George Michael: A One Of A Kind Singer

January 4, 2017

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  Photo credit: Shauntmax30

  Born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou to a Greek Cypriot father and a British mother, George Michael grew up in the suburbs of Hertfordshire, England.

  George Michael started to show interest in music at young age. He and his best friend Andrew Ridgeley had a short stint under The Executive when they were attending Bushey Meads School.

  In 1982, Michael and Ridgeley formed Wham!. The music duo were able to produce hit songs like ‘Rap (Enjoy What You Do)’ and ‘Young Guns’.

  The duo’s ’84 album ‘Make It Big’ and smash hits ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’, ‘Careless Whisper’, ‘Freedom’ and many more made Michael and Ridgeley known. In fact, Wham! was the first duo/band to perform Western when they toured China in April 1985 and received media coverage around the world.

  In 1986, after nearly five years of chart domination and world tours, Wham! decided to part ways. In the same year, they released their farewell single ‘The Edge of Heaven’ and played a farewell concert in front of a massive audience at the Wembley Stadium in London.

  A year after, Michael pursued a solo career to release his solo debut album ‘Faith’ which topped charts in the UK, US, Australia, Ireland and Holland before it received a 10x Platinum award in US and 5x Platinum awardee in the UK. The carrier single ‘Faith’ itself dominated the American charts for 12 weeks. ‘Father Figure’, ‘One More Try’ and ‘Monkey’ were also some of his top hits in his debut album.

  ‘Faith’ sold over 10 million copies in the US alone and transformed the global teen idol George Michael to a global adult contemporary superstar.

  With ‘Faith’s undoubtful success, George Michael bagged multiple awards including a Grammy award for Album of the Year and Ivor Novello Awards for Songwriter of the Year and International Hit of the Year.

  Three years later, George Michael released a new album ‘Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1’. He entered into a court case against Sony over his contract, claiming that the album’s poor sales were due to Sony’s poor marketing. The dispute cost him millions of dollars which he eventually lost.

  In 1996, he released an album under DreamWorks entitled ‘Older’. The next albums ‘Ladies & Gentlemen: Best of Michael George’ and ‘Songs from the Last Century’ was released in ’98 and ’99 respectively.

  George Michael continued to dominate the charts, awards after awards. He started to top charts from different countries.

  In 2004, he released his first album of original material for eight years entitled ‘Patience’ which rocketed straight to no. 1 in different countries.

  Ten years after, Michael released his sixth and final album, Symphonica which was recorded during his Symphonica Tour.

  On Christmas Day of 2016, Fadi Fawaz, a hair stylist and the singer’s boyfriend found George Michael, 53, dead on his bed at his home at Oxfordshire, England.

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