When I was in high school, I found
\nListen Without Prejudice: Vol. I<\/i>, George Michael’s 1990
\nrelease, in the back of a van on the way to a basketball
\ntournament. I listened to it devoutly for months (until it was
\nstolen), all the while thinking, “Dang! This tape is awesome! And
\nnot one mention of sex. My mom will be so happy.”<\/p>\n
\nLadies and Gentlemen: The Best Of George Michael<\/i> is the
\nnewest “best of” collection by Michael, and after listening to it,
\nI wonder two things: where was I when all of these songs made
\nthemselves known as his “best” work, and who took my tape?<\/p>\n
The album is split into two sections: “For The Heart” and “For
\nThe Feet”, one containing more thoughtful\/romantic tunes and the
\nother containing more dance-esque songs. They are both excellent;
\nthe splitting of the CDs makes it easy to pop one in for “mood
\nmusic.” I don’t know that “Father Figure” would be a more romantic
\nsong, though; it’s a little Oedipal for my tastes. There are two
\nlyric books, containing a picture from the era each song is from.
\n(Those are entertaining! The 80s hairstyles were cool!)<\/p>\n
I was especially pleased to note that the album included “Don’t
\nLet The Sun Go Down On Me”, a duet with Elton John recorded for the<\/p>\n
Duets<\/i> album; I love Elton John, but I find this duet
\nsuperior to the original recording of the song. I am confused,
\nthough, as to why many songs, especially some of those on the first
\nCD, were considered to be “best of” material. I know that I haven’t
\nheard “I Can’t Make You Love Me” on any radio station, save that by
\nversion Bonnie Rait; “Desafinado”, a duet with Astrud Gilberto in
\nSpanish, hasn’t been making any plays on VH-1 that I can remember;
\nand where did “Star People 97” come from?<\/p>\n
That is not to say, though, that these songs aren’t excellent.
\n“Jesus To A Child,” the first song on CD one, is amazing in it’s
\nability to set the mood for the rest of the disc. And then, there
\nare those stand-by Michael tunes: “Careless Whisper” (from the
\nWham! Era), “Heal The Pain”, “Cowboys And Angels”, “Too Funky”,
\n“Freedom 90”, “Monkey”, “Faith”, etc., etc.<\/p>\n
The one major gripe I would have with this collection is the
\nversion of “I Want Your Sex” that was chosen. I know that Michael,
\nlong ago, made a major move away from the shock-driven commercial
\ndirection his music had been taking; that is what the entire
\nListen Without Prejudice<\/i> album was about. That doesn’t
\nchange the fact, though, that the original version of “I Want Your
\nSex” threw him into the public spotlight. Whether or not this was
\ndesirable at the time doesn’t change history; that is why I think
\nit is positively annoying that the version included on the album
\nwas the lyrically sparse, saxophone-driven “I Want Your Sex (Pt
\nII).” I don’t even
\nlike<\/i> this song. It sounds like something I would hear on a
\nbad television expose on sex cults in southern California. At least
\nthe original was something I could laugh at or snicker about; this
\nversion doesn’t even afford the listener a standard melody.<\/p>\n
Other than that, I think the collection is amazing. I never
\nrealized there were so many great Michael tunes. He has worked
\nreally hard through the years to create an image that the public
\ntook seriously; even though that image is somewhat tarnished by the
\noffhand news article, he has created a sizeable collection of
\namazing songs and covers. The reason that he chose to both dedicate
\nthe album to his mother, and to end the last CD with a cover of
\n“Somebody To Love” (with Queen, as a tribute to Freddy Mercury) is
\nnot lost; he has grown as both a songwriter and performer,
\nsomething this collection makes clear, and now it is time for a
\nround of applause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":27494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7347],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38868","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-george-michael","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38868","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38868"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38868"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}