George Michael - Twenty Five (Snyp)
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Free Music Notes for Twenty Five (Snyp)
Free Music Review: Curiously, George
Hit: 4 Stars
The past couple of years have been a bit difficult on George Michael. With problems with substance abuse, and invasions of his personal life, it has been one difficult ride from the fallen star. Though his career has fizzled in America the past several years, his music has recently taken a turn with the success of the ABC show Eli Stone. With his songs like Faith being shown and showcased on the show, his voice has been introduced slowly but surely to a whole new generation. Even though he still hasn't made it big in America, he still has shown it by being a status symbol all throughout Europe. But last year, he celebrated his 25th anniversary of being a recording icon, and has shown it on a new greatest hits album for American audiences. But, is this something worth having Faith with?
Twenty Five, the 2006 greatest hits album from George Michael which was widely released overseas, has finally made its 2008 American debut for listeners. The collection though focuses on his mainly his overseas success, and not as much on his status with American hard core fans. The collection falls similar to George's 1998 hits album Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best Of George Michael, as a double-album of his classics, one being of his top dance songs, the other by being about his somber but classic ballads. The collection throws in a few surprises, one of them bringing in more of his mainstream hits during his era as a part of Wham! during the 80's with classics like Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go!, Last Christmas and the somber Careless Whisper. The collection also includes his classics from both sides of the Atlantic, including his mainstream radio standards like Freedom '90, the deep and delicate Jesus To A Child, as well as the #1 smashes Father Figure, Faith and Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me with Elton John. The collection also highlights a few new tracks here including a cover of the Stevie Wonder classic As with Mary J. Blige, which has made its official U.S. debut after being a hit overseas 10 years ago, as well as the delicate and intimate This Is Not Real Love, and a collaboration of his song Heal The Pain with Paul McCartney. While the album highlights in his new songs as well as some fan favorites the album does overlook a few of George's great #1 hits from his 80's era like the provocative I Want Your Sex, Monkey and his classic I Knew You Were Waiting For Me with the legendary Aretha Franklin.
While Twenty Five isn't as definitive as Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best Of George Michael, it still is a decent buy for hard core fans of George throughout the years who still enjoy his melodies, and works nicely as a sample for anyone who doesn't at all own any George Michael album to date. While there have been so many greatest hits albums that haven't worked that well the past few years, Twenty Five by George Michael is a good addition to your album collection, and that is something is is of a decent value from a father figure.
Album Cover: B
Songs: B-
Price: B-
Remastering: B+
Overall: B 1/2-
Free Music Review: HAUNTING WHISPER
Hit: 4 Stars
It is well over twenty years since I first heard Careless Whisper. My children were playing a tape of it during a long car journey, and it caught my attention and has haunted my recollection ever since. My own musical home ground is classical, and I have never followed the charts to any great extent. However music to me is just music, its effect is unpredictable and irrational, and there is never any mistaking the unaccountable thrill that some music can give me, whatever category of music it supposedly belongs in.
This set has just been given to me as a birthday present by one of the children, who are now of course adults. The idea is apparently to take me out of my classical comfort zone, but if one thing has consistently struck me in half a century of hearing pop music it is just how conservative it is in certain ways. The harmonisation would in general have seemed unenterprising to composers in the year 1700, yet this is the kind of music that millions really listen to and are really affected by. From this I have to draw the conclusion that a simple harmony that lasts unaltered through untold numbers of changes of musical fashion, style and idiom can hardly be thought of as outmoded, whatever the earnest intellectual theories of the 20th century.
George Michael has apparently composed most of the music here himself, and I certainly seem to detect a resemblance in the style of many of the numbers. Unsurprisingly, I like some of them better than some others, and still none matches up to Careless Whisper for me. Bottom of the charts for me is the joint number with Elton John 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me', I have to say. However something that does a lot for even the items that interest me less from a musical viewpoint is George Michael's voice. This is really most striking and distinctive in its higher register, a fine tenor sound that will continue to keep me listening to songs that would not hold my attention otherwise.
Whether I was in that much of a musical comfort zone I rather doubt, but the matter is not for me to judge. I am not at all comfortable with some 20th century 'classical' music and I am rarely uncomfortable with the pops, even if only intermittently interested. This set is going to be chiefly background music for me, I'm sure, but it's mainly new music to me at the moment. I'm not shaken in the least although I genuinely am stirred up to a point. Why should that be otherwise? It's music innit?
