Listen without Prejudice Vol. 1

I miss him so much...

The follow-up album Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 2 was scrapped for reasons known only to Michael and his record company. Three of the songs intended for that album appear on the benefit album Red Hot + Dance, while a fourth ("Crazyman Dance") turned up on the B-side of that album's first single, "Too Funky".

Wrong. Those gals were hired because they were supermodels. Did you learn your cultural criticism in a strip mall community college?

R3 your misery is palpable

The supermodel birth certificate Vogue cover George Michael saw and cast the five models in his video giving them all worldwide MTV recognition

He started to take himself a little too seriously at this point, which is understandable since the success of Faith was probably too much and he wanted to be recognized for his music instead of just his image. The music was incredible and those videos still stand the test of time so he was right after all - it's his music that people love.

This album was a disappointment compared to Faith. Both him and Prince started to get boring when they became more focused on fighting their record labels than making fun music. It was the downfall of both of them.

Also I never understood why it was called Volume 1 - was there an intention of having a Volume 2 or something?

Heal the Pain

I admired the pivot he made with this album from sex symbol/pop superstar to a more introspective, thoughtful, serious artist.

R7, please go read R2.

I mean, jesus.

GM's masterpiece, and one of the most appropriately titled albums ever, although I read somewhere that it wasn't meant to be a reference to GM's superficial pop star image. It was more about the album's sound having such a black influence.

Some good songs, but way too pretentious. GM was skilled at crafting great pop songs. It's sad that his hang ups about being seen as a fluffy sex symbol made him trip all over himself trying to be more serious.

That said, "Cowboys and Angels" is a gorgeous song. The waltz-like shuffle is inspired.

[quote] Also I never understood why it was called Volume 1 - was there an intention of having a Volume 2 or something?

R7, R2 already posted on this. Do you actually read threads when you join them, or do you just jump right in and start mouth-breathing?

It's notable how many straight guys on youtube mention the bathroom where George Michael was arrested and post videos about it.

“Praying for Time” although a depressing song is also gorgeous and displays his voice beautifully. The content holds up even more today in our society that idolizes rich kids showing off their wealth on Insta

R13, R10 already pointed that out. Do you actually read threads when you join them, or do you just jump right in and start mouth-breathing?

This album was a dud. As a previous poster wrote, George became pretentious. Took six years to release another full album ("Older"). George had lost his momentum. He should've reunited with (poor forgotten) Andrew Ridgely for a Wham reunion.

This was a great album and aged well. It's much more serious than his other work though. But I think he made the point to want to be taken seriously and not just a piece of meat.

I think George's biggest issue was not releasing a lot of material and those long breaks which caused rhe public to lose interest. Imagine if he had Prince or Bowie's work ethic and released an album every year. He was very versatile and I would have loved hearing George do more acid house, electronic, jazz and funk tracks. He deserved the career that Mariah Carey had.

Listen Without Prejudice was George's Glitter album!

A friend told me that I'd find 'Older' was just as good as LWP if I'd only give it a chance. I've tried, but it has never struck me the same way.

I love Fastlove, Star People, and Jesus to a Child from the Older album.

R17, You realize he was fighting against Sony's onerous contracts and terms.

He was deliberately NOT releasing albums. Like Prince -- who went so far as to change his name to avoid issues with Sony's shitty treatment of their artists -- he was trying to fight the good fight, not JUST for himself, but for all other artists.

Are you really ignorant of all that was going on, and WHY he wasn't releasing albums?

No straight guy under thirty ever mentioned the names Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista until the Faith video

George's beloved Anselmo died in 1993. That explains the gap between Listen Without Prejudice and Older.

Both are stunning albums. I generally skip They Won't Go When I Go, but my god Cowboys and Angels is 7 and a half minutes of heaven.

You can call it love but I don't think it's true / You should know by now I'm not the boy for you / You're not to blame / Always ends the same

[quote] Took six years to release another full album.

Your point?

When I first started collecting CDs, I was always curious why no store had Vol. 2. Then some sales bottom clued me in.

I love this album. I resisted it at first, but I kept giving it another chance and fell in love.

Waiting For The Day is a BEAUTIFUL song. It makes me so sad to hear it and I try not to, but eventually, I do.

It reminds me of the worse break up ever.

FUCK!!!!!

Over the years I have enjoyed all of George Michael’s music as a solo artist as well as his music from his Wham! days. He also had a way of covering another artist’s song and owning it. Say what you will about his personal life but there certainly was no denying he had a beautiful voice and was very talented.

