Older – George Michael

The original follow-up to George Michael’s “Listen Without Prejudice Volume One” was (obviously) going to be the second installment of the same album. However, due to the death of his lover and of course his much publicized fued with Sony Music in 1992, the album was inevitably scrapped and George began to start an entirely new project all together. It was also pointed out by George himself that the second installment of “Listen Without Prejudice” was initially “very up,” but that drastically changed as George was in a generally “very down” kind of mood. Following the much lower points in his life, George started up his own personal record label, Agean Records, which was not only very clearly named after the Greek ocean, but also distributed in the United States by Steven Speilberg’s now deceased record label Dream Works Records and by Virgin Records everywhere else in the world. It was finally released in 1996 and praised by longtime fans & music lovers all over the globe. I already wrote a review of this album when I was about eighteen or nineteen, but since I’ve evolved so much since then I’ve decided to start again. This is what I came up with:

JESUS TO A CHILD: Obviously this song comes first because not only was it the first one he wrote for the album, it was also the first one to be released as a single. Of course it became a huge smash hit all over the world after its release. Overall it’s a very somber sounding love song which you could probably very well dedicate to your own lover…. but then again, that would be just a little on the contradictory side of things because it’s actually an ode to his deceased boyfriend, whom he claims smiled at him like Jesus to a child when they first met. I don’t want to get into that whole argument being that religion is such a touchy subject & all, but I really must say I had a huge problem with this song as soon as I found out exactly what it was that he meant by that lyric. I thought it was incredibly blasphemous & scareligious, but as I said, let’s push that feeling aside for now & keep it movin’.

FASTLOVE: Hit single number two lifted from the “Older” album was a slammin slice of funky R’n'B complete with samples from the classic Patrice Rushen tune “Forget Me Nots.” My own personal favourite version of this song was the “I’m Your Man” remix where he combined the original album version with the old Wham classic from back in the day….and boy did that ever kick my arse. Whoa! Anyways, this song is really just about going out to a club and finding somebody to have casual sex with. Hence, “Fast Love.” I guess in the case of George Michael, that somebody is another man. I had originally assumed that this was a coming out song because he said, “Had some bad love.” I thought this lyric was implying the fact that he was once straight, but is now gay. I guess I was wrong about that. “Fastlove” is another one of those George Michael songs that has that universal appeal, because at one point, probably everybody has gone out to a nightclub and had casual sex. Also anyone of any gender or sexual orientation can relate to the lyric “I miss my baby” even though he’s most probably referring to his dead boyfriend….for the second time.

OLDER: This song just seems to be all about how he sees himself as a grown man now instead of that young kid who ruled the pop charts back in the eighties. Being that he uses the line “I’m not the man you want” it could also double as another slight reference to his sexuality, but maybe that was just another way of saying that he’s no longer the person that he was all of those years ago – and not just as far as his sexuality is concerned. Musically it’s another very soothing ballad, which I’m sure some people out there may choose to dub as “jazz,” even though it isn’t really that type of music as such….can’t really fault a guy for trying though it’s a great song. An instrumental version appeared on the back of the “Jesus To A Child” CD Single.

SPINNING THE WHEEL: George has talked about the meaning behind this song in certain interviews which you can find out there in the land of cyberspace. He said that it’s basically all about how, when you’re sleeping around with so many people it’s almost like you’re playing a game of Russian Roulette, because of the fact that diseases can easily be transmitted & who knows what else. Musically it sounds like another attempt at the jazz sound – or rather, the “Acid Jazz” sound if you will……which, once again, is a description that I very strongly disagree with, but anyway…. each to their own. At the end of this song, he ignites a bit fat spliff and sucks the life out of it. When that’s over & done, the next track kicks in……

IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER AT ALL: Sounds like that spliff hit him pretty hard, cuz the beat on this one is really slow. As a matter of fact, for a while there I even thought he sounded a little buzzed on the track…..but he probably isn’t. Then again, he told everybody who listened that he actually made this album while he was up in the studio rollin’ himself a whole buncha mad trees, so maybe he is kinda stoned here. Either way it’s still a decent song….one of my faves actually. Lyrically, it’s probably another tribute to the dead guy he once shared a bed with. Hold up…..it is another tribute to that guy who died. He’s talking about how he loved the guy, but now that he’s gone it doesn’t matter, and that for some other inexplicable reason, he also feels a great deal of guilt and shame. He must be incredibly insecure then.

THE STRANGEST THING: On this track he’s slightly bumped up the tempo thus giving it more of a “dancey” feel if you will. The remix was certainly more of a dance orientated track though – it’s practically full on techno. While I’m not really into “house music” anymore, I’ve gotta say….that was a really cool remix. The guitar kicked ass. Anyways, as far as the lyrics to this one are concerned……initially, I could never really understand where he was going with it. However, after pulling out the booklet and giving it a good read, it somehow occurred to me that what he seemed to be saying was that he was feeling incredibly lost & sad after his lover died, but that’s all right with me because it’s a bloody great track. And that’s the bottom line. His vocals are definitely on point too. “There’s a lion in my head. There’s a thief upon my bed.”

TO BE FORGIVEN: Okay one more miserable, grieve based acoustic number for the road. He’s singing about how he sees himself going down…..but getcha mind out the gutter cuz it’s not that kind of lyric! What he really means is that he can more or less see himself sinking to an all time low, and that he’s generally feeling quite sad, which is obviously something you wouldn’t want to fault a man for…but exactly why is this guy feeling so much shame again? Good question. Well, one of the final lyrics in the song is, “I could be forgiven if I knew my sin,” which then gives me the impression that he was just saying he was feeling somewhat guilty about his (at the time) new found homosexuality, because Christians totally oppose that way of life, so….maybe that’s what he could be alluding to? At the end of the day it doesn’t affect me personally, but these are just things that I’m observing as I’m writing this review.

MOVE ON: All right. Enough of that sad stuff. Let’s get up & have a bit of a dance for a while, but let’s throw a little sass into it & get kinda jazzy. The lyrics pretty much say it all – that he’s had enough of grieving over his lover, and that he’s finally ready to move on because life’s too short to be all sad & what not. It’s a solid cut, but unfortunately he didn’t last too long in that department, cause the year after this album was released his mother passed away. Needless to say a whole bunch of other tragedies in his life ensued shortly thereafter. So sad.

STAR PEOPLE: I think this song is really just saying that a lot of celebrities out there have lives that are incredibly messed up and that they’re more or less living in a superficial kind of world where they’re getting all of the attention in the world, along with all of the money in the world & as a result, they don’t quite have both of their feet firmly planted on the ground. He’s talking about how celebrities would die without all of the attention, but at the end of the day, nobody really cares about their personal problems, because they’re busy getting on with their own lives, so why bother worrying about some other well-known person that a member of the general public will never really get to know? Hence, his use of “The F Bomb” in this track, which then of course made the record label slap this disc with a warning label…or so it seemed. I’m sure there was another reason why, but anyway for now we’ll just say it was cause of that along with his use of the term “bullshit” in the song “Fast Love.” Musically, “Star People” is a very upbeat kind of song, and….once again, the more updated version from 1997 was most definitely a vast improvement over the original song. Most notably because it actually featured lyrics from The Gap Band’s “