Sometimes the clothes do not make the man

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts.

11/11/90 : Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1 - George Michael 


Our third trip with Mr Michael and I remember this being better than either of our previous visits, but I've not listened to it in years.  I don't think it's his best album (we have to wait until 1996 for that) but it was one "we" owned (4/8) - this is one of those I've never have bought, but I was secretly happy Miss McCormac (as she was back then) did. 

Yeah, this is an album with a high quality bar throughout but he still manages to go way over it in places - "Freedom '90" (probably my favourite), "Cowboys And Angels", "Heal The Pain" and "Waiting" do so effortlessly for me.  I suspect a lot of the songs are slower than people were expecting - I'm not sure where George's personal life was at the time, but I suspect it's a reflection of that and his desire to be taken more seriously.

We're back down at #14 in the charts this week on his ninth week of a proper 56 week run, with it having peaked at #1 in its debut week.  It also got back to the top at the start of a thirteen week run in '17 when it was re-released approximately a year after his untimely death.  The top five this week were Elton John, Phil Collins (a new entry), Paul Simon, Happy Mondays (another new entry) and The Beautiful South - it's nice to see a bit more variety finally appearing.  We also have three more new entries in the top ten providing an interesting mix - Whitney (#6), The Cure (#8 - an album of remixes, which feels like a very unCure kinda thing to do) and Cliff Richard (#10).

Wikipedia has remarkably little on the album - it's very different from Faith, it was well received by the critics and public but didn't do as well in the US as expected (it only got to #2!) which resulted in a little bit of friction between him and Sony.  Apparently there was going to be a Volume 2 - no reason was giving for it being scrapped, but the friction might have been involved.   This sold over eight million copies globally though so it didn't do too badly really - I also didn't know there was an MTV Unplugged version, which I might have to check out.

"Customers also listened to" Wham!, Aretha Franklin, Terence Trent D'Arby and Elton John - some smooth sounds there (and Wham!).  This is a fine album - yes, maybe a bit downbeat but there's some very decent tunes on there and he just had a lovely voice.  But you knew that already, didn't you?

04/11/90 - A bit too downbeat for me
18/11/90 - Pretty enjoyable

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