RIP George Michael

[MDK]

16 minutes ago, Naitch said:

I just did the maths and worked out that someone Wikipedia-worthy whose name I recognise has died every 9.9 days on average. This has also brought to my attention several deaths this year which fell under the radar for me; Merle Haggard, Phyllis Schlafly, Alexis Arquette, and Janet Reno.

Will report back with a 2015 comparison later.

She was responsible for Andy Schlafly who is a certified nutter. 

[Chris2K]

http://www.digitalspy.com/showbiz/news/g24283/celebrity-deaths-2016-paying-tribute-to-stars-who-died-in-2016-in-memoriam/

There's 139 people in that gallery and I recognised about 60 of them which seems disproportionately high for someone who doesn't follow movies or literature.

[Naitch]

13 minutes ago, Gazz said:

You need to get out more.

Its Boxing Day so there's fuck all else to do.

 

Ended up with an average of 11 days from 2015. I recognised 36 names from 2016 compared with 23 from 2015. Obviously its very subjective and, as Gazz rightly pointed out, I can't be bothered to do a more scientific test.

[RPS]

As a gay man, George Michael was the first visible celebrity I could look up too. He was a flawed, brilliant and inspiring man. I loved all of his albums even the bad ones. Freedom 90 is my anthem in life. I'm still devastated, but the holidays are masking the pain.

[RPS]

RPS describes his favorite George Michael songs: 

Freedom 90 is the ultimate fuck you record. Fuck you to the music business, fuck you to the media, fuck you to the expectations placed onto him. Part of this is without question him being held up, objectified and expected to be a a heterosexual male sex symbol. But part of it was also the expectation that he would continue to make Faith 2.0. To continue to be the same icon who made Faith. Instead, George Michael said fuck you - he didn't appear in any of the music videos for his second album, his second album was the album he wanted to make and he refused to give into the expectations that George Michael was the George Michael the media wanted him to be. 

 

I only knew of George Michael, the gay pop star. So I listened to I Want Your Sex in the context of George Michael, gay pop star. This song meant so much to me when I was 13 years old. I had never heard an adult outside of my parents use the word pornography. I had never heard a gay man announce in a song "don't you think it's time you had sex with me". I had no idea that sex could involve more than one person and I had no fucking clue what monogamy was. He blended lines of sex and intimacy. So unabashed. 9 minutes of complete of a man celebrating and reveling in something we all ultimately enjoy.

 

2005 - young newly out gay RPS arrives in the big city. I had never been to a gay bar before. I hadn't really even been a straight bar either but I had no interest in it. This song was big in the gay bar I first went to. That bar became a staple of my formative years - pre-drinking till 11:30, hopping in the cab, dancing till 3am and goofing around as we made our ways home. This song was part of that early soundtrack - it isn't even that great of a song. But it's so integral to my understanding of who I was when I was 20 years old. Drinking terrible vodka coolers, listening to George Michael, Fedde Le Grand and Madonna, and making out with lots of boys just because I could. 

 

I know this song off by heart. Every lyric. I don't even need the song in the background. I can sing it by heart. It is probably one of five or so songs that I can do it for. I don't think it means much to me, except that it was the first George Michael song I fell in love with and it was opened the door for me. I watched all of the "Behind the Music", E True Hollywood, etc. stories of his lives and became obsessed with him. But it was the music that made me fall in love with him. And Faith is an iconic song that will stay with me till the day I die. 

 

This song has already been referenced in this thread. But in a word- it is by far one of the most brilliant songs ever recorded. Most pop stars recoil or lash out when they do something that is unbecoming of a pop star. They hide their faces and pretend as if it never happened. George Michael does not. After being caught with his dick out in a public bathroom, he literally makes a song celebrating it. The double entendres are amazing - I even hesitate to call them double entendres. They are just that amazing. I don't think there will ever be a song like this again - one which takes all the criticism and focus on his life and basically responds with "yes, I was sucking dick in that public bathroom". 

[GhostMachine]

Favorite Wham! songs: Young Guns, Everything She Wants and Careless Whisper.

Favorite solo songs: Freedom 90, Father Figure, and Too Funky. Call me insane if you want, but I prefer Limp Bizkit's cover of Faith over his version.

 

 

[MDK]

2 hours ago, RPS said:

 

This song has already been referenced in this thread. But in a word- it is by far one of the most brilliant songs ever recorded. Most pop stars recoil or lash out when they do something that is unbecoming of a pop star. They hide their faces and pretend as if it never happened. George Michael does not. After being caught with his dick out in a public bathroom, he literally makes a song celebrating it. The double entendres are amazing - I even hesitate to call them double entendres. They are just that amazing. I don't think there will ever be a song like this again - one which takes all the criticism and focus on his life and basically responds with "yes, I was sucking dick in that public bathroom". 

There is absolutely no second meaning at all. And yeah, it was such a good way to face the 'controversy' of the whole thing. If Larry Craig had responded with a song like this he would have had a presidential run for sure.

And this is an example of a really brilliant pop song especially the little Careless Whisper/Porno Jazz sax at the start. And I only just realised he looks like a sexy version of Big Boss Man at one point in the song.

[MalaCloudy Black]

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/magazine-feature/7647467/george-michael-death-new-music

Quote

In early December 2016, when Kahane was in London, a mutual friend encouraged him to reach out to Michael, who had recently finished 18 months in a Swiss rehab facility. “I called him, and he said, ‘I’m good.’ He sounded fine,” says Kahane. Though the two hadn’t talked in years, they made a plan to have lunch in January. And Kahane heard a few of Michael’s new songs, which he says are “totally pop, like something that would’ve been on Faith. The songs weren’t depressing. That’s why I thought everything was OK with him.”

 

[RPS]

Yeah, I wouldn't listen to it. George Michael was a pop perfectionist. He wouldn't want somebody else to master the demos or his "final" version of song and release them without George having a say.

[kliq]

On 06/01/2017 at 18:15, RPS said:

Yeah, I wouldn't listen to it. George Michael was a pop perfectionist. He wouldn't want somebody else to master the demos or his "final" version of song and release them without George having a say.

I wouldn't be so sure.

I'm pretty sure there is completed, unreleased music, based on information from George himself as well as other sources (a dance album that was almost certain to be completed back in 2012 for one), and the only reason for it being unreleased is because George was in no fit state to release and/or promote music for the last 3 years or so of his life.

Rehab in Australia at the start of 2013, falling out of a moving vehicle shortly after that, an unexplained trip to hospital a year later followed by a year long stint in rehab in Zurich.

There's a documentary about the release of Listen Without Prejudice due out at the start of March alongside a reissue of the album. If there's no new music before the end of the year I'll be very surprised.

[MalaCloudy Black]

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-39193367

Quote

The pop star was suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy with myocarditis and fatty liver, according to Darren Salter, senior coroner for Oxfordshire.