Gad, I love this song, and I love this video. R3 is right, they were hired BECAUSE they were supermodels.

Between this and "Praying for Time" I've always wondered why this album didn't do better in the charts.

.... because nobody has posted it yet.

This version is better to see him at the mic.

As a young gayling in waiting, I knew something was up (literally) when I only got turned on by the one male model in the freedom video and wondering why the girls weren't doing it for me....Looking back on it now, it is was so over the top, it was borderline campy, which I guess makes sense in retrospect.

PS - MTV debuted House of Style hosted by Cindy Crawford who interviewed every super and wannabe supermodels weekly in 1989 - Freedom came out in 90 so I'm fairly sure the MTV audience was already familiar with the Supermodels before George turned them into video props.

R24 "Cowboys and Angels" is in a class all its own. The jazz waltz tempo really sets it apart and the sax riff in the middle is just like you say "heaven." It's a very sophisticated piece of writing. The "I want your sex" type of songs get the immediate attention and hoopla, but George's talent was way past that. There is another song that never got released on a CD. I think it was probably slated for the Volume 2 which never materialized. It's called "This Kind of Love." I found it on youtube a long time ago. It's another great song from George that fell by the wayside.

Love this album. Heal The Pain is such a gorgeous song.

George had such a intelligent, honest way of talking about love.

Another male singer/songwriter that deserves an appreciation/evaluation is Lenny Kravitz.

I like "Heal the Pain" too. George was an excellent lyricist as well as composing some really beautiful music. He had it all when it comes to talent.

“It’s the ones who persist

for the sake of a kiss

who will pay”

Amazing song, OP.

Partner it with the “good looking guys” thread.

Being attractive and wealthy is no charm against neuroses.

R36 How true about looks & wealth being no guarantee that a person will be happy. George had looks, fame, wealth & most of all an abundance of talent. Sadly, it wasn't enough to prevent him from destroying himself.

It has such a gay sensibility without ever overtly stating it. And how could it not, when it's all George Michael? Did straight guys acknowledge its brilliance the way the gays did?

This album was a hard one to process. I think the songs are in an unpalatable order. After many rearrangements I've settled on this track list =

My "Side 1" for this album =

Soul Free

Freedom '90

Cowboys & Angels

They Won't Go When I Go

Side 2 =

Waiting For That Day

Praying For Time

Heal The Pride

Something To Save

Waiting (Reprise)

Mother's Pride

Too many say the album is dark/ gloomy (& I used to agree with that opinion) but I think this track list solves that problem. My Side 1 for example is about 50% upbeat (first 2 songs) followed by 50% slower tunes.

^ Side 2 song #3 should be "Heal The Pain".

R22 If you don't like the contract then don't sign on the dotted line.

What are people like R37 talking about when they say things like George Michael “destroyed” himself? He wasn’t a hard drug addict or an alcoholic. Yes, he smoked pot. But he lived his life. A lot of people die of heart failure and fatty liver. Yes, he struggled but that’s life. A lot of people struggle. It’s not like he was a crack addict. He was in his 50s and had also had two terrible bouts of pneumonia in the years previous and almost died then. It could be said he took loss very hard and that obviously contributed to his depression and perhaps quelled his will to live. He had mental health problems but so will half the people on this thread. To say that he “destroyed” himself is so disrespectful as if we were somehow robbed of a better George Michael but he was the best George Michael because he was the only one there was, completely one of a kind.

Whatever his personal struggles, he was such an honourable and generous man, one of the greatest talents that ever lived with the voice of an absolute angel and should be remembered as such. Over nearly 40 years, you NEVER heard him hit a bad note - not once. His music was so personal, he was an absolute artist.

Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 is a great album, the seeds of which were planted on Faith with songs like Father Figure, One More Try and Kissing A Fool.

The only thing that hampered it was his promotion of it, or lack thereof as has been noted here. I think it was mostly a response to the treatment of him in the British press, which made it all the more confusing to his American audience as if they had done something wrong or had offended him. It was pop so, of course, his image is a part of it, the same way Elvis Presley’s image sold records.

You can bet if George Michael had done proper promotion with videos featuring his performances of Praying For Time, Waiting For That Day, Heal The Pain (so Stevie Wonder) and Cowboys and Angels they all would’ve been HUGE hits. The gag on Freedom ‘90 wouid’ve been enough. He pretty much proved the record company’s point and they must’ve been infuriated with his petulance because it is a great album.

