Tuesday, July 11, 2023

Andrew Ridgeley special

 












September 15 1990 and David Stubbs here imagines an earlier documentary tribute to the Wham!ster .

This satire inspired by the South Bank Show that was actually shown that month on George Michael (clearly coordinated as another prong of his campaign to be taken as a Serious Artist - a Bragg-voiceover-worthy subject like the Smiths and Talking Heads - alongside the singles "Praying for Time" and "Freedom '90", and the album title Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 --- "please please please take me as more than a hunk in bronzer and tight jeans")






















Can't also help thinking that Stubbs must have had in the back of his mind the Stud Bros profile of Ridgeley from some weeks earlier - on the occasion of Randy Andy's debut solo album - in the course of which they exalted him as some kind of hero of getting-away-with-it, the ultimate pop star, excelling at the playboy part of the job without getting his fingers grubby and calloused through the workmanlike side of actually producing work. Perhaps a sort of Bez avant la lettre.

Which immediately provoked this harsh corrective from Chris Roberts 







5 comments:

  1. When George Michael came out after his first arrest, his army of fans across the world was shocked: they had no idea that, after all that time, George Michael was still in the closet.
    That fact illustrates the further phenomenon that George Michael's perception of his music and his persona was notably at odds with his fanbase's perception. He saw himself as the white, English Prince, whereas his fans saw him as the guy what was out of Wham!. Case in point, he intended the single Faith to be a declaration of independence, but his fans focused on the opening lines about touching bodies and interpreted it as just a fun, sexy ditty.

    Who's the earliest Bez, the earliest non-musical member of a band? Do the Warhol acolytes miming shooting up and cracking whips to the Velvet Underground count?

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  2. I think the Warhol acolytes were only onstage for the Plastic Inevitable phase.

    Probably the real proto-Bez is Stacia in Hawkwind. She would dance onstage topless - or was it completely starkers? You see a Top of the Pops-friendly version of her performance in the video for "Silver Machine".

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  3. I think it was "Freedom '90" that was the song where he declared independence - in the video, he smashes the guitar and blows up the jukebox that were in the "Faith" video, symbolized the semiotic chains that bind him. And "Freedom '90" has those cringe worth lyrics addressed to the fanbase:

    "All we have to see
    Is that I don't belong to you
    And you don't belong
    To me, yea yea"

    and then this bit:

    I was every little hungry
    Schoolgirl's pride and joy
    And I guess it was enough for me
    To win the race?
    A prettier face!
    Brand new clothes and
    A big fat place
    On your rock and roll TV
    But today the way
    I play the game is not the same
    No way
    Think I'm gonna get myself happy
    I think there's
    Something you
    Should know
    I think it's time
    I told you so
    There's something
    Deep inside of me
    There's someone
    Else I've got to be
    Take back your
    Picture in a frame

    I just hope you understand
    Sometimes the clothes
    Do not make the man"

    Quite why he felt that the nifty "Faith" was some kind of prison of his own making, I don't know.

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  4. Stacia oft performed nude, which was the stated condition for her dancing in Hawkwind. That's the sort of fact which makes one realise why Bez is considered the best of the bunch: comparing the two, Hawkwind made the Happy Mondays look the less sexist.

    Faith also has themes of independence, the rejection of hangers-on, and the self-help mantra of maintaining resilience. With Freedom! 90 (yes, the song has an exclamation mark), he dollops on the same themes more heartily, like an overenthusiastic dinnerlady.

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  5. Also, why are we talking about the lyrical themes of George Michael? Nobody cares about the lyrical themes of George Michael, least of all his fans. What they wanted was stuff like what he did in Wham!, just a bit more sophisticated. That's not a slur nor a traducement. It's just a statement of fact.

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