George Michael RIP (53)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Vaughan, Dec 25, 2016.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. qJulia

    qJulia Forum Resident

    George is a self-identified control freak. As someone mentioned, he is more like Prince when it comes to create music, but is much more meticulous about details.
     
  2. WolfSpear

    WolfSpear Music Enthusiast

    Location:
    Florida
    Put Older on and was pleasantly surprised to "Jesus To A Child" again.

    That album isn't a masterpiece, but it has moments.
     
  3. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    I didn't think you could get much more meticulous about details than Prince got...
     
    enro99 and Dflow like this.
  4. Spear and Magic Helmet

    Spear and Magic Helmet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Nashville, TN
    Indeed he was a great loss. I enjoyed his voice, and I mirror just about everyone's sentiments on this thread but I liked your post because of the beautiful Epiphone that is your Avitar.
     
    guitarman1969 and MadamAdam like this.
  5. qJulia

    qJulia Forum Resident

    Ok, I may be a bit biased as although I am a fan of both musicians, I like GM a bit more. On the other hand, I remember reading a story of how George found the right sax player for Careless Whisper. He had to try 8-9 players but was still not satisfied. He finally chose a guy who could play the way he wanted even though he was not professionally trained.
     
  6. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    I bet he walked right up to the guy and said to him point blank "I want your sax".

    :)
     
    qJulia, Gems-A-Bems, Fullbug and 10 others like this.
  7. SoundAdvice

    SoundAdvice Senior Member

    Location:
    Vancouver
    Watching the Earls Court 2008 Blu ray the touring sax player doesn't even get close.
     
    sunspot42 likes this.
  8. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I just discovered this thread, and am not going to plow through 47 pages of it. Has any official cause of death been announced?
     
  9. JPagan

    JPagan Generation 13

    Location:
    South Florida
    What? You've posted in it 16 times.


    And, no – the autopsy was "inconclusive"; they're still investigating.
     
    Fastnbulbous, Fullbug and MadamAdam like this.
  10. the sands

    the sands Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oslo, Norway
    I read an article where his partner Fadi Fawaz had claimed in a serie of now-deleted tweets that he took his own life. It's not mentioned on his wiki page so it's probably just gossip? It's so much strange things to read about artists when you google them. It must be hell to be a famous artist in the internet era. So much bull and they know that people read it and that many will take the bait and believe everything they read.
     
  11. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    I find people like this to be very interesting - to be born with such an incredible amount of talent. Other artists struggle to just write a song and it comes so easy to guys like Prince and George who fell out of bed with a hit single ready to go. They are on the same level as Benny and Bjorn Lennon and McCartney etc. Innate musical genius
     
    keyXVII, PROG U.K., qJulia and 4 others like this.
  12. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    We have found the music for my eventual funeral:



    Should be enough to last the entire service and subsequent reception.

    Is this the greatest sax solo of the '80s? I think it's a candidate for best of all time, right up there with "Baker Street" and "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)".

    Steve Gregory played it, BTW. My understanding is George went thru over half a dozen players to get the solo he wanted. A bit of a one-man Steely Dan it would appear.

    Steve Gregory - Wikipedia »
     
  13. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I did??? Damn! At some point I unsubscribed to it. I just don't remember!:shrug::help:
     
  14. bob60

    bob60 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London UK
    Actually I don't think it did come easy to George at all. At his 80's peak with Make It Big and Faith, those two albums contained only 16 tracks between them. The many singles from those albums had no new tracks on the b sides, only remixes etc. He only released 6 albums in 33 years. George once said that he only writes two songs per year.
     
    Thom and ippudo like this.
  15. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    Really? Was part of that because he just lacked motivation? I also know that he lost two years when his partner died. I suppose George was more of a perfectionist than prolific
     
  16. guitarman1969

    guitarman1969 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    Thank you kindly. I am proud to own one just like it!
     
  17. MadamAdam

    MadamAdam Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    I think this thread calls for a little light relief:



    Literally on the floor!
     
  18. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member

    I KNEW Andrew contributed something to those Wham! records..
     
  19. qJulia

    qJulia Forum Resident

    I guess you are talking about 6 proper album with original songs, but he did release songs as B sides, and original songs on Hot Dances. What about Edge of Heaven and the cover album? Putting them together, he certainly has more.

    The other thing is that George did not release any new album during the last 12 years. so it is more like 21 years. At his peak from 1984 to 1996, he released Make It Big, Edge of Heaven, Faith, LWP, and Older. He had like 11 No.1 in the US and 10 No.1 in the UK (someone post the statistics early on this thread). It seems to be pretty easy during this period of time.
     
  20. JeffMo

    JeffMo Format Agnostic

    Location:
    New England
    I alluded to this in another thread I think, but the three Wham! albums felt like comps to me at the time, sort of pulled together with some "filler" helping flesh out the bare minimum no. of tracks to make an LP (eight on each US LP). The first release that felt like a real album to me was Faith, but even then he was using album tracks as b-sides. George has never been prolific and got significantly less productive over the years.

    In terms of non-album tracks worth seeking out, I would add the Elton John cover "Tonight" on the EJ tribute, the excellent remixes for Freedom (Back to Reality), Spinning the Wheel (Forthright), and Flawless (Jack and Rory vocal mix), which are all on cd singles, and the lovely instrumental version of "Older" on the JTAC cd single.
     
  21. footprintsinthesand

    footprintsinthesand Reasons to be cheerful part 1

    Location:
    Dutch mountains
    Always liked Garland's version of that one, with Sanborn on sax, Dennis Davis on drums, Robin Clark on backing vocals and G.E. Smith on guitar. Sweet video with his buddies Harvey Keitel and Lou Reed.

     
    MikaelaArsenault likes this.
  22. MadamAdam

    MadamAdam Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Fantastic and Make It Big were studio albums but Music From The Edge Of Heaven aka The Final (outside US) was most definitely a compilation.
     
    Dflow likes this.
  23. JeffMo

    JeffMo Format Agnostic

    Location:
    New England
    I know - I said they felt like comps because they were so short in duration, and were composed of four hit singles apiece representing 50% of each album (and in Fantastic case, old singles by the time album came out).

    Wham! was a great singles act but I don't feel they made a truly great album. YMMV
     
  24. Maddy5

    Maddy5 Forum Resident

    It was because he was a perfectionist. There was a documentary on youtube where he said he knows when he's not good and when he's good and that's why it takes so long between albums.
    Even right before his death, he started doing a dance album but abandoned it because he wasn't happy with it and decided to do more of a pop album.
    I think he was more humble and more insecure than Prince and much more self critical. Prince tended to think anything he came out with was a work of genius, whereas George Michael held himself to very high standards, almost too high, that he often wasn't happy with what he wrote and recorded and that's why albums took so long .
     
    alan967tiger and qJulia like this.
  25. Ryan Lux

    Ryan Lux Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, ON, CA
    Would explain why he stopped performing multiple #1 singles in his lifetime, even a signature tune like Wake Me Up was never done live after Wham!
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine