George Michael: Faith (reissue) [COLUMBIA]

Why you'll love it

This reissue is a half-speed master of the remastered album. Faith spent 12 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, gave him four No. 1 singles in America and won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

This edition

• Half-speed master
• Remastered
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

By 1986 George Michael had grown tired of hearing Wham! dismissed as a teen act, and he had his sights set on the same stratosphere as Michael Jackson and Prince. After a farewell at Wembley, he started work on a solo album, first at Sarm West in London and then, from early 1987, at Puk Studios in rural Denmark, far from the press.

He wrote and produced nearly everything himself, building songs bit by bit in the studio, often from a drum-machine pattern, and playing many of the parts on "Hard Day" and "Monkey" himself. The title track is a rockabilly strut, "Father Figure" is a slow, gospel-tinged seduction, "One More Try" is a towering soul ballad, and "Kissing a Fool" closes on late-night jazz. "Look at Your Hands," co-written with David Austin, adds a rock edge.

It went on to sell over 25 million copies and became the first album by a white solo artist to top Billboard's Black Albums chart. Nearly forty years on, the title track still makes perfectly sensible adults reach for a leather jacket and aviators they don't own.

Also at Kops: more George Michael on vinyl · browse Pop

Tracklist

Listen

On Columbia / Epic (cat# 19802972871), a reissue of the 1987 album.