Happy Birthday George Michael

There comes a time in the life of many successful artists when their creative output trails off, and their celebrity becomes more important than their art; that's usually about the time their coverage on the Pop Culture Institute inevitably also tapers off and eventually disappears altogether...

So far there's no danger of that happening to George Michael, whose early work with Wham! set the stage for a hugely successful solo career, and whose solo career continues to move from strength to strength to this day. Four of Michael's solo albums - Faith, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, Older, and Patience - have established him as a consummate songwriter, no less than other works - such as Songs from the Last Century - have shown him to be a gifted interpreter of other people's music, as well as highly accomplished in the subtle art of the duet, and a vocalist of stunning range and artistry.

Born on this day in 1963, Michael met his future collaborator Andrew Ridgeley at Bushey Meads School; a ska band they started called The Executive quickly gave way to Wham! in 1981, and while the band's fame was short-lived it was also white-hot. Their first album, Fantastic, gave them a massive overnight success in the UK, but it couldn't have prepared them for the success of 1984's Make It Big; on the basis of the insanely catchy earworm Wake Me Up Before You Go Go alone, Wham! were poised for superstardom. Their career, however, took a slightly different trajectory; Ridgeley was soon jettisoned in favour of Michael's own ambition, as evidenced by the 1984 single Careless Whisper, which was billed as being by Wham! featuring George Michael...

Ever since then he's walked the fine line between being an artist on his own terms and a piece of meat suitable for exploitation by his record label; his various tabloid battles over his sexuality and drug use have given the chattering classes their reasons to chatter, but in the end he's always come back to the music...
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