, leave grandma out of it. Frank. Geez, grandma literally catches astray here. This next paragraph, though, this will either convince you that it's definitely frank or it's definitely not frank, depending on what you already believed. Either way, here we go. Come on, George.

loosen up swing man swing comma man unbelievable dust off those gossamer wings and fly yourself to the moon of your choice and be grateful to carry the baggage we've all had to carry since those lean nights of sleeping on buses and helping the driver unload the instruments and no more of that talk about the tragedy of fame the tragedy of fame is when no one shows up and you're singing to the cleaning lady in some empty joint that hasn't seen a paying customer since sate swithin's day i don't know what that is and you're nowhere near that your top dog on the top rung of a tall ladder called stardom which in latin means thanks to the fans who were there when it was lonely talent must not be wasted those who have it and you obviously do or today's calendar cover article would have been about Rudy Valley.

That's super rude, Frank, and also Rudy Valley had been dead for four years. Those who have talent must hug it, embrace it, nurture it, and share it, lest it be taken away from you as fast as it was loaned to you. Trust me, I've been there. Frank Sinatra. Copyright 1990 Frank Sinatra. well allow George to retort George had already written and recorded and released a song but just roll with it

Freedom 90 is built around some super jaunty piano Elton John in the Freedom Uncut documentary remarks that he's jealous that it wasn't him playing piano and that's quite a compliment to George I think you got jaunty piano and you got the funky drummer loop right the oft sample James Brown funky drummer loop I mean funky drummer has been sampled like billions of times, but it sounds fresh and innovative here. And that, too, is quite a compliment to George. But the elegance, the ultra-catchiness of the music expertly distracts you from how literal these lyrics are.

That's also a compliment. Freedom 90 is George telling you how it was, how it is, and how it will be. George rips quite hungrily into the word hungry there. Does he not? I love the word hungry there. Wham was not a boy band, but not not a boy band. The word schoolgirls there is quite striking to me, the more I reflect on it. I don't want to reflect on that, actually.

I need a little distance from that. I'm jumping to the second verse. Wham was a boy band in the sense that there were two boys in Wham. Put it that way. And Andrew Ridgley is always there. always audible in George Michael's music, or I guess it's more accurate to say that now Andrew's absence is audible.

You can hear the lack of invaluable support that Andrew used to provide to George. Did anybody out there initially mishear this next line as Poison MTV? Just me? All right, fine. It's the boys at MTV, obviously. But Poison MTV also works, obviously.

Anyway, this is all George telling us how it was and is, but now we move on to how it will be. Now I'm going to get myself happy. It is amusing, certainly, that Freedom 90, a song about the enticing but also profoundly distorting effects of MTV stardom and a manifesto of sorts about how George isn't going to play that game anymore. It's of course quite amusing that this song is inextricable from its music video, right? the video is directed by David Fincher and does not feature George Michael and features instead the aforementioned literally five literal supermodels namely Naomi Campbell Linda Evangelista Tachiana Petitz Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford these ladies can be variously observed in the Freedom 90 video wearing sweaters lip syncing crawling bathing listening to music, walking in a sheet, and making tea. Also, the iconic jukebox and the iconic guitar from the faith video blow up. And the leather jacket from the faith video catches on fire.

In the Freedom Uncut movie, George says, quote, The burning jacket, the exploding guitar, the exploding jukebox was me just saying, I'm sick of this. I really can't cope with it. end quote quite striking imagery all this which once again expertly distracts from how striking these lines are i think there's something you should know i think it's time i stop the show there's something deep inside of me there's someone i forgot to be most of the world will not learn that george michael is gay for another eight years or so until april nineteen ninety eight

when George is arrested in a Beverly Hills park by an undercover police officer and charged with lewd conduct. George will handle this humiliation with remarkable grace. He will, for example, deign to appear in his next video, delightfully hamming it up while dressed as a police officer in the clip for an exuberant new song called Outside. He will be free then, or freer. So in retrospect, Freedom 90 is remarkable, both for what it revealed, and what it does not reveal. As an expression of George Michael's newfound freedom,

this song is necessarily and heartbreakingly incomplete. But it is complete as an expression of George's love for us, or as love for how much we love him. The word freedom in this chorus is tremendously important, of course, but the other words that George sings, a little less bombastically, are tremendously important as well. I won't let you down.

