Faith

33⅓ Main Series #165

by Matthew Horton

On Saturday, June 28, 1986, George Michael picked up his tasselled leather jacket, walked out of London's Wembley Stadium and cheerfully tore up five years of glittering pop history. He'd just disposed of Wham!, the band he'd formed with school friend Andrew Ridgeley when they were teenagers, and now, at 23, he knew he was all grown up. He just needed to convince everyone else.

Faith is what happens when you've outstripped your dreams, your peers, your friends and your fans, and no one's caught up yet. It's about pouring all of that confusion, insecurity and sizzling ambition into music that comes out confused, insecure and ambitious – and then selling 25 million copies of it. George Michael was always preparing for this and, in the process, he set a template for all disaffected singers making that move. This book examines that model and the themes that went into Faith – from engaging in politics to crossing over to a Black audience and writing classic pop songs to endure – and speaks to the surviving key players to tell the story of how it was made.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published May 5, 2022

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

You could say this was 33 1/3 by numbers*, no grand theory or bold new angle, just a pocketable summary of the story behind an album, how it was made and how it did. And thinking about some of the bolder volumes (Achtung Baby as parable of the Fall!), I'm absolutely fine with that. Most of the interviews are with session hands, though some were or became regular collaborators, and at times it did veer a bit muso to be quite my bag, but the accumulated picture is oddly reminiscent of the Mark Hollis biography I read recently: two men initially pigeonholed as teen pop fluff, taking increasing control of their music, guided by a definite vision but always needing collaborators who were more formally musical, and whom they could often frustrate while they chased a perfection they couldn't fully articulate. A quest which, in Faith's case, was far more successful in the US; I remember the songs being big over here, but it's interesting reading the underwhelmed UK press reviews with hindsight, seeing the ways in which the album was falling between two stools, whereas in the States it exceeded George's wildest dreams of career redefinition - only for him to discover that being as big as the eighties' pop trinity wasn't for him after all. Along the way we get lots of fun little nuggets (I was unaware of the musical connection between George, Monty Python and Goldie), and of course a fond reminder of another great gone too soon. But also a reminder that even a great will occasionally perpetrate an I Want Your Sex.

*Presumably 3/4 of which are 3.

[Juliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice series of small books on the history of albums. I ordered three after a recommendation on Twitter. This one focuses on Faith by George Michael which was one of the first albums I bought on CD.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lively and tremendously readable account of George Michael’s momentous transition to global mega-stardom. The book’s overall structure is maybe a little messy, with some redundancies here and there. But it provides a balanced account not only of the craftsmanship that went into this wildly popular if artistically uneven album, alongside an insightful reflection on GM’s musical genius and tragically vulnerable personality.

[Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Often the 33 1/3 books i love the most are about albums I’ve never really listened to, and that’s exactly what Faith is. Honestly, i read it because i found George Michael to be a very likable character, someone who could laugh at himself (check out his cameo as a “hairy, kabaab eating, drug-taking pop-star obsessed with looking for cock in the bushes” in Extras with Ricky Gervais).

I didn’t know about his sincere altruism, about his loneliness after listing his first love, about so many years spent hiding his true self, and his perfectionism. Apparently he made a huge splash with “the black charts” which changed to R&B at some point in the 90s.

I loved the parts of the book that talked about him as a person. Not so much the parts that dissect the music. All in all, an enjoyable read.

[Ryan]

I love these 33 1/3 books, and this was no exception. I love the way different writers approach the albums, and for this one, there was quite a bit of focus on instrumentation and composition. It's not that that doesn't interest me, though I find it less interesting than the more personal elements of creativity (I also don't understand some of it). That was here too, and it was fun learning new things about an album that's been a favorite of mine for over 30 years.

[Jonny Brick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great set of interviews with a focus on the recording process and personnel, with plenty of context for George's debut album from his Wham! days. Concludes that 'doing a George Michael' is harder than you think; Harry Styles has successfully done it without (from what we can see) the angst that GM had.

[E G Melby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally finished the last two chapters. I find the books in this series to be quick reads or slow and read over the course of months, whenever I happen to sit near where I last put it; this is the latter. A lot of people helped George with his vision of the album. And It is just that- very much his.

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

To fully appreciate this book, I think you need to be at least somewhat of a Wham! fan, not just a George Michael fan, like me. The author spends at least half of the book talking about Wham! and many other things other than the album Faith. I did a fair bit of skimming.

[Raz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I guess I'm just not the target audience for this wee book - I thought it was more about George Michael as a person, but it's mostly just a collection of anecdotes about the technical process of putting songs together. Great if you're a musician maybe, but otherwise a bit underwhelming.

[Shouty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE GEORGE MICHAEL AS A PERSON SO MUCH, AND I ENJOYED LEARNING ABOUT HOW HE WORKED IN THE STUDIO, JUST HOW THOUGHTFUL HE WAS ABOUT HIS MUSIC AND IMAGE, AND HOW ULTIMATELY HE REALIZED THE FAME HE WAS CHASING WASN'T REALLY WORTH ALL THE FUSS

[Avri · Rating 5 out of 5]

In hindsight I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often, but this was the first 33 1/3 title that regularly had me putting down the book to cue up each song as its story was told. A voice I love, but perhaps an album I knew less well than I thought, this book elevated both.

[Charles James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good concise overview of George Michael's career with a focus on the Faith album . Lots of insight into the making of the album .

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is the first 33 1/3 title I've read. I'd been interested in the idea for ages, but the right album book never crossed my path at the right time until the fairly extensive display at Mac's Backs when we were on vacation.

This had a lot of interesting insight into George Michael's creative process. I had no idea just how self-driven, self-made Michael was, how much control he had over his music and his image. At the same time there were just SO MANY PEOPLE name dropped in this book. Producers and music personalities and other singers and session musicians, who had important contributions, sometimes, but in a book so small it felt like it dragged everything down and we got to know no one.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of those books where I feel like it built up a lot of promise in the introductory bits, but doesn't quite fulfill the promise. The book lacked a lot of concrete direction and just felt like a collection of hodgepodge stories with a hint at tying it all back together. George Michael is surely a difficult figure, but just felt like it didn't quite come together.