George Michael is a genuinely talented, witty artist and I hope he gets (has?) his shit together so he can record more music – specifically upbeat music.

In the mid-80s, my high school girlfriend had much better, broader, deeper musical taste than me and her copies of Wham!’s ‘Fantastic’ and ‘Make it Big’ album sleeves were propped against her shelves and the platters on her turntable all of the time. Their songs were catchy, but I sniffed at the covers and the videos and saw it was all fun, but I wasn’t tuned into how deliberately arch the whole Wham! enterprise was.

It wasn’t until George Michael’s ‘Faith’ album that I grokked his ambition and inspiration and keen ear and artistry. Still immaculately groomed, but crikey, what a great, hungry, assured pop album the fellow made.

More fun and great singles kept coming over the years. Could care less about his sexual pecadilloes (did he have more than just the one?) but the public intoxication and driving under the influence incidents are troubling.

Still, that he had a sustained career for many years in pop music point to a reserve of talent. He’s one of the few music artists from the 80s & 90s I’d like to hear new music from. Not re-hashes of hits, but expressions of where he’s at. Oh, and upbeat songs. His ballads and slow-tempo big-picture songs tend to be snoozers.

Here’s an acoustic performance of “Freedom 90” pulled from about 100 hours of old videotapes. This website may be a repository of these morsels. Still deliberating on what to do with this space.

Oh, and this performance is 20 years old! Eeeek! Crossing fingers for ya, ya mad Cypriot!