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TwentyFive
by Epic
| List Price: |
$15.99 |
Unavailable for
purchase at this time |
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Audio CD
Publisher: Epic
In 25 years, George Michael can already look back on more than 80 million in record sales worldwide. He has notched up six No. 1 singles from his debut album, eleven British No. 1 singles, and six No. 1 albums to date.
| Customer Reviews: |
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| A Striking Account of Pop Mastery |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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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.
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| HAUNTING WHISPER |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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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?
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| GEORGE MICHAEL |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Say what you want to say about George Michael! Don't care about his personal life or how he lives it,just enjoy his great songs and cool music!
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| GREAT ALBUM |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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George Michael one of the b est singers of his time brings back the classics and reinvents himself by collaborating with stars such as Paul Mcartny i recommend this album for any George Michael fan out there.
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| I didn't realize how many great songs George Michael had recorded |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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I didn't realize how many great songs George Michael had recorded. I'm glad I bought it. I was disappointed "Cowboys and Angels" wasn't on it, though.
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Everything She Wants [Wham!] - George Michael, Wham!
Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go [Wham!] - George Michael, Wham!
Feeling Good
Faith
Too Funky
Fastlove
Freedom! '90
Spinning the Wheel
Outside
As - Mary J. Blige, George Michael
Freeek!
Shoot the Dog
Amazing
Flawless (Go to the City)
Easier Affair
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