2016 12 29 GEORGE MICHAEL ent main

A look back at the late pop icon’s pop culture milestones.

One of the recent high-profile deaths this year was that of George Michael, who died of a heart attack at his UK home. He was only just 53 years old.

George Michael was first known as one half of the act Wham!. Along with his musical partner Andrew Ridgeley, Michael performed some of the biggest pop hits of the ’80s.
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Thanks to the duo’s dance pop, post-disco sound, masterminded by Michael, Wham! left an indelible imprint on pop music. Michael later found success as a solo artist, selling over 100 million albums, winning two Grammy as well as three Brit and American Music Awards. During his years in Wham!, Michael contributed to two ’80s Christmas staples, the Wham! single “Last Christmas” and Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” for which he served as part of a massive chorus of pop stars singing to raise awareness and funds for the Ethiopian famine.He also made “Careless Whisper” and “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”, two of the duo’s best known songs.

Michael also brought rap Into the UK pop music scene. When Wham! arrived on the scene, Michael rapped in the single, "Wham Rap! ("Enjoy What You Do"). Rap was still very much an American phenomenon, but this song brought the sound to the UK with a somewhat political message challenging Britain's left wing and the "right to work" platform as the duo embraced unemployment and asked "Do you enjoy what you do?"


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George Michael understood pop music intuitively — but also understood how visuals could make his music even more memorable. With songs like “Careless Whisper” and “Father Figure”, Michael showcased his magic ability to make a pop song feel like an intimate or even lonely story that only you were listening to.

Michael’s most iconic achievement came in connecting his sense of pop music with a deep understanding of visuals, especially in the “Freedom! 90” music video, directed by David Fincher. Instead of Michael appearing in the music video, supermodels — Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Naomi Campbell — appeared and lip-synched the song. “Freedom” was a collision of fashion and music, style and substance, that George Michael very well embodied.
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