Wham!Wham! (often written WHAM!) was a British duo formed in 1981 by George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. They were briefly known in the United States as Wham! UK because of a naming conflict with another band.Michael and Ridgeley met at Bushey Meads School in Bushey near Watford, England, UK. At first, they performed in a short-lived ska band called The Executive, alongside two of their former school friends Paul Atkey and Mike Murphy. When this group split, Michael and Ridgeley formed a duo called Wham! and went on to sign with Innervision Records. The duo later sued Innervision to be released from their contract. The group then signed with CBS, Columbia Records in the United States and Canada and Epic Records for the rest of the world.Michael took on the majority of roles and responsibilities within the band— composer, singer, producer, and occasional instrumentalist— but the contribution of Ridgeley as the group’s image specialist and spokesman was crucial to the band’s initial success [1]. Ridgeley convinced a reluctant George Michael that Wham! needed to change their image and sound frequently, from the leather-clad moody singers of “Bad Boys” and “Young Guns (Go For It!)” to the more fashionable pop superstars of “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.”Still teenagers, they promoted themselves as hedonistic youngsters, proud to live a carefree life without work or commitment. This was reflected in their earliest singles which, part-parody, part-social comment, briefly earned Wham! a reputation as a dance protest group [2].The debut record to be released by the band was “Wham Rap!” in June 1982. It was one of the first ever singles by a British group to include rapping and was a double-A side with a Social Mix and Anti-Social Mix. The record was not playlisted by BBC Radio 1 in the UK, partly because of the profanity in the Anti-Social Mix. Subsequently the reissued UK release replaced the controversial lines in the first verse “B1, B2, make a claim sign your name’s all you have to do” and the opening two phrases of the second verse citing “Mr. Average”. Additionally two videos were recorded for each set of lyrics. In 1983 on the UK pop show, Channel 4′s The Tube, Wham! performed live the original song in full complete with the B1,B2 lines. This version was considered far better and was later released in the UK as the U.S Remix. Wham! Rap did not chart for the group but in October 1982, their song “Young Guns (Go For It!)” was issued. The song was an appeal from one youthful lad to his friend to not throw his life away so early on marriage. It also stalled outside the UK Top 40 but then Wham! got lucky when Top of the Pops scheduled them. An important weekly BBC chart show on television, it had to look outside the Top 40 to fill a gap created by an act which had pulled out of recording. Nearest to the 40 mark and still climbing, Wham! was summoned, and a phenomenon immediately began. The Top of the Pops performance of Young Guns is still considered a great moment in the group’s history – critical acclaim is given for the ‘nightclub’ feel of the dance routine by all four of the group.George MichaelGeorgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (born 25 June 1963), best known as George Michael, is a two-time Grammy Award winning, English[2] singer-songwriter, who has had a career as frontman of the duo Wham! as well as a soul-influenced, solo pop musician. According to britishhitsongwriters.com, he is the fortieth most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history based on weeks that his compositions have spent on the chart.[3]He has sold over 100 million records worldwide as of 2008,[4] encompassing 12 British #1 singles, 7 British #1 albums, 10 US #1 singles, and 1 US #1 album. His 1987 debut solo album, Faith has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. All four of his solo studio albums have scored #1 on the UK charts and have become international successes.Wham – Greatest Hits 1997If You Were There…The Best Of Wham! was the second U.K.-released compilation, released in 1997 to summarize the career of British pop duo Wham!. It peaked at UK #4. The end of the album features a hidden track that was first heard on their debut album, Fantastic.Many Wham! fans consider this compilation vastly inferior to a previous compilation, 1986′s The Final, due to the non-inclusion of Bad Boys, and also Careless Whisper and A Different Corner, even though the latter two songs were credited as George Michael solo singles. Nevertheless, those two numbers did appear on official Wham! studio albums.1. “If You Were There” (Isley Brothers) 3:43
