Biography
The legendary British singer, formerly of Wham! George Michael was born on June 25, 1963 in the UK, in the city of Finchley, which is located in North London. In fact, the name George Michael is nothing more than a stage name, since in reality the artist bore the name Georgios Kyriakos Panayiotou.
George's father, Kyriakos Panayiotou, was a Cypriot who emigrated to Britain in the 50s and married an Englishwoman, Leslie Angold Harrison. His father ran a small restaurant with Greek cuisine, and his mother was a dancer.
George Michael as a child
In addition to George, the family had two more children - sisters Melanie and Yoda, who were older than him. As a result, it was the sisters who were involved in raising the child, since the parents did not have time for this due to being very busy at work.
The image of a sex symbol in adulthood runs counter to what the singer was like as a child - George Michael was forced to wear glasses due to poor eyesight; his build could not be called athletic, which is why he was constantly attacked by his peers. To all the problems was added the need to learn to play the violin, which the future star really did not like.
George Michael in his youth | Smooth Radio
Michael wanted to become a star since childhood, literally from the age of 7, but playing the violin did not bring much pleasure, especially since he was left-handed. At that time, George repeated or tried to reproduce all the tunes he heard on the radio. The father did not share his son’s hobbies, unlike his mother, who provided the strongest support in his career and gave him a voice recorder with a recording function.
The singer and his subsequent style were strongly influenced by the group Queen and Elton John. A sharp change in life came after moving to Hertfordshire, entering a new school and meeting Andrew Ridgeley, who had Egyptian roots. The acquaintance happened in 1975; Ridgeley was specially assigned to Michael to help him get comfortable. This became a turning point in the artist’s life.
George Michael
Probably, the Greek residents of Cyprus in the mid-1980s - late 1990s were offended that the world famous singer refused to use his real name Georgios Kirnyakos Panayiotou (not to be confused with the not so famous Russian singer Alexander Panayotov), which he inherited from his Cypriot father.
But the singer himself can be understood - after all, the pseudonym “George Michael” is much more familiar to Western viewers and listeners, and it’s unlikely that anyone in England or the USA began to take the performer named Panayiotou seriously. Georgios Panayiotou was born on June 25, 1963 in Finchley, a northern suburb of London, into the family of Kyriakos Panayiotou, an emigrant from Cyprus, and an Englishwoman, Leslie Angold Harrison. Georgios' desire for popularity manifested itself very early, from the age of 7. Perhaps the desire to become known and loved by a large number of people was a natural mechanism for psychological self-medication for the boy - after all, his father was a typical workaholic, spent days and nights in his workshop (Kyriakos was a restorer) and paid almost no attention to his son. Hence this desire to attract everyone's attention, even through the most shocking, scandalous and provocative methods. And the fact that exclusively women (mother and older sisters) were responsible for raising Georgios Panayiotou also could not but influence the character and worldview of the future George Michael.
Like most outrageous stars, as a child George Michael was, as the modern hard-hearted generation usually puts it, a “loser.” He was a shy, timid boy, awkward, not very physically developed, with poor eyesight (and also blind to some colors) and too dreamily romantic to gain authority among his peers.
