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Heaven Help Me George Michael

Michael was born Georgios-Kyriacos Panayiotou in East Finchley, North London. His father was Kyriacos Panayiotou, a Greek Cypriot restaurateur who moved to England in the 1950s and changed his name to Jack Panos. Michael's maternal grandmother was from a well-off Jewish family and his grandfather from a poor working-class non-Jewish family. Their daughter was Michael's mother, Lesley Angold Harrison, a former dancer who died of cancer in 1997. He spent the majority of his childhood in North London, living in the home his parents bought shortly after his birth. In his early teens, the family moved to Radlett and Michael attended Bushey Meads School.

He began his career by forming a short-lived ska band called The Executive with his best friends Andrew Ridgeley, Paul Ridgeley, Andrew Leaver, and David Mortimer (aka David Austin).

Musical career (pre-solo)

Wham!

It was not until he formed the duo Wham! together with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981 that success came to Michael. The band's first album, Fantastic , was released going to number 1 in the UK, and within a year, they had released their classic debut single, "Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do?)". Their second single, "Young Guns (Go For It!)", became the first in a string of Top 10 hits in the UK singles chart. They followed with titles such as "Bad Boys", and "Club Tropicana". Their second album Make It Big was their breakthrough, eventually selling 6 million copies in the US alone and made them international superstars. Singles from that album included "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", "Freedom", "Last Christmas/Everything She Wants", and "Careless Whisper", which was released as a Michael solo effort.

George also sang on the original Band Aid recording of "Do They Know It's Christmas" and donated the profits from "Last Christmas/Everything She Wants" to the charity. In addition, he added background vocals to David Cassidy's 1985 hit "The Last Kiss", as well as Elton John's 1985 hits "Nikita" and "Wrap Her Up".

Wham!'s tour of China in April 1985, the first visit to China by a Western pop act, generated enormous worldwide media coverage, much of it centred on Michael. The tour was documented by celebrated film director Lindsay Anderson and producer Martin Lewis in their film Foreign Skies: Wham! In China and contributed to Michael's ever-widening fame.

With the success of his solo releases "Careless Whisper" (1984) and "A Different Corner" (1986) stories of an impending Wham! split intensified, and Wham! separated in the summer of 1986 after a farewell single, "Edge Of Heaven", an album, plus a sell-out concert at Wembley Stadium that included the world premiere of the China film. The Wham! partnership officially ended with the little-known single "Where Did Your Heart Go?", which reached a peak position of #50 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in November 1986.

Solo career

George Michael desired to create music targeted to a more sophisticated audience than the duo's primarily teenage fanbase. The first step of his solo career, in early 1987, was a duet with soul music icon Aretha Franklin. "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" was a one-off project that helped Michael achieve an ambition by singing with one of his favorite artists, and it reached number one on both the UK Singles Chart and the Billboard Hot 100 upon its release.

For Michael, it became his third consecutive solo number-one in the UK from three releases, following 1984's "Careless Whisper" (though the single was actually from the Wham! album "Make It Big") and 1986's "A Different Corner". The single was also the first Michael had recorded as a solo artist which he had not written himself. The co-writer, Simon Climie, was an unknown at the time, although he would go on to have success as a performer with the band Climie Fisher in 1988. With this song, George won a Grammy Award in 1988 for Best R&B Performance - Duo or Group with Vocal.

Faith

The autumn of 1987 saw the release of Michael's first solo album, Faith . In addition to playing a large number of instruments on the album, he wrote and produced every track on the recording, except for one, which he co-wrote.