I will not give you up. Gotta have some faith in the sound. It's the one good thing that I've got. I have an overwhelming urge to stop here. I am inclined to come to a screeching halt right here. I had all these other people I was going to talk about. Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Mary J. Blige, George Michael's early boyfriend, Anselmo Filippa,

who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1993. read the anselmo section of that freedom uncut documentary is very moving and very very very very sad the next george michael album released in 1996 and called older george thinks it's his best album and george says every song is about anselmo i want to stop christmas 2016 right and with my family of course and i get a message that george michael has died of heart disease and a fatty liver he was 53. And I got to write an obituary now, right, for George Michael. And so I put on the Faith album and I sit there with my family and I play Skipbo, the card game with my family, and we all listen to faith. And then I write my 1,000 insufficient words. Stop, stop, stop. Yeah, I am inclined to leave

it at that table, playing cards with my parents and my children on Christmas Day, bopping along to the song, faith, luxuriating and father figure, wincing through, I want your sex and hoping nobody else notices that song at all, et cetera, et cetera. George Michael is still present tense for me in that moment, even as I'm trying for the first time to consider him in the past tense, because his voice still, to this day, makes me feel like that six-year-old kid under my parents' bed, and that's somebody I don't ever want to forget to be. Our guest today is esteemed writer,

editor, author, and rock star Rob Tannenbaum whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Rowing Stone, Blender, Playboy, and many other publications. He is also the co-author with Craig Marks of the oral history I Want My MTV. Rob, welcome.

Thank you, Rob. Good to see you. It's great to see you. You wrote about this George Michael Freedom Uncut documentary for the Times last year, and I think most pop stars talk about being uncomfortable with fame and how terrible and oppressive it can be and they want their privacy back. But do you think George Michael's relationship with fame was different? Like, did he possibly have one of the most severe, you know, an uncomfortable relationships with his

own fame and success? No, that's absolutely incorrect. Okay. I'm kidding. No, no, it's totally right. But I just figured I would start the conversation off on the most awkward manner possible. We can, that's what we do here, Rob. You've come to the right place. I have a theory about George, which actually had was sort of corroborated by David Austin, his lifelong best friend. You know, George was always at pains to describe himself as having been an awkward adolescent, which has become kind of a cliche, right? Sure. Supermodel or gorgeous actress.

Oh, you have no idea what I look like. Yes, what a nerd I was. And, you know, Rob, as somebody who was a fucking nerd, unlovable at 14, I resent all of people who lie. Like, no. No, I was a nerd. You weren't. So. And in fact, when I interviewed George, he said, people have no comprehension of what I looked like as a kid.

I was such an ugly little bastard. And you can find photos now. He wasn't exactly an ugly little bastard, but my takeaway from that is that he felt like an ugly little bastard. George also grew up loving pop music at an almost metaphysical level. He believed in pop music in a way that I guess lots of pre-adolescence do, but he never lost that pre-adolescent love for pop music. He believed in pop music as an art form.

And he also hoped that becoming famous as a pop musician would make him feel like he was no longer an ugly little bastard. Right. And it just, it didn't happen anyway. Right? He got famous. Does that work for anybody? You know, does anyone, does pop music actually

save anyone in that way? Probably not. I mean, I think some people seem pretty, share seems pretty happy, doesn't it? That is, yes, absolutely, yes. But, you know, David Austin, George's best friend, when I interviewed him for the New York Times article,

he said, when you initially get famous, it's everything you want. Then when it becomes huge, you realize fame will never ever fill that void. And, you know, George had a gigantic void. Whether, how much of that had to do with his adolescence is, is hard to say. But I think thinking of it as a void is valuable in thinking about George, because you

can't fill a void. Nothing will fill it. Right. You interviewed him. It was post-wham, but before faith came out, right, when you talked to him. Anyone who's listening to this who is a journalist will be stunned by the level of access that I have for George. I'm stunned. Yeah.

