Honeymoon Suite Music

On October 30^th 1987, George Michael released his debut solo album Faith. The album was an outstanding commercial success for the former Wham! frontman, debuting at number one in both the UK Albums Chart and US Billboard 200. Faith was also met with widespread critical acclaim upon its release and subsequently won multiple ‘Album of the Year’ awards across 1988 and 1989. However, one award that Faith received would go on to generate controversy across the music industry for years to come – the American Music Awards’ Favourite Soul / R&B Album of the Year for 1989. The controversy stemmed from the fact that Michael was the first Caucasian artist to win this award, with many music critics expressing their belief that the award should be reserved for black artists (for which the genres of soul and R&B were historically associated with). The criticism that Michael received for winning this award would go on to have a profound effect upon the writing and direction for his second studio album, as he would encourage audiences to ‘listen without prejudice’.

Michael’s second studio album Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 was released on the 1^st September 1990. As was his debut studio album, Listen Without Prejudice was a huge critical and commercial success in the UK, once again debuting at number one in the UK Albums Chart. However, whilst Listen Without Prejudice debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200, the album performed significantly worse both commercially and critically in the United States than Faith did. In its first week of sales, Faith received 1.3 million sales in the United States and, as of present date, has received 11 million sales across the country. Whilst the exact number of sales that Listen Without Prejudice achieved in its first week of release in the US are not documented, the album has only sold 2 million copies across the country as of present date. This is not even a fifth of the sales that Faith has achieved. Despite music critics widely considering Listen Without Prejudice as one of the best albums of all time (Apple Music recently crowned it as the 91^st best of all time), it failed to connect with US audiences on the same level that his debut did. Why is this?

Around the time of the release of Listen Without Prejudice, tensions had grown between Michael and his record label Sony Music. Sony became unhappy with Michael after it became apparent that he wanted his second studio album to take a more introspective and socially conscious direction in comparison to Faith, which was able to market itself as a flashy and hyper-sexualised pop album. The tension between Michael and Sony eventually spiralled into Michael filing a lawsuit against Sony in 1992 for ‘creative control’ in which he accused Sony of ‘professional slavery’ and ‘restraint of trade’. Michael would eventually lose the lawsuit but was later saved from the shackles of Sony after Virgin Records and DreamWorks purchased his contract from Sony for a reported fee of $40 million.

The legal battle between Michael and Sony is something that has been extensively documented in popular music discourse (there is even a Wikipedia page dedicated to the lawsuit) but essentially, the growing tensions between the two were a major contributor towards why Listen Without Prejudice did not perform as well as Faith did. To protest against Sony attempting to control the direction that Michael took with his second studio album, Michael refused to appear in any music videos for singles taken from the album as well as opting not to feature in the album cover itself. This resulted in a more relaxed marketing campaign in comparison to that of Faith’s which consequently impacted how well the album performed in the United States.

The other reason the album didn’t perform as well in the United States is because of the direction Michael chose to take with Listen Without Prejudice. At the time of the album’s release, Michael was 27 years old. He was no longer the 20-year-old ‘teen-idol’ that rose to fame as a part of Wham!. He had become fatigued of being viewed as a sex symbol first, and a music artist second. Whilst Faith was certainly a departure from the music of Wham!, audiences were still viewing Michael as more of a ‘popstar’ as opposed to a serious musician. With his second studio album, he wanted to distance himself from his reputation as a popstar and instead showcase his depth as a musician. Of course, American audiences did not warm to this. This is not an issue that is exclusive to American audiences, but I cannot stand it when audiences refuse to accept it when artists chose to evolve their sound. This is an issue that I first noticed when the Arctic Monkeys received backlash for evolving their sound post AM, but the more I read about music, the more I realise that it has been an issue in the music industry for a while. If you don’t like an artist evolving their sound, their older material is always there for you to revisit – no one has stolen that from you. Can you imagine if The Beatles release Revolver today? People would be calling for Ringo Starr to be publicly executed.