His only truly “masculine” childhood dream was the dream of becoming a pilot, which matured at about the age of 12, but his classmates quickly shattered this crystal dream with their ridicule. However, everything changed when he met a new student who came to school, whose name was Andrew Ridgeley. It was Ridgeley, who looked in the latest fashion of the 1970s, who became a model for Georgios. At such an early age, he forced himself to go on a diet and lose weight to normal weight, changed his glasses to contact lenses and began, with the help of Andrew’s advice, to dress less sloppily than before. They were also united by a love of music, thanks to which, at the age of 16, they became the main characters in the school music group The Executive. The group itself did not achieve any great success, but it was in its depths that Ridgeley and Georgios, who had already taken the pseudonym George Michael, laid the repertoire base for a future leap to world fame. This leap to fame was the musical duo WHAM!, whose members were former school friends, who managed to sign their first professional music contract in early 1982. Over the next four years, this duo became a real idol of the younger generation of pop music fans of the time. Even then, the duo’s repertoire showed the features of George Michael’s future sensual and shocking style. It soon becomes obvious to everyone that Andrew Ridgeley is the ballast dragging George Michael down. And in 1986, the duo WHAM! broke up, each of its members went on a solo voyage. It is worth noting that this voyage ended disastrously for Ridgeley - his first solo disc failed, record companies terminated contracts with him, for many years he did anything but music, and in the late 90s he was a “back-up dancer” at George’s performances Michael. Michael himself made a brilliant and dizzying career. Already his first solo album, Faith, received a Grammy as the best album of 1988, and Elton John called the singer nothing less than the greatest performer of his generation. Even then, he chose the scandalous image of a sex-hungry freak dressed in tight leather suits as his individual style. And this style was extremely popular. The second album, “Listen Without Prejudice,” released in 1991, became even more popular with listeners and sold more than 10 million copies. In total, at the moment, sales of George Michael's albums (there are seven in total) have amounted to about $100 million. True, not all of this money went to the singer himself.
The fact is that Sony, with which George Michael was contracted at the first, most brilliant stage of his solo career, sought to limit his creative freedom. Company managers wanted to channel Michael's energy in a more peaceful and traditional direction, fearing that his scandalous behavior and provocative lyrics would soon cause his popularity to decline and their losses. George did not want to tolerate such coercion and from 1991 to 1994 waged a real legal war against his former partners. However, musical talent is of little help when you are at war with such a huge corporation as Sony.
As a result, having spent more than $7 million on legal costs, on June 28, 1994, George Michael was faced with a fait accompli - he could no longer record under the Sony label, he would lose the rights to songs previously released in collaboration with this company and to the income from them, and also had to pay $40 million in compensation for breaking the contract.
However, the American record company Dreamworks immediately came to his aid, which paid him the same $40 million in advance for the future two albums. And Michael duly thanked them - his album “Older”, released in 1996, was later named by critics as the best music album of the decade in pop music.
However, a dark streak in the singer’s life still came. In 1998, he was detained by the police in a public toilet in a, so to speak, piquant situation and was soon forced to publicly admit his long-term non-traditional sexual orientation.
It is difficult to say whether the further decline in George’s popularity is due to this fact (after all, the bulk of connoisseurs of his work were women who were in love with him), or whether other reasons played a role here, but the fact is a fact - in the 2000s, George Michael went into the shadows. Moreover, he was unconditionally eclipsed not only by the stars of the new generation, but also by the old guard like Elton John. This led to Michael even taking a sabbatical for several years.
True, recently he “came out of the twilight” again - on the night of January 1, he earned 3 million dollars for a performance at Vladimir Potanin’s villa near Moscow, in 2008 he signed a contract for several million dollars to write his own autobiography, and in December 2009 he released a new single "December Song".
Music
The singer has changed a lot in appearance, stopped wearing glasses, and lost weight. A revision of his attitude towards himself and life became the reason that Michael developed new hobbies, which left no room for study.
Instead of lessons, Michael, Ridgeley and mutual friend David Austin gathered at the Green Park subway station to entertain passengers with covers of Beatles songs, David Bowie and their own creations. Gradually this grew into the formation of the group The Executive. In addition to those listed, the team included Andrew Leaver and Paul Ridgeley.
George Michael in his youth | Days
This band did not become especially famous, releasing only one hit - Rude Boy. The group could not stay for long, but the members managed to develop the foundation for the formation of Wham!, since while working in The Executive, many songs were created for future Wham! albums.
Wham!
The famous pop duo was signed to the promising Innervision Records label in 1982. During this same period, the pseudonym “George Michael” was adopted. The image of the group is that of rich playmakers; accordingly, their work was aimed more at young people. This is confirmed by the video clips for the debut songs: “Club Tropicana”, “Bad Boys”, which became the calling card of the group.
The first album was called Fantastic. After initial success, the decision was made to move to the Epic label, after concluding a contract with which, the band members began to receive much more money from royalties than they had before.
