One of the most difficult things about being a rock critic is
\nthat you have to keep an open mind. Especially if you’re reviewing
\nan album which you hated when it originally came out. (Why do it in
\nthe first place? Easy – to be fair. And hey – you never know if
\nyour tastes have changed.)<\/p>\n
For example, this morning I was digging through the Pierce
\nMemorial Archives (air-conditioned listening booths for your
\ncomfort) when I stumbled upon my copy of Wham!’s 1984 breakthrough
\nalbum
\nMake It Big<\/i>. There were George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley
\non the cover, with faces that made you want to punch them out
\nimmediately.<\/p>\n
I don’t know whether it was a relapse of the bug I had earlier
\nthis week, another flash of the
\n“It-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time” blues, or just a case of
\nthe galloping stupids, but I popped it into the tape deck. Just
\nunder forty minutes later, I discovered my tastes – thankfully –
\nhadn’t changed.<\/p>\n
Up to the point of this album, Wham! had a minor chart hit in
\nBritain, and they had gotten a small amount of airplay on MTV. It
\nwas with the first single “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” that the
\nband was catapaulted into superstardom. With Michael leading the
\nway on vocals and Ridgeley doing… doing… what the hell
\ndid<\/i> he do in Wham!? – they became another in a line of
\nteenage poster heartthrobs. (Take a look at the album cover, and
\nthink about this for a moment: doesn’t Michael look kind of like
\nPrincess Diana?)<\/p>\n
For the better part of 1984 and 1985, Wham! dominated the charts
\nin the U.S. and Great Britain. Four of the eight tracks were
\nreleased as singles, and a non-album track, “Last Christmas,”
\nbecame a hot item in the U.K.<\/p>\n
My question: what was all the hubbub about?<\/p>\n
Only the final single from the album, “Freedom,” had any real
\nappeal. “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” is a blatant copy of ’60s
\ndoo-wop, and neither a convincing nor a good one at that. (Another
\ncut, “Heartbeat,” is a piss-poor attempt to copy another oldies
\ngenre. The beat kind of reminds me of “Leader Of The Pack.”)
\n“Careless Whisper” – I don’t even know where to begin on this
\ntrack. The song itself stretches out way too long, it is a poor
\nattempt at soul, it is the cause of male pattern baldness…
\nwhoops, got a little carried away there.<\/p>\n
There are also the tracks that didn’t make it to the singles
\nslots of the jukebox. “Like A Baby” is a complete waste of time, as
\nis “Credit Card Baby” – what the hell was that about, anyway?<\/p>\n
One undeniable fact is that
\nMake It Big<\/i> has not aged well. It has a stale ’80s pop sound
\nthat went out of style not long after it became in style. Sure,
\nMichael at least did something in the band by acting as lead throat
\n(and Ridgeley’s saying “jitterbug” in the “Wake Me Up…” video
\ndoesn’t count towards doing anything). But for the most part, Wham!
\nwas just a pretty boy, do-nothing band.<\/p>\n
I know, I know, I can hear your comments now: “That’s not fair,
\ndude. You were prejudiced against the album before.” Well, maybe.
\nBut I have changed my mind on several albums that on second listen
\nturned out to be pretty tasty. Wham! just wasn’t one of those.<\/p>\n
George Michael is off now on his own semi-successful solo
\ncareer, and Ridgeley is, well, doing exactly what he did before (if
\nyou didn’t get the implied comment, don’t bother) – within three
\nyears of this album, Wham! was no more. They did leave behind a
\nsmall album collection, including
\nMake It Big<\/i>. In this case, they needn’t have bothered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5790],"rating":[5620],"class_list":["post-35681","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-wham","rating-rating-f"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35681"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35681"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}