Anyway, let’s discuss Listen Without Prejudice itself and why it is seen as one of the best albums of all time. The album opens with ‘Praying for Time’. Praying for Time is genuinely one of my favourite songs of all time, although I do acknowledge that I say that a lot. Praying for Time was the first single released from Listen Without Prejudice, and immediately you are made aware that this album will be new territory for George Michael. The song is essentially a critique of 20^th century communism, with Michael observing the increasing economical divide between the working and middle classes. Notable lyrics include “these are the days of the beggars and the choosers”, “this is the year of the hungry man” and “the rich declare themselves poor”. If anything, the song probably makes more sense today than it did in 1990. We live in a world where millionaires are still demanding more, and yet there are an estimated 13.4 million people living in poverty in the UK alone. In 2022’s ‘Freedom Uncut’, a documentary that discusses the period of Michael’s life between the releases of Faith and Listen Without Prejudice, Liam Gallagher of all people displays admiration for the song stating that ‘it could’ve been cut from the same cloth’ as John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.

‘Freedom! ‘90’ is the second track on Listen Without Prejudice and is by far the most well-known song from the album, so much so that you don’t even need to know who George Michael is to recognise the song. The song includes the ’90 in order to differentiate itself from the Wham! track of the same name. Definitely the most poppy song on the album which, let’s be honest, is likely the reason why it is the most popular. In Freedom! ’90, Michael discusses breaking free from his image as a ‘pop idol’ and transitioning into being seen as a more serious singer-songwriter. The song also acts as a massive ‘fuck you’ to Sony who, at the time this song was written, were attempting to assert complete control over Michael’s music career.

Track 3 is ‘They Won’t Go When I Go’. Up until a few weeks ago, I had no idea that this song was a cover version of a Stevie Wonder track. I use this word to describe a lot of songs, but They Won’t Go When I Go is genuinely haunting. It feels as though it is a song that should be reserved only for funeral processions. For me, this track is one of Michael’s best vocal performances, if not the best. Though not his own song, it perfectly represents the direction that Michael chose to take with Listen Without Prejudice – moody, contemplative and profound.

I am not going to go through every track on Listen Without Prejudice individually, so let’s skip to track 5 which is ‘Cowboys and Angels’. Cowboys and Angels carries a very similar tone to They Won’t Go When I Go and was written by Michael after finding himself in the middle of a love triangle between a man who he was in love with and a female friend who was in love with Michael. Michael noted the similarity between himself and his female friend in that they both were in love with someone that they knew they could not get – “it’s the ones who resist that we most want to kiss, wouldn’t you say?”. For some reason I named my Fantasy Premier League team after this song last season. I still have no idea why.

The last track I am going to discuss is track 6 ‘Waiting for That Day’, the second single taken from Listen Without Prejudice. Waiting for That Day is considerably more lively than the previous two tracks, though it seemingly discusses Michael’s struggle in accepting that a relationship has come to an end. The track shares a lot of similarities to that of The Rolling Stones’ ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, with Michael even repeating the title of the Stones’ song towards the end of the song. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are even credited as co-writers of the song, which, I assume, Michael did in order to protect himself from Jagger and Richards filing a lawsuit against him for plagiarism. Probably a wise idea given The Rolling Stones’ track record with filing plagiarism lawsuits.

It is only upon writing this article that I finally discovered why ‘Vol. 1’ was included in the title of Listen Without Prejudice. Michael intended Listen Without Prejudice to be a two-album project, but as a result of the growing tensions between himself and Sony, he was never able to release Vol. 2. Vol. 2 was said to have been a lot more in line with the sound of Faith, with the majority of the tracks that Michael intended to feature on the album eventually finding themselves scattered across a number of Michael’s compilation albums. Three of the tracks that were to be included on Vol. 2 (‘Too Funky’, Do You Really Want to Know’ and ‘Happy’) were donated by Michael to the Red Hot Organisation and featured on their 1992 charity album Red Hot + Dance. The Red Hot Organisation was founded by John Carlin in 1990 and is dedicated to raising money and awareness of the ongoing HIV / AIDS epidemic across the globe.

That draws a close to this article. It is fair to say that Listen Without Prejudice is one of my favourite albums of all time. George Michael is truly someone that was taken from the world far too soon. I remember when the news of his death broke on Boxing Day in 2016. My parents were completely devastated but, as a 13-year-old, I couldn’t fully understand the significance of his passing. After his death, it came out that throughout his career, Michael had donated millions of pounds to various charitable causes across the globe and had never once mentioned it to anyone. Ultimately, even if you are not a fan of his music, he is someone that everyone across the globe should look up to in one way or another.