George Michael Songs Ranked
George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou; 25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016) was an English singer, songwriter, record producer, and philanthropist who rose to fame as a member of the music duo Wham! and later embarked on a solo career. He was widely known for his success in the 1980s and 1990s, including Wham! singles such as “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and “Last Christmas” and solo singles such as “Careless Whisper” and “Faith”.
Michael formed the duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981, which achieved chart success in both the UK and US. Michael’s first solo single “Careless Whisper” reached number one in over 20 countries, including the UK and US. His debut solo album Faith (1987) topped the Billboard 200 for 12 weeks. Four singles from the album—”Faith”, “Father Figure”, “One More Try”, and “Monkey”—reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Faith was awarded Album of the Year at the 1989 Grammy Awards. He achieved a Billboard Hot 100 number one with “Praying for Time” from his second album Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (1990).[4] “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”, a 1991 duet with Elton John, was a transatlantic number one.
Michael sold over 80 million records worldwide making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time.[5] He achieved seven number one songs on the UK Singles Chart and eight number one songs on the US Billboard Hot 100. His awards included two Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards, three American Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, and six Ivor Novello Awards. In 2004, the Radio Academy named him the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004. In 2008, he was ranked 40th on Billboard‘s list of the Greatest Hot 100 Artists of All Time. Here are all of George Michael’s songs ranked.
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12. Monkey (Faith, 1987)
“Four singles deep into the Faith album, and the songs were still pretty strong. This was the first George Michael solo single that sounded like it actually could’ve been a Wham! single, proving that George was doing a damn good job breaking from his past.”
11. White Light (A Symphony of British Music, 2012)
“His performance at the London Olympic Games Closing Ceremony was one of the few highlights. Following his life-threatening illness, Michael was back on the stage and showing the younger “stars” of today how it is done. Michael may not be spent force just yet. If you liked “Faith” and “Listen Without Prejudice”, you should listen to this and recognise the talent; if not, don’t bother.”
10. One More Try (Faith, 1987)
“he song would certainly hit harder were the keyboards in this song actual pianos: the piece lacks some of the resonance wooden instruments would provide. George Michael’s spirited vocal on this one more than makes up for most of the song’s failings, as he’s able to give the melody a solid lift even when the arrangement weighs the piece down.”
9. Freeek! (Twenty Five, 2006)
“By all rights, this should have been his stateside comeback – boasting subtle Aaliyah and Q-Tip samples, Michael goes for a more hip-hop oriented sound for the first time since Fastlove and rocks it with ease.”
See more: George Michael Albums Ranked
8. Faith (Faith, 1987)
“With a brief hello and goodbye to his Wham days serving as a prologue. This is where George Michael’s solo career really took off. An irreverent, knockabout rock and roll pastiche in the style of Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, it went top 3 in Britain, topping the American charts and cementing its singer as the next big thing in 80’s pop.”
7. Fastlove (Older, 1996)
“Hauntingly beautiful title track from the “Older” album, the piano chords evoke classic 70’s-era Stevie Wonder, always a popular touch-stone for Michael, augmented by muted trumpets, dreamy strings and a simple time-beat on the drum-rim. The lyric is candid and similarly free of artifice, while the vocal is spot-on in its understatement. Older is better, at least here.”
6. Jesus to a Child (Older, 1996)
“The folks who dislike this obviously don’t know the backstory behind it, and therefore can’t really appreciate it. It’s traumatic as hell to lose your first gay lover to AIDS while you’re still a closeted pop star whose career is on the wane. This song captures that, and is probably the finest thing he ever did.”
See more: Wham Albums Ranked
5. Father Figure (Faith, 1987)
“His voice is actually really great, full of soulful nuances. With a boy-band past and a very tabloid personal life, it was easy to get distracted from that fact. But he sings with wisdom and feeling, especially for someone who was then only 24. For me, this was one of the best pop songs of the late 1980s.”
4. I Want Your Sex (Faith, 1987)
“A mild envelope-pusher in its day and as tame as a li’l baby bunny today, “I Want Your Sex” survives the years as likable Eurotrash pop as long as the awful lyrics don’t make you wince into a fetal position. The package isn’t complete without the video though, where the manufactured nature of the “controversy” is laid out plain.”
3. Too Funky (The Very Best, 1995)
“It’s one of those gorgeous melodies that you love for 20 years but then can’t listen to it ever again! The art of songwriting at its highest with the instrumental intro (the sax) and the thing that really grabs your attention is his gift of singing, THAT VOICE, he couldn’t do wrong back then!”
2. Freedom! ’90 (Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, 1990)
“To disown or at the very least move on from his recent past, George Michael cheekily reused the title of one of his biggest pop hits with Wham and proceeded to write a completely different type of song and set out his own artistic manifesto. It was certainly helped by marrying it to a monster funky groove that just keeps on coming while his impassioned vocal makes his point for him equally eloquently.”
1. Careless Whisper (Careless Whisper, 1984)
“This is everything a schmaltzy pop tune should be. Memorable chorus, unforgettably steamy sax lick, synth strings, slow drum fills. It’s the kind of tune that plays as you find yourself drunkenly making out with someone on a couch at a stranger’s house at 3 in the morning when everyone else has left the party and there are empty cans and bottles everywhere. Perfect and undeniably eighties. I could listen to this on repeat all night.”
