Songoftheday 7/2/15 - There's things that you guess and things that you know, there's boys that you can trust And girls that you don't...

"I Want Your Sex" - George Michael
from the albums Beverly Hills Cop II (Original Soundtrack) and Faith (both 1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

Today's SOTD is by British pop singer/songwriter George Michael, who had left his "boy-band" roots with Wham! in 1986 to grab another #1 pop hit (and eventually a Grammy) with his duet with Aretha Franklin, "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)". His next move came on the release of the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy movie franchise Beverly Hills Cop II, where George contributed the song "I Want Your Sex". In what would eventually be a 13-minute suite on the 12" version (and split in two on the Faith album), he eschewed all of the nice-boy past and went straight to the bedroom, despite the pleas for "monogamy" written on his at-the-time sidepiece/beard Kathy Jeung. Despite the "word" in the title that kept some radio stations from playing it at top rotation, fans (mostly young women) bought it up in droves...

"I Want Your Sex" went all the way to #2 on the American pop chart in August of 1987, where it also peaked on Billboard's Dance Club Play list. The single also crossed over to R&B stations, cresting at #43 on that genre chart. Internationally, the record went to #1 in Ireland and the Netherlands, and top-10 in Germany, Canada, Italy, and most of Europe (though coming at #11 surprisingly in lust-heavy France).

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Here's all three parts of the "Monogamy Mix" that topped the Dance Club Play chart...

The "B-side" of the single, "Hard Day",. was more embraced by R&B stations, landing at #21 on that chart...

...though the Shep Pettibone remix that went to #5 on the Dance chart was even more interesting...

... a rare clip of George performing the song live in 1987...

and finally, a rework done in 2010 by remixing kings the Freemasons...

Up tomorrow: Irish rockers are perpetually searching.