And this was for an interview in musician magazine, right? Which was not yet, you know, fairly low circulation magazine. Although that magazine was important to him. And if you want, remind me and I'll come back to that. Sure. So George and I did probably a two-hour interview. And then we went out for dinner. Okay.

And then about, I don't know, a week later, we did a half hour, 45 minute follow-up phoneer. The follow-up. Yeah, now you wouldn't even get the half-hour phoner. You would get 20 minutes, you know, in the back of a town car, you know, going from one place to the other, yes. Can you write your cover story if she just texts you a few answers? If you communicate just an emoji, is that something you could possibly navigate? Yes. It'll get to that soon enough, yeah.

Yes. So, you know, I met what was clear to me about George was that he wanted to be taken seriously and that he hoped faith would be the vehicle for him being taken seriously, which it wasn't exactly. You don't think so? Like he was treated just like a pop star In like the more disposable MTV sense Like Yeah I think what he discovered with faith Is hold on

It's in the lyrics to Freedom 90 Some mistakes are built to last Is that it? That's right Sometimes the clothes do not make the man Right I was every hungry schoolgirls fantasy some mistakes were built to last right so that's how i interpret that part of freedom 90

look faith is a fantastic record whether we're talking about it as a piece of pop music or just i don't want to use the word art but limiting it to pop music isn't necessary right it's a great record yes and At least in his mind, I don't think it changed the public perception of him. For a lot of us, it did. Rob, you and I, the people we know, are people who are able to make small discernments in style and sound and vision. Many people are not. And I think that's what he came up against. And a lot of it has to do with the medium is the message.

he was still making videos the faith video okay you know what do you think about close your eyes think about the faith video what do you see I see his ass

fair enough the earring the jukebox the guitar the jacket the ass that's sure yes and I wish I had a pair of jeans that fit me that well

yeah so it was a little bit of a mixed message and you know and maybe one that was doomed to fail in a culture where the visual is more important than the verbal. Okay. So the Freedom 90 video, which of course blows up the jukebox, burns the jacket.

You know, on one way you could interpret that as, you know, I don't want to be a pop star anymore, but is take me seriously part of that. Like I'm burning, you know, all my teen pop type, you know, iconography, and now I want to be a serious artist. That's another part of Freedom 90 and what he was doing after Faith for you. I think so. But what we have to factor in is George didn't take this sentiment and express it in a metal machine music type of unlistenable atonal music. And this is one of the reasons that, you know, I can listen to Freedom 90 on repeat for days at a time. Because the levels of contradiction or, I wish I had a better word than contradiction. There's a lot of complexity in the song, including the way the message plays against the hooks. I mean, this song is just

hook after hook. And it's a... It's a song that's saying, I don't want to be a pop star anymore. Oh, but by the way, I'm going to give you one more incredible piece of pop music that's going to get me all over MTV. Hey, MTV, stop playing me. I'm not even going to appear in my video. Here's five supermodels in my stead, yes. Play me 12 times a day.

I dare you. Right? I mean, that's a, that's a very complicated layering of messages, which I assume he understood. Sure. I was trying to think of a song like Freedom 90, or a video really like Freedom 90, where the song is about I am renegotiating my relationship with fame. And the video is, here's me blowing up, you know, all the stuff that you used to love about me. Like I thought about De La Sol is dead, just the album cover, like the wilted date. You know, but I'm struggling to think of anything at the scale of Freedom 90 in terms of like so explicit a message that like I'm not that person now I'm going to be this person. Yeah, we've seen lots of costume changes or stylistic changes. I don't know. I can't think of one that's like this. And, you know, also in the in this song, really, and I think only a guy who was a pop star, but also had started out as a pop fan, could do this. The lyric that always gets me is,