Free Music Review: A Striking Account of Pop Mastery
Hit: 4 Stars
I would have bought this only for the extended version of Everything She Wants, a guilty pleasure from the 80s that, like Abba's work merely a few years earlier, is so wonderful that you don't feel as guilty anymore. Everything She Wants could have been sung by Michael Jackson. Its teems with the same pairing of urgent R&B and obvious pop sheen that made Billie Jean stand as the most celebrated single of the period.
If you were a child like I was when Make It Big was all over radio and MTV, you were in for an unwelcome discovery when you played the album on your home stereo. What happened to that great bridge, the climatic peak that builds to Michael's wail "I give you all, you say you want mo-o-re...". Assumedly, the format of vinyl prevented that 6:30 version from being waxed on Make It Big. Further, perhaps to maintain uniformity between formats, the full length Everything She Wants wasn't extended on copies for compact disc. So alas, that's how the track stood, stunted before its real greatness could be revealed, unless you sprung for the single.
However, in larger part, this collection (i actually have the edition with a 3rd disc-For The Loyal) displays much George Michael that wasn't donned much attention at its time of release has aged incredibly well. There is so much of it, sequencers opted to omit the artist's defining 9 minute, I Want Your Sex, figuring, assumedly, you already had it on the Faith album anyway. Normally, this kind of omission on a best of is the collections downfall but TwentyFive is able to truly soar, perhaps by virtue of it. Familiar songs like Father Figure, Careless Whisper and Freedom 90 are enough to provide the measuring stick of discovery to how much Michael that you didn't remember, is actually consistently masterful pop music.
Michael's tabloid presence has shadowed him from celebration for a lot of people, and it is a damn shame. Few artists of the past 30 years have maintained over such an extended stay in the spotlight with songs that have aged so well. Listening to them in succession is overwhelming for any pop fan and it is hard to imagine Michael eventually won't be remembered more properly.
Faith is still the place to start. However, if afterward you don't want to collect each individual album, you will after hearing this.
Free Music Review: A reminder of the gobsmacking range of his work.
Hit: 4 Stars
The title marks George's 25 years in the music business. But it is worth noting that, for the last 20 of those years he has, quite ingeniously, remained at the top of the tree while maintaining the workrate of an arthritic tortoise - just five new studio albums, and one of those was a covers collection.
OK, his disenchantment with the music industry is well known, but even diehard fans must be a bit miffed that the record release which coincides with his world tour is not a new collection of songs, but another retrospective.
It is only eight years since the "Ladies And Gentlemen : best of" with which Twenty Five's track listing overlaps considerably.
No amount of cunning packaging - such as dividing the collection into themed sections with the twee titles "For Living", "For Loving" and, on the triple CD version, "For The Loyal" - can disguise the fact that fans will be buying some songs for the second, maybe third time.
OK, that's the "buyer beware" message.
"Twenty Five" offers a handful of inessential new cuts (the likes of "Heal The Pain" with Paul McCartney, "This Is Not Real Love" with Mutya . . . yawn) but it is also a reminder of the gobsmacking range of Michael's work.
That means everything from the gorgeous, saccharine-tinged glory of "Careless Whisper" to the most cack-handed protest song ever in "Shoot The Dog".
It's a journey from the shuttlecock-down-the-shorts frippery of Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" to the big band crooning of "My Baby just Cares For Me", from brilliant throwaway pop like "Faith" to songs of disarming autobiographical honesty like "My Mother Had A Brother".
George is a pop everyman capable of the sublime (the cover of Stevie Wonder's "As" with Mary J Blige) and the ridiculous (the afore-mentioned "Shoot The Dog").
Pity he's not capable of upping the work rate.
Real Girl
TwentyFive
Free Music Review: recogniton too small for big talent
Hit: 4 Stars
its such a delight to own this cd collection, costing a fraction of what its worth. gm's--talent, in his lyrics, music, and delivery seems so missed by many. i love the dvd too, because the videos and concert tapings are never dull or lacking in imagination. inspiring, sexy, upbeat, thought provoking or perhaps longing with sadness, the honesty and rawness is solid all the way thru. sold seperately, i highly recommend the dvd as well as the cd.