Songoftheday 4/14/20 - Looking for some education made my way into the night, all that bullshit conversation Baby can't you read the signs?
from the album Older (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12
Today's song of the day is by George Michael, who returned to the pop top ten in America at the start of 1996 with his mournful ballad "Jesus To A Child". For the second release from his Older album, George went in the opposite direction to start the party with the intoxicatingly catchy "Fastlove". Built on a sample of Patrice Rushen's jazz/soul hit "Forget Me Nots", the song is a venture into the seedier and more pleasurable side of romance, looking for "Mr. Right Now" instead of "Mr. Right". And his sexuality, while still "officially" in the closet, is much more fluid in the music video, summoning both men and woman in this orgy of fun. But at the climax of the song, he just can't hide his feelings, as he sings, "I miss my baby" with forlorn acknowledgement...
"Fastlove" became George's fourteenth and final top ten hit on the Billboard magazine official Hot 100 pop chart in June of 1996. In fact, the single would turn out to be his last on the chart altogether (he would "bubble under" a few times). The song made both the Adult Contemporary (#8) and Adult Top-40 (#14) radio charts in the "easy listening" category, and even crossed over to urban stations, where it rose to #44 on the R&B chart. Internationally, he single topped the charts in Australia (four weeks), Spain (four weeks), the UK (three weeks), Italy (two weeks), and Hungary (one week). It reached the top ten in Canada (#4), Denmark (#4), the Czech Republic (#4), Ireland (#5), New Zealand (#5), Finland (#5), Sweden (#7), Belgium (#8W/#25F), Iceland (#9), and France (#10). "Fastlove" also made the top-40 in Norway (#11), the Netherlands (#12), Switzerland (#13), Austria (#13), and Germany (#25). Meanwhile, his Older album was his third top ten album at #6.
The next release from the record, "Spinning The Wheel", addressed promiscuity in the age of AIDS, but while the song was a big hit overseas, topping the Spanish chart for three weeks (his third in a row), as well as going top ten in the UK (#2), Hungary (#6), Denmark (#7), and Italy (#10), it missed the American Hot 100 altogether, managing to place at #44 on Billboard's Dance Club Play tally. His fourth offering would be the title track "Older", which was paired on the single with the non-album cover of Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me". The double-"A-side" reached #3 in the UK, and hit top ten in Spain (#3) and Ireland (#6). That was followed by his rework of his Older track "Star People", re-recorded as "Star People '97", which would top Billboard's Dance Club Play chart (his second #1 dance chart after 1988's "Monkey") and just miss the pop Hot 100, "bubbling under" at #101. Finally, another two-for-one single, with "You Have Been Loved" joined with a reworking of "The Strangest Thing '97", got to #2 in the UK (right behind Elton John's Diana tribute "Candle In The Wind"), as well as getting to #7 in Belgium and Denmark. That made a total of an incredible six singles that reached the top-3 including a pair with two radio hits each on them. And even during that time, George managed to place another top ten single with his duet with singer Toby Bourke on "Waltz Away Dreaming" (UK #10).
But also in 1997, Michael would become infamous for his arrest in a California bathroom for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer, which would result in community service, but also his inevitable coming out of the closet as a gay man. Rather than wither in shame, George would wear the outing like a badge of honor, spoofing the episide in 1998 with the first single from his Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael hits collection, "Outside". The lascivious look into sex out in the open, with its video that went ten times farther than "Fastlove" dreamed to, didn't phase European audiences, where the single went to #1 in Spain, Greece, and Hungary, and made the top ten in the UK (#2), Italy (#3), Denmark (#4), Iceland (#5), Ireland (#7), Finland (#8), and Norway (#10), while in America the song was ignored by radio, though it climbed to #3 on the Dance Club Play chart. The other new track on the two-disc retrospective, a remake of Stevie Wonder's soul classic "As" with Mary J. Blige, placed at #57 on Billboard's R&B chart, while going to #4 in the UK. That same year, he released a second studio album on Virgin Records, Songs From The Last Century, a covers album, which hit #2 in the UK but went bust in America at #157.
George started out the new millenium with a duet with Whitney Houston, "If I Told You That", which scored the pair a top ten hit in the UK (#9). After another break, he returned in 2002 on Polydor Records with his final studio album Patience. Lead single "Freeek!", another delve into sensuality, was a big international hit, hitting #1 in a few European countries and #7 in the UK (I don't believe they even tried in the States). But with the third single from the set, "Amazing", coupled with an appearance on Oprah, George found a smaller, but stable audience in America, where the single hit #35 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 chart as well as scoring a third #1 Dance Club Play hit. That was followed by "Flawless (Go To The City)", which landed him a third top ten hit in the UK (and his last at #8), as well as topping the American dance chart again. In 2006, Michael released a second hits collection, Twenty-Five, which scored another two British top-20 hits including "An Easier Affair" (UK #13). During the next few years he would sporadically release a one-off single, with "White Light" being his last British top-40 hit at #15 in 2012. Two years later, Michael released his live Symphonica album, with his remake of Terence Trent D'Arby's "Let Her Down Easy" becoming his last minor hit in the UK while he was alive at #53. Sadly, George passed away on Christmas of 2016 of heart failure. His genius wasn't really appreciated enough here in America, a lot because of homophobia, but in Europe his legend stands strong. In 2017, a new remix of Michael's old B-side "Fantasy" with Nile Rodgers hit #85 on the British chart.
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Here's George singing "Fastlove" on his Unplugged special on MTV...
...and performing at the NetAid concert in 1999...
and a year later at the 2000 Equality Rocks concert, where George is totally at home with the gheys...
George brought "Fastlove" to his Twenty-Five tour in 2009...
And finally, after George's death, Adele did a moving tribute to him with a transformed version (after a restart) of "Fastlove"...
Up tomorrow: Pop/hip-hop quartet rattle off some elements.
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