With the beginning of the holiday season, I can’t help but look back to last year’s holiday season and the great loss it brought to music. It is no surprise that this season was chosen to release the new reissue of George Michael’s “Listen Without Prejudice Vol I”. This was his favorite time of year.
It’s always bittersweet that we get to know so much more about the person behind the successful artist after they’ve died. Since his passing, many documentaries have been made and more details of his life have been published. Now, almost a year after his death, even more books and special collection cds have been released, in time for Christmas. It always leaves me wishing I’d known all this stuff before, but it’s not like I could’ve stopped his passing from happening. However, George, as well as Michael Jackson and even Prince, to a certain extent, just seemed so unhappy. They even seemed a little lost in life.
In between all of the releases concerning George Michael, there’s only one official release. The “new” “Listen Without Prejudice” is a collection of four albums, including his 1996 set in MTV’s popular (and recently revised) “Unplugged” series, demo versions and remixes and a DVD with a documentary made by George himself.
The documentary, recently, aired on Belgian TV, but I unfortunately missed it. It’s about the best thing it has to offer to the bigger George Michael fans, who are sure to already have the previously unreleased B-sides and demo songs that have since leaked through other routes. It’s nice to feel like it has some sort of stamp of approval by George Michael now, even though that still remains a guess. I don’t know how involved he was with the reissuing of the album.
Some journalists and bloggers say that the reissue shows the struggle between George’s vision for himself as an artist and the one Sony had. I am siding with George on this one and keep believing that he delivered a great album in the original version. It was just something we hadn’t expected from him, and in terms of commercial insight, it may not have been the best move for him, at the time. But it was best for a man who was clearly struggling between fame and his artistic needs.
We can all be very critical of the moment that this became visible, but how many times did you not feel like you couldn’t stand another day in your day job and had to tell yourself it’s all for a good cause. I believe it’s that type of frustration that drove him to make changes in the formula that had evolved over time.
He was born in the wrong time. Nowadays, a lot of artists are creative pushing their faces into the background (Gorillaz) or turning a gimmick into their trademark to hide their faces (Sia, Daft Punk). Let’s face it, we actually give music a try now versus only good looking faces. We listen without prejudice, most of the time.
