George Michael was a famous pop singer-songwriter of the 1980s and 1990s. His involvement with the band Wham! and his solo career were both successful.
George Michael, originally Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, was born in London, England. When he was 16, he got together with his school friend, Andrew Ridgely, to create a ska band called The Executives. When they found their duo to be unsuccessful, they came back as a pop duo called Wham! They landed a contract with an independent record label and released “Whap Rap” and “Young Guns (Go For It).” This led them to get a record deal offer with Columbia Records. But they left and released their first album "Fantastic," with Sony worldwide.
Wham!’s second album is what shot them from British stardom to international phenomenon. Their smash-hit songs “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” “Everything She Wants,” “Careless Whisper,” and “Freedom” did incredibly well in Europe and the United States.
Michael also participated in a couple of charity events; he collaborated with Band-Aid for a song to raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief. Wham! has also donated money from their song “Last Christmas/Everything She Wants” to Band-Aid and performed at Live Aid to raise money for the same cause.
Since Michael was the lead vocalist and main songwriter, he was more well-known and eventually left after Wham!’s 1986 release, "Music from the Edge of Heaven," which included hit songs like “Where Did Your Heart Go?” and “I’m Your Man.”
When George Michael was in Wham!, he and Ridgely were noticed for their boyish good looks and developed a loyal fanbase of teenage girls. The duo was an international sensation. They even became the first Western pop group to perform in China.
Wham! had a pop sound that was noticeably influenced by Motown. But when he pursued his solo career, he recreated his music style, persona, and identity to be more sexy, miles away from his teen sensation image. His songs from his first solo album "Faith" (1987) were hugely popular and included “I Want Your Sex,” “Father Figure” and “Kissing a Fool.” He caused some issues with “I Want Your Sex” because of its explicit nature.
While Michael was working solo, he won his first Grammy for “I Knew You Were Waiting,” a duet he performed with Aretha Franklin. His album "Faith" sold over 25 million copies and also won a Grammy for Album of the Year in 1988.
In 1998, Michael was in the news because of “lewd conduct in a men’s room.” After that, he announced on television that he was homosexual.
George Michael died in 2016 when he was 53 because of issues related to his heart and liver disease. After his death, charities and various people lauded Michael for his charitable, kind and sometimes anonymous acts like when he donated millions of dollars to charities like Childline. Famous people and ordinary people reacted with sadness towards his early death.