2. “I’m Your Man” (Michael) 4:06
3. “Everything She Wants” (Michael) 6:29
4. “Club Tropicana” (Michael/Ridgeley) 4:30
5. “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” (Michael) 3:51
6. “Like A Baby” (Michael) 4:16
7. “Freedom” (Michael) 5:20
8. “The Edge of Heaven” (Michael) 4:37
9. “Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)” (Michael) 6:46
10. “Young Guns (Go For It!)” (Michael) 3:41
11. “Last Christmas” (Michael) 6:48
12. “Where Did Your Heart Go?” (Was/Was) 5:42
13. “Everything She Wants ’97″ (Michael) 6:01
14. “I’m Your Man ’96″ (Michael) 4:33George Michael – Ladies & Gentlemen: Best of George Michael 1998Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael is a greatest hits collection released by George Michael in 1998 (see 1998 in music).The collection of 28 songs (29 songs are included on the European and Australian release) are separated into two halves, with each CD of the double set containing music of a particular theme and mood. The first CD, titled “For the Heart”, predominantly contains Michael’s hit ballads, while the second CD, “For the Feet”, comprises mostly his popular dance tunes.Ladies & Gentlemen is notable for containing a large number of compilation tracks and duets that have not previously appeared on a George Michael album, including his U.S. number-one duet with Aretha Franklin, “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)”, previously available on Aretha Franklin’s 1986 album Aretha; “Desafinado”, the duet in Portuguese with Brazilian legendary singer Astrud Gilberto; and the Elton John duet “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”, from Elton’s 1993 album Duets.Ladies & Gentlemen was released by Michael through Sony Music Entertainment as a condition of severing contractual ties with the label (Michael departed Sony with a great deal of acrimony and publicity prior to the release of Older in 1996). He would later return to Sony to release his 2004 album Patience.”Outside” was the first single from the album. The song was a humorous look at his arrest shortly before the release of the album for soliciting a policeman in a public restroom.”As”, Michael’s duet with Mary J. Blige, was released as the second single in many territories around the world. It reached #4 in the UK Singles Chart. The track was left off the North American release of the album. There were rumours that Blige’s label was uncomfortable with Michael being gay, but this is contradicted by Blige’s embracing of her large gay fan base (see her recent cover story in The Advocate magazine where she said “most of my fans are gay”).To date, the album has reached worldwide sales of approximately 15 million copies.[1]“Waltz Away Dreaming”, Michael’s duet with Toby Bourke, was only available on the cassette and MiniDisc versions of the album.
Disc 11. “Jesus to a Child” – 6:49
2. “Father Figure” (single version) – 5:41
3. “Careless Whisper” (George Michael, Andrew Ridgeley) (single version) – 5:00
4. “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” (live edit) (Elton John, Bernie Taupin) (performed by George Michael and Elton John) – 4:51
5. “You Have Been Loved” (George Michael, David Austin) – 5:28
6. “Kissing a Fool” – 4:36
7. “I Can’t Make You Love Me” (James Allen Shamblin II, Mike Reid) – 5:20
8. “Heal the Pain” (single version) – 4:46
9. “A Moment with You” – 5:43
10. “Desafinado” (Antonio Carlos Jobim, Newton Mendonca) (performed by George Michael and Astrud Gilberto) – 3:19
11. “Cowboys and Angels” – 7:14
12. “Praying for Time” – 4:41
13. “One More Try” – 5:53
14. “A Different Corner” (single version) – 4:03Disc 21. “Outside” – 4:44
2. “Fastlove” (George Michael, Jon Douglas) – 5:31
3. “Too Funky” – 3:45
4. “Freedom! ’90″ – 6:28
5. “Star People ’97″ – 5:39
6. Medley: “Killer” / “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” (Adam Tinley, Seal-Henry Samuel / Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong) – 4:16
7. “I Want Your Sex (Part II)” – 4:38
8. “Monkey” (George Michael) – 4:47
9. “Spinning the Wheel” (George Michael, Jon Douglas) – 6:09
10. Medley: “Waiting For That Day/You Can’t Always Get What You Want” (George Michael, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards) – 4:50
11. “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)” (Simon Climie, Dennis Morgan) (performed by George Michael and Aretha Franklin) – 3:58
12. “Hard Day” – 3:43
13. “Faith” – 3:14
14. “Somebody to Love” (Freddie Mercury) (performed by George Michael and Queen) – 5:23