all we have to see is that I don't belong to you and you don't belong to me. That's the central myth of pop music. So this for me is the reason why when two becomes one is always going to be the greatest spice girl song of all time. Because the song is about us as a group and our audience. right? That's the two that becomes one. And George is just trying to, like literally, in the academic sense, deconstruct that. He's showing how false it is, but he's also engaging in it. Right? He is the thing that he's critiquing because that song does not separate him from his fans. I think, if anything, it made a lot of his fans love him even more. Does that mean it worked or that means it failed?

I would say it worked because my sense of his intention is that he didn't really mean it, man. Because again, if you want to get rid of your pop stardom, there are ways to do it. record a duet with me there we go or make an album of bluegrass music George Michael's metal machine music is a really interesting thing

to just turn over in my head that would probably have worked people would have loved that and then you'd be like oh my God like you do people love anything I do well he'd started he would have had to start adding melodies and counter

melodies and hoax. That's right. You know, just let me take out the atonal crap now and make another pop record. I mean, he, you know, he did eventually stop making pop records, not only in the sense of retiring, but, you know, in the sense of making music, that wasn't going to get on the radio. And I'm always aware of the fact that every massive career has a natural shelf life when you run out of good songs or catchy songs or the dominant sound of top 40 moves on without you. So he later on did stop writing pop music, but he didn't at the moment when he was talking about how he didn't want to be a pop star anymore.

He was a pop star who wrote a song about how he didn't want to be a pop star, but the song made sure that he would continue to be a pop star. Yeah. Well, when you said he wants to be taken more seriously, it made me think he got so old or older or more mature so fast. Like, he's collaborating with Elton John. You know, he's doing all these Stevie Wonder covers. It makes me think a Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, right?

Like, he just becomes like a very sophisticated, elegant, sort of classic old soul type pop star, which is a very different proposition from Wham or even from. from anything on faith. Did he seem that way to you in real time? Yeah, I think that's right. And it's sort of like what they talk about with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, right? She made him sexy and he made her, I don't know what it is, vulnerable, something like that. the marriage between George Michael and Elton or Stevie, both sides benefit.

George gets credibility from which he desperately wants by being accepted by, you know, Elton John, who also started out as someone who was not particularly respected because he made pop music. And same thing with Stevie wondered. George benefits from that and the older artist benefits, by seeming hip and riding the coattails of the younger artists to get back on the radio. George didn't need collaborators, right? He didn't need Aretha Franklin to get on the radio. So he did it, I think for the genuine experience of it.

Sure. You know, what would it be like to sing with Aretha? I don't know if they ever did sing together. You know, it might have been one of those studio Frankenstein concoction where they're never in the same room at the same time. But, you know, he definitely saw it as a way of communicating with a higher level of artistry, but maybe something grander and more accepted. Sure.

Just the classic pop stars, you know, the really respected people. He wants respect. You know, there's a subplied also to listen. and without prejudice, that album where the title is about how he started winning like Soul and R&B awards at award shows and there was a little bit of a backlash. And obviously the racial politics of MTV were super fraud at first, you know, starting with getting Michael Jackson on. Like, do you remember George Michael as a particularly controversial figure back then in that sense?

I don't think he was that controversial because these were not the kinds of conversations we're having, you know, which is not to say that no one was having those conversations, but they weren't really widespread. We weren't particularly talking about appropriation of cultures. You know, but you can find, yeah, you can, you can find moments that point to that. And, you know, one of the things is when George won an award, he won the American Music Award in 1989 for favorite soul R&B album which I think embarrassed

him a little bit but it didn't embarrass him as much as the pop jazz guitarist George Benson who announced the award and you can find this video on YouTube his eyes practically roll 360 degrees through the back

of his head and up him and look I love George Michael more than I love George Benson and my feeling is a little bit like how dude who the fuck are you to roll your eyes at George Michael but I think he was I think he wasn't rolling his eyes at George per se it was more his exasperation at the at what he saw credibly as the easier path white artists have to towards a claim than artists of color now Was that the best SolarNB album of 1989, possibly?

