In the 19 years since George Michael asked us to “pray for the other ones” on the Band Aid single Do They Know It’s Christmas?, he has released just four albums. By comparison Sting has been responsible for nine; Boy George seven; and even Bono, who was back then concerned about the “bitter sting of tears”, has steered U2 through seven, too. Of the class of 1984, even Paul Young has been more prolific. A greatest hits package and a cover versions collection aside, this is Michael’s first album of new material since Older eight years ago. Patience? It’s a miracle we still know who he is!
The most pivotal moment of Michael’s life in the last eight years had nothing to do with music. On 7 April 1998 he was arrested for engaging in “lewd behaviour” in front of a police officer in the public toilets of the Will Rogers Memorial Park in Beverly Hills, California (motto beneath a statue at the park’s entrance: “I never met a man I didn’t like”). Rather than be ashamed by the incident, he treated it with good humour and a splurge of confessions. He told CNN about his boyfriend, the Mirror about his mother’s death and Graham Norton about wanking. He made a video featuring a urinal, a glitter ball and snogging cops. He wasn’t sorry. The American tabloids have never forgiven him: when he was mentioned in the New York Post in 2002, it was with the prefix “washed-up pervert”.
I haven’t really ever been a fan of George’s but I think the way he’s dealt with all the uproar about the aforementioned incident has shown that he’s a man who’s down to Earth and more than happy with where he is in life. It seems to me that he emerged from the drama with a strangely modern kind of dignity. Even without these revelations, the world would not have forgotten him. His career has seemed to have always been about proving people wrong to me. From the legal dispute with Sony (who he claimed were treating him “like a pop slave”), to this day, where the battle is to prove that a “washed-up pervert” can still be a major league star. Also this current record is being released by Epic, a branch of Sony… if winning the battle means being a pop slave then so be it.
