I loved how Andrew wasn’t the bitter ex band member and put their friendship first and fully understood what George Michael was going to be, probably not the full extent of it but the fact George needed to evolve.
It made sense once he said Wham! Was for the youth and there was never going to be Middle Ages Wham! It clicked for me.
My parents were teens of the 80s and my mum had their greatest hits, I have a vivid memory of dancing around to Bad Boys and the woop woops are ingrained in my head!. I have to say almost all my music taste somehow goes back to their album and George but it is only a recent realisation. I hope you are enjoying them!!! Freedom and I’m Your Man are my favs. Though Careless Whisper is making a comeback after what was revealed in the doco 17 and that???? What talent.
Exactly, which I always thought was super-classy and honestly, very mature of him (I honestly think if I was a teen in the 80s I would have had a little bit of a crush on him for it, tbh).
We had the big hits in Canada in the 80s (My Dad was a teen in the 80s and informed me of this), and it's just interesting to think about what was big in different countries. Obviously "Careless Whisper" and "Wake Me Up (Before You Go Go)" were massive everywhere, but I love how the documentary exposed me to songs they never play, even on our more retro/classic rock stations.
My Dad said "Freedom" was a big hit, but I'd never heard it, and I love it. Same with "I'm Your Man." And then even some of their more "naff" stuff, like "Wham Rap" and "Young Guns" just has that super-youthful energy, and shows a surprising amount of maturity in terms of its themes for something written when you're sixteen to seventeen.
Like, even if I had written a song about being unemployed when I was a teen, I don't think I would have had enough sense of character or myself at sixteen to think, "Wham, Bam, I am a man- job or no job, you can't tell me that I'm not." As an overachiever, it definitely took me until my twenties to be comfortable with not being defined by a job or gaining ALL my sense of confidence from what I do. And then Young Guns talking about premature marriage and children, and being locked into marriages you're not necessarily interested in? Like, there's clearly some great stuff there.
Also, their backing vocals are honestly also just clever and make me chuckle. Like, the thought of chanting "D.H.S.S." as your backing vocals ("Department of Housing and Social Services") when talking about being on the dole, and almost as something to toss back in people's faces with such youthful exuberance and a playful destigmatization of being on state support, is funny and clever and all I've been doing since I saw the documentary is just randomly singing out "D.H.S.S." everywhere I go. Same with "Everything She Wants"- the deep bass "GIVE YOU MONEY- WORK, TO GIVE YOU MONEY" has had me dropping my voice for the past week.
In short, they're so much more than the sum of their parts, despite being a self-described "schoolboy" band. I think they're a lot more clever than they give themselves credit for.
(Plus I just realized that in George Michael's solo career, the organ playing the chord progression at the beginning of "Faith" is the exact same melodic chord progression used in "Freedom," and it's just so clever. George really was far more talented than I ever recognized before. Brilliant. <3).