Brandon's Buzz

Only because I can recall every single one of them with a frightening, crystalline clarity (and, also, because it sometimes seems like only twenty-five minutes have passed since the halcyon days of 1984), it’s very nearly incomprehensible to believe that twenty-five years stand between today and our very first delectable taste of George Michael and of his indescribable talent. To mark this milestone, to coincide with his first world tour since 1990, and, perhaps most importantly, to remind the populace of American music consumers — an entire generation of which has grown up recognizing Michael as nobody more than the strange Brit who flashed an undercover cop in a Beverly Hills bathroom, rather than as the brilliant Brit who grew up to become the finest, most eloquent, most engaging pop star the world has produced in the last thirty years — that he’s not only still alive, but still kickin‘, honey, King George’s TwentyFive, a two-disc, 29-track collection of classics that reaches all the way back to Michael’s Wham! days, has finally been granted a stateside release. (In a slightly altered version, TwentyFive has been available overseas for eighteen months now.)

Casual (and, heaven forbid, new) fans will find in this set everything they need to satisfy their George jones, but fanatical freaks like myself can’t help but warn you that this is far from a comprehensive compendium of Michael’s best work, and that no fewer than five Michael masterpieces — 1985’s “The Edge of Heaven” (Wham!’s final single), 1986’s “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)” (the terrific duet with Aretha Franklin which launched his solo career in high style), 1987’s “I Want Your Sex” (the synth-driven smash which only hinted at the imminent magnificence that would mark Michael’s second act), and 1990’s “Waiting for that Day” and “Mothers’ Pride” (the unsung heroes of Michael’s unforgivably underrated second album) — are nowhere to be found. (Three of those five, plus “Somebody to Love” — his brilliant duet with Queen, from the ground-shaking 1992 Freddie Mercury tribute concert — and several other essential tracks, appear on Michael’s first (and, in some ways, superior) hits collection, 1998’s Ladies and Gentlemen.) Still, for both its new songs (including a dynamite cover of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good”) and its classic tunes (hey, any time you can get “Father Figure,” “One More Try,” and “Jesus to a Child” on the same CD, that’s a deal you’d best pounce on every chance you get, and don’t get it twisted).

Which brings us quite excitedly (and nervously) to the Buzz’s latest (and, by far, most crucial) playlist. A’s hilariously outrageous reticence to fully embrace Mr. Michael and the heartstopping heft of his discography has been well-documented, but with he, Sherry Ann, and myself all making a pilgrimage to Houston next week to catch King George in concert, it’s well past time that A came over to the dark side. Since the inception of Brandon’s Tips last year, I’ve been hesitant to build an all-George playlist, only because I don’t know how ready I am to have my heart broken again by A and the bizarro way he appreciates music. And, notwithstanding the enormous contributions that David Gray and Rob Thomas have offered the soundtrack of my life, George Michael is my hands-down favorite male singer, a title he has held for the entirety of his twenty-five year recording career.

Thankfully, A seems to be slowly been coming around to reason and sanity. This past spring, he fell in mad love with a whimsically wistful television series called “Eli Stone,” each episode of which was both titled after and constructed around a Michael tune. And he’s flying here all the way from Calla-forny just so I can drag him by the hair to a concert that I’ve literally been waiting my entire life to see. This leads me to a handful of conclusions:

• A, in his own delightful way, is just as crazy as I am.
• A must really love me to be this good a sport about my endless ribbing.
• Quite obviously, the time to strike on this mission is now. A’s receptors are currently as open to — and as willing to be swayed by — Michael’s music as they’ll ever be, and I know it.

With that in mind, you are mere moments from experiencing what may just be the ultimate Buzz playlist. A’s gonna flip when he realizes the forthcoming list contains fifteen songs, but, considering that this is about celebrating the best of a pop music icon (and that there’s not one of these tracks whose absence wouldn’t devastate me), A is gonna need to know these songs intimately before Monday’s concert. It’s a tall task, without question, but one to which I firmly believe he is fiercely equal.

1. “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” (from Make It Big) — — the quintessential ’80s pop classic that launched one of the most brilliant careers pop music has ever witnessed.

2. “Careless Whisper” (from Make It Big) — — it’s funny, if not painfully ironic, that a seventeen-year-old boy living an obvious lie — listening to this song in retrospect, it’s quite clear how profoundly distracting his sexual struggles were, even at such an early age — could compose such a nakedly honest work of art. (And not for nothing, but has any other artist — save, possibly, for Cyndi Lauper, whose opening salvos also couldn’t have been more different — ever shown such a mind-blowing range with his or her first two singles?)