A short break in creativity occurred at the end of 1983, and it lasted until May 1984. Until this time, a new image of the group was being developed, and work was also underway on a new album, which was called Make It Big. It became popular within the UK, taking first place in various charts. The best creation from the album was the video. We are talking about the “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” video, which has become a cult favorite.
The next two years became the most successful for the group, since it was during this period that such famous songs as “Careless Whisper”, “Freedom” and of course “Last Christmas” were released, which for a long time became a kind of anthem of this holiday.
Rare behind the scenes photos
Here are collected photos taken in 1983-1985. Many of them date back to the time of the Grand Tour.
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1. George Michael holding a video camera next to the bullet train at the station. Filmed during the Japanese leg of the Faith World Tour in February 1988.
2. George and Elton John at a film studio in London in May 1985.
3. George and his girlfriend Kathy Jung on the train. Japan, March 1988.
4. The singer lies on the bed in a hotel room and watches TV. Filmed in Sydney, Australia during the world tour in January 1985.
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5. Left - with Christa Jones, 1983. Right - George blow-drying his hair, 1985, during the Grand Tour.
The Grand Tour included the USA, Japan, Australia, China and the UK.
6. George Michael changes clothes backstage during a performance in Australia in January 1985.
Solo career
George's disagreements with the producers over the discrepancy between the image of a hooligan teenager imposed on him and his inner state of a romantic led to the breakup of the group, despite its peak of popularity. The band's albums ended with the album "The Final", which broke all sales records - they amounted to 40 million copies.
As a solo singer, Michael made his debut in 1984 with the song “Careless Whisper,” but full-fledged solo performances began after the group broke up, in 1986. Then the album Faith was released, which received all the significant music awards of that year, including the Grammy.
George Michael on stage | In music
The second album, entitled “Listen Without Prejudice, Vol 1,” was not so successful, although it contained several famous songs. The artist believed that it was not he, as a performer and author, who was to blame for the failure, but the Sony record label, which, according to him, did not promote the album properly. This led to lawsuits between the artist and the label, and due to the fact that the case was lost, Michael stopped creating until his contract with Sony expired.
From that moment on, the career began to decline, and only six years later the album “Older” was released, which partially attracted the interest of listeners in Europe. The best songs to note are Jesus To A Child and Fastlove. Then only collections of the best songs were released, like “Ladies And Gentlemen: The Best Of George Michael” in 1998 and “Songs From The Last Century”. This was in 1999.
George Michael | Unian
A relative breakthrough after stagnation can be considered the release in 2003 of the scandalous video Freeek!, which was very expensive. The success of the video led to the successful debut of the album Patience in 2004. In 2006, the singer went on a world concert tour for the first time in a decade and a half. In 2014, the sixth and final album, “Symphonica,” was released, the music of which pleased fans.
General information
George was born on June 25, 1963 into a Greek Cypriot family in London. The singer's father emigrated to England in the 50s. George's mother was English.
In 1981, Michael founded the group The Executives with his friend Andrew Ridgeley. The group format turned out to be unsuccessful, and soon the guys changed the concept of their performances. The new group was named Wham.
George and Andrew decided to act as rich rakes who take everything from life and have fun “to the fullest.” The group was able to achieve great commercial success, but nevertheless broke up in 1986.
In 1987, George Michael's first solo album, Faith, was released. The album became the best-selling album in the US for the year. It has sold over 16 million copies.
Personal life
Hints of non-traditional sexual orientation have been around for a long time. Michael said he was afraid of how his family would react. In 1991, the singer had an affair with designer Anselmo Feleppa, from whom he contracted HIV.
The hints were indirectly confirmed in the album “Older”. Around the same time, Michael's image changed, he began to wear short hair and leather clothing. It was especially difficult in the mid-90s, when my mother passed away, and there were also attacks from the press.
George Michael and Kenny Gross | Pikosky
In 1998, the singer decided to make a public statement that he was gay. He was in a relationship at the time with Dallas businessman Kenny Goss. Unfortunately, subsequently their photos in the tabloids became more interesting to people than songs, videos, albums or concerts.