I need to go, you know, we both need to go back and research this, but it's not best, right? It's favorite. So maybe all that means is that he sold more records than Luther Vandross or Bobby Brown. Yeah, I think it was Gladys Knight who talked about Bobby Brown, specifically is like, you know, Bobby Brown should be up there, but Bobby Brown doesn't have the opportunities that George Michael does. And, you know, there's a lot of

subtext there, obviously. But yeah, I don't think it was, I don't think they were upset with George in particular. I think George's love of that music always seemed very sincere. I don't think anyone thought he was being strategic or disingenuous and how much he loved this music,

you know, but it was more what he represented that they were objected to. Wham in a lot of ways is a Motown tribute band. Right, right. You know, George's favorite artist as a kid was sweet. Which, I mean, it's a great choice, right? They were the poppiest of the glam bands. They were also kind of the hardest rocking in a lot of ways.

Yeah, Wham has a very clear debt to Motown and are not. B, especially the pop side of R&B, which was pretty common at the time in England, right? All of those new pop bands, ABC, Culture Club, help me out here. Maybe Duran Duran, though not so much. A little bit, though. Northern Seoul, just as an idea. Yeah. So it's ingrained in him.

It's certainly not something he moved to as a way of experience. his audience or becoming more popular. I think it was a genuine love as well as a genuine facility. He had a facility with this type of music, which is not to say that he didn't also have certain advantages because of the color of his skin. Of course he did. But there are other white artists who have tried to play black music,

and fallen on their face. And George did it for a few years, longer than a decade, and came out looking pretty good with it. I would surmise, maybe I read this somewhere, that among the awards, George won in his career,

that American Music Award was one of the most significant to him. Yeah. If he felt like it signified acceptance from a black audience. I consider you the authority on MTV, and when I think of 80s MTV, I think Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna, for starters, right?

And I was wondering if, to you, George Michael was in, you know, that top superstar tier. Like, are his videos arguably as influential? Who is on the 80s MTV Mount Rushmore? Well, you said Madonna, Michael Jackson, named Prince, which I think is pretty solid.

If we need a fourth person, I mean, who are we going to use, Huey Lewis? I had not considered that, but I'm not opposed to it. The video where he's on the beach, I always really like that video. Probably not Huey Lewis, actually.

I'd be happy to see George as the fourth face of 80s pop Mount Rushmore. He was not as, certainly he wasn't as prolific as prince, but who is? There's certain things he's lacking. Help me out with this. What is George Michael lacking that the other three have other than prolificness?

I think that the faith record stands alone in its hugeness. You know, I, you know, listen without prejudice. Like the records he made afterward are great, but they, on just on a commercial scale, I don't know if he has anything near the consistency of Prince or even, you know, the run of Michael Jackson at that time or certainly the run of Madonna, you know, and then you get to sort of the evolution, right? And as we've been saying, and I think it's true, like he becomes, you know, a much more sophisticated, you know, but less pop-oriented musician as he gets a little older. You know, he's not trying these reinventions that Madonna was trying. Right, right. Yeah, so I think that's right. His peaks were close to as good as the peaks of anyone else. That's true. Putting yourself on a plane with Madonna Prince and Michael Jackson is pretty lofty. He has songs that can stand up next to any of their songs, but he doesn't have as many of those Valhalla songs as they did.

And, you know, I mean, also, George Michael was so influenced by Prince. What is I Want Your Sex? It's a Prince song. It's a Prince song, yes. It's sort of a heavier note to end on, but that documentary Freedom Uncut is very moving and very sad in places, especially when it's talking about his boyfriend, Anselmo, who had died in 1993. Like George says, every song on that his album, Older, is about Enselmo. but of course nobody knew that at the time.