The first single released from the album Faith was "I Want Your Sex," in the summer of 1987. The song was banned by many radio stations in the UK and USA, due to its sexually suggestive lyrics. MTV would air the video, featuring celebrity make-up artist Kathy Jeung in a basque and suspenders, only during the late night hours. Michael argued that the act was a beautiful thing if the sex was monogamous. Michael even recorded a brief prologue for the video in which he said: "This song is not about casual sex." One of the racier scenes attacked involved Michael writing the words "explore monogamy" on his partner's back in lipstick. Some radio stations played a toned-down version of the song, "I Want Your Love," which was mainly the word "love" replacing "sex." When the tune reached the US charts, American Top 40 host Casey Kasem refused to say the song's title, referring to it only as "the new single by George Michael." In the US, the song was also sometimes listed as "I Want Your Sex (from 'Beverly Hills Cop II' ) ," since the song was featured on the soundtrack of the movie.

Despite censorship and airplay issues, "I Want Your Sex" reached #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on the week of August 8, 1987. Moreover, the single remained in the Top 10 for six weeks, and the Top 40 for a total of fourteen weeks. The song charted at #3 in Britain. In 2002, several years after the major controversy that followed the release of the song, the music video was featured at #3 on MTV's countdown of the most controversial videos in the channel's history.

The second single, "Faith," was released in October 1987, just a few weeks before the album. "Faith" would go on to become one of his most popular songs. The song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA, and hit #2 in the UK singles chart. The famous video provided some definitive images of the 1980s music industry in the process — Michael in shades, leather jacket, cowboy boots, and a particularly memorable pair of tight Levi's jeans, playing a guitar near a classic-design jukebox. "Faith" reached #1 on December 12, and remained there for four consecutive weeks.

The album reached #1 in the UK and in several markets worldwide. In the United States, the album had 51 non-consecutive weeks inside the Billboard 200 Top 10, including 12 weeks at #1. "Faith" had many hits, four of which ("Faith," "Father Figure," "One More Try," and "Monkey") reached #1.

Eventually, "Faith" reached Diamond certification by the RIAA for sales of 10 million copies in the US. To date, global sales of Faith are more than 20 million units.

The Faith World Tour

In 1988, Michael embarked on a world tour. The nightly set list included from the Wham! era "Everything She Wants" and "I'm Your Man," as well as covers of "Lady Marmalade" or "Play That Funky Music." In Los Angeles, California, George was joined on stage by Aretha Franklin for "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)."

That same year, he sang backing vocals for long-time friend and Wham! bass player Deon Estus on "Heaven Help Me." The song, written by both artists, just missed reaching the British top 40, but reached #5 in the United States.

Huge success didn't bring Michael any happiness, as he says in his film, A Different Story . Conscious of being a massive celebrity and possibly a gay man, he started to think there was something wrong in being an idol for millions of teenage girls. The whole Faith process (promotion, videos, tour, awards) left him completely exhausted, lonely and frustrated, and far from his friends and family. In 1990, he told his record label Sony that he didn't want to do those kinds of promotions anymore.

Listen Without Prejudice Vol.1

Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 was released in September 1990. Following the massive worldwide commercial success of Faith , this album found Michael trying to create a new image for himself as a serious-minded artist — the title is a clear indication of his desire to be taken more seriously as a songwriter. Michael refused to make any kind of promotion for this album, including no music videos for the singles released.

The first single, "Praying For Time", was released in August 1990. It was a dark and sombre reflection on social ills and injustice; the song was hailed by critics as it peaked at number 6 in the UK and then reached number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 despite the absence of a video.

The second single "Waiting For That Day" was an acoustic-heavy, reflective single, released as an immediate follow-up to the comeback record, "Praying For Time". However, the corresponding album had also been released and therefore sales of the new single were unsurprisingly limited. "Waiting For That Day" peaked at number 27 in the US and at number 23 in the UK in October 1990.

The album debuted in the Billboard 200 list at #22 but reached its peak position of #2, being blocked from the top spot by MC Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. The album spent the rest of 1990 inside the Top 10, and a total of 42 weeks inside the entire list, not even the half of the 87 weeks spent by the previous Faith .

In the UK, the album was a good seller and debuted at #1, although only for one week. The two following weeks the album held at #2. The album spent 34 debut consecutive weeks inside the Top 20, making in its 24th an impressive sales increase with a #13-#3 movement. It spent a total o

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