3. “Faith” (from Faith) — — any thoughts that Michael couldn’t make it as a solo artist were instantly put to bed with this breezy, fun 1987 monster, one of those super-rare instances where style and substance not only collided, but matched each other pound for breathtaking pound.

4. “Father Figure” (from Faith) — — an electrifying dissection of the lust-fueled mechanics of desire, featuring a glorious and deeply erotic performance from Michael, who was finally finding the courage to peel back the veneer of his sexuality and plumb the frightening depths of his own truth.

5. “One More Try” (from Faith) — — from an album that was loaded to the gills with intelligence, with grace, with fire, and with exquisitely rendered symmetry, this — Faith‘s third (of an eventual four) consecutive number one single — was the uncontested zenith. The lyrics are powerfully intimate; the vocal, a bold, flawless piece of delicate perfection. Not until David Gray’s “This Year’s Love” over a decade later would a man again rip open his heart and let this much blood, all in the name of (and all for the sake of) creating an indelible swath of vulnerable art.

6. “Praying for Time” (from Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1) — — suddenly pondering his own hypocrisy, his own mortality, and his own artistry’s shelf life in the wake of immense, overwhelming fame and fortune, Michael swung for the fences with his second album’s leadoff single, and scored a grand slam. You can well imagine even Dylan being envious of the searing power emanating from these blistering lyrics.

7. “Freedom ’90” (from Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1) — — all those lame-brained idiots who criticized George for his sharp rebuke of fame never latched on to his (admittedly ill-communicated) message: as a man who fancied himself a songwriter above all else, the fact that he was, at that point in time, more famous for the beauty of his denim-clothed ass than for the beauty of his words scared the living fuck out of him. And while it took him a good chunk of time to reconcile his warring emotions, the creative brilliance borne out of this internal conflict is beyond dispute.

8. “Waiting for That Day” (from Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1) — — featuring a song-closing sample of the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” this deceptively blithe tune might just be my favorite Prejudice track when all the votes get counted. (If nothing else, I have stats that bear that out: with 23 spins since August 2006, this is the most played Michael song in my iTunes library.)

9. “Mothers’ Pride” (from Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1) — — a devastating tableau of war and of the women it forsakes, this melancholy 1991 stunner became a surprise radio hit in the days leading up to Operation Desert Storm.

10. “Too Funky” (from TwentyFive) — — the man who taught Kenny Chesney everything he’d ever need to know about living in a closet sure does sing about bedding females with rapturous, knowing conviction, agreed?

11. “Jesus to a Child” (from Older) — — with this wrenchingly gorgeous 1996 meditation on true love (and with its simply stunning music video, which is loaded with visual poetry), written in the wake of his lover’s tragic death from AIDS, Michael — who had been laying low for a few years while fighting with Sony over the terms of his record contract — launched one of the most magnificent musical comebacks of all time.

12. “Fastlove” (from Older) — — a musical base constructed around Patrice Rushen’s ’80s classic “Forget Me Nots” combined with the lyrical hook of the decade — “got to get up / to get down / got to get up….” — helped Michael thumb his nose at the political correctness that was strangling popular culture at the time and craft a legendary dancefloor smash. Gettin’ it on in a BMW never sounded more tempting.

13. “Waltz Away Dreaming” (featuring Toby Bourke) (from TwentyFive) — — sadly, only the music video for this stirring, little-known knockout — a lovely, melodic masterwork, with a blazing performance from Bourke, around whom Michael tried to build his ill-fated label Aegean Records — is available at iTunes. But Sherry Ann told me I wasn’t allowed to submit a George Michael playlist without it, and I hate disappointing that girl.

14. “If I Told You That” (featuring Whitney Houston) (from Whitney — The Greatest Hits) — — how funny is it that, of all of Miss Whitney’s duet partners — from Jermaine Jackson to Enrique Iglesias, from CeCe Winans to Anjuh Stone! — it wasn’t until she crossed paths with King George that she finally found someone who is at least as big a diva as she? Helped along by one of the tightest beats Rodney Jerkins ever crafted, listening to Houston and Michael — far and away, the two purest and best vocalists to emerge from the ’80s — try to outrank each other on the Richter scale of bitchy fabulousness is an aural marvel.

15. “John and Elvis Are Dead” (from Patience) — — a quietly thrilling jaunt into Tori Amos territory — a subtle yet scalding attack on both religion and women’s lib — becomes Michael’s strongest single in a decade.

names dropped with reckless abandon: "Eli Stone", A, Aretha Franklin, Cyndi Lauper, David Gray, George Michael, Kenny Chesney, Nina Simone, Queen, Rob Thomas, Sherry Ann, Wham!, Whitney Houston