There's just such a huge gap in retrospect between what we think is going on with this person and what's actually going on. And I wondered, you know, having done all these interviews, seeing all these documentaries, knowing what you know now, do you hear these songs a little differently

now that you have a little more context for what was going on, you know, in his personal life? Yeah. I mean, that's absolutely a large part of the story. when I interviewed George in 1987, I asked him about the rumors that he was gay, and he laughed them off and said, oh, the British press will make up anything. And I don't think he was lying to me because he later said that it wasn't until the end of the faith tour that he knew for sure he was gay. But he also didn't come out.

Barry Manilow didn't come out for years. Elton John didn't. David Bowie kind of falsely came out, depending on what you want to believe. George had a very particular reason for not coming out, and it wasn't just his career. He did not want to come out while his mother was still alive. And it was Rob Cahan, who had managed George for several years. years. Who said that to me? I mean, I think this is in the book. Rob's quote was, while his mother was alive, George did not want to come out. His mother, Leslie, died of cancer in 1997. And 1998, a year later,

is when George is arrested in the Beverly Hills Park for attempted sodomy on a police officer. Lood conduct or something. Yeah, yeah. Whatever the legal charge was. So that's absolutely part of the story. You know, here's a guy who may have been, may have found it difficult to understand what his sexuality was. And then to accept that, and then to worry about how he would be perceived, you know, not only by the, what, 15 million people worldwide

who bought faith, but especially by his own family. Right. He was very close to his parents. Yeah. And his father, you know, seems to have been a very demanding, imperious, old-fashioned guy, who I don't think would have been too welcoming to this news. You don't want to be a pop star at all. Yeah.

So George finally comes to grips with this, and he has a boyfriend he loves. And I think he says in the documentary that he felt loved for the first time. He does, yeah. And his boyfriend dies. I mean, I'm not trying to be melodramatic, but I just got some chills thinking of that. Of course. No, it's awful. To have had huge global. success for a decade, but to have never felt loved through that, and then to finally feel loved

and have the person who loves you die. That's hard. I think I screwed up the order of the questions here, Rob. Let's return to the idea that if you don't want to be a pop star anymore, record a duet with Rob Tannenbaum. I think that's the main thing. The main takeaway here is we have some new strategies for anyone who wants to freedom 90 themselves going forward. If you really want to screw up your successful pop career, ask a rock critic to Ann R. Your record. I guarantee no one will ever hear from you again. There we go. Mission accomplished. Can I answer one question you didn't ask?

Please do. Because this set every time I hear. Freedom 90, this gives me a little chuckle. At the top of the song, he sings, got to have some faith in the sound. It's the one good thing that I've got. And there's a little pause. Why not rhyme sound with found? Yeah. Yes. No, I really like these kinds of objections. I do like the way he says got. I think just the T. Gott is very pleasing to me, but I agree with you completely. He blew it, I think.

I don't think he blew it. I think that's part of the message of the song. Oh, okay. He does rhyme with sound of like several lines later. I really want to stick around. Okay. This is part of the game he's describing. First of all, there's the denial, right?

Screw you. I am not going to rhyme sound with found just because you stupid pop fans expect that. So I'm not going to do it. I'm going to snatch that away. And then I'm going to give it to you about eight seconds later. Just to let you know he can. Yeah. Yeah.

I love. I mean, it's a baller move. That's that's exactly what it is. It's a baller move from George Michael. A couple decades before Baller Move was in the White Rock Critic Parliance. That's a beautiful thing. I should have asked that question. That's on me.

So thank you for answering the question. You're welcome. I should have asked. Thanks a lot, Rob. All right. Thank you. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Rob Tannenbaum. Thanks to Chloe Clark for production help.

Thanks, as always, to our producers, Justin Sales and Jonathan Kerma. And thank you very much for listening. And now I suggest that you go look at. Listen to Freedom 90 by George Michael. We'll see you next week.