He was a coke addict and a heroin addict. You don't get myocardopathy from smoking pot. Talented and deeply troubled. What he could have done without his dependencies and neurosis.

The misguided promotion was a big issue. I remember DJs pushing "Praying for Time" as George Michael's new big single, but the slow pace of the song and atmospheric video didn't get people excited about the album.

R45 I agree. Freedom '90 or even Soul Free would've been better lead singles.

When I first heard P4T I remember saying WTF?

R42 I want to clarify that I will be going to my own grave with a soft spot for George. In no way did I mean any disrespect by saying he destroyed himself. I think he was one of the most kindhearted people to ever grace the planet. No one had a bad word to say about him, and the way he handled his philanthropic endeavors was pure class. He did it from the heart because he wanted to and not to get his name in the papers for good publicity. I just lost my mom a few months ago. I can relate to the difficulties George had with losing loved ones more than I can express. It's the one thing about him that I totally understand.

Now that I've said all that I still believe George was highly self destructive. I think it's been well documented that he used other drugs besides pot. He should have stopped smoking cigarettes after the battle with pneumonia but he didn't. I'm not saying this in a judgmental way. I'm in no position to judge anyone. I just am always trying to understand people I'm interested in to the best of my ability. Again, I meant no disrespect at all towards George.

He had a modern-day Liberace vibe

One of my favorite albums. Every single track shows what a brilliant lyricist he was.

Unfortunately, there was too much prejudice starting with his record company and not enough people listened.

[quote] Listen Without Prejudice was George's Glitter album!

[quote] —Mariah Scarey

Fuck off Pariah Scarey. You were the worst thing to ever happen to popular music. You ruined it with your tasteless showboating and your juvenile lyrics which show us you are still a 13-year-old mean girl inside.

Why is the universe so unjust? Why couldn't Pariah have developed nodules and been forced to stop singing forever around 1988? Why was Whitney the one who became a crack addict? Why could it not have been fat ass Pariah instead?

r50 and other posters above, Prince and George Michael fought the good fight against record companies so artists like Rihanna, Beyonce, Taylor Swift can make enough money to buy/own their master recordings. And now, the trend is for artists like Bob Dylan selling their publishing rights back to the record companies for millions of dollars for whatever reasons.

It's all come full circle...

Ahead of its time

It’s a shame he threw his career away. He had so much talent but instead of being productive, he wasted years where his days were filled with nothing but drugs and sex. I doubt there’s a vault of unreleased music like with other artists who have passed because he seemed lazy and never seemed to record any more than he had to.

I truly didn’t appreciate George’s talent until after his death. It saddens me that he was such a gifted lyricist and had a beautiful voice but was so unhappy. Had he been born 15 years later I think it would have been a game changer for him as an individual and on a professional level. He would have had the freedom to live his life any way he wanted without continuously being judged for his private as well as his professional life. It is amazing he left behind the catalog of music and covers of other’s songs he performed with all the struggles he dealt with on a regular basis. One can only shake their head for what might have been.

[quote] The follow-up album Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 2 was scrapped for reasons known only to Michael and his record company.

Actually, the reasons were very self evident. Post-LWPv1, he was embroiled in a pretty high profile court case against Sony (which he lost, BTW, the case itself dragging from 1992 to 1994), which was partly driven by the claim that Sony had done a piss poor job in promoting LWP vol. 1. There was no way that Sony would spring a million (or more) Pound advance for Volume 2. Since that was also around the time Anselmo Feleppa died, George decided to donate those tracks to a good cause, instead of waiting to get himself extricated from the contract, sign another one, and only then include them in the new material. Given that "Too Funky" was one of the best selling singles of that year, he still maintained a fairly high profile, while all the proceeds went to AIDS charities.

He also strikes me as someone who needed turmoil in personal life in order to be creative. Even a lot of "Older" was written as a means of dealing with his boyfriend's death from AIDS. "Outside" was sheer euphoria of being forced out of the closet and the relief it ultimately brought him. Everything after that was patchy at best, some really good stuff, but also a lot of things that served no purpose other than just releasing something.

Surprising you never hear club mixes of these songs in bars

You didn’t need a mix for Freedom 90; it was good enough in the original.

Wasn't Praying For Time deliberatey released first because they thought it would do well becuase of the stuff going on in Iraq?

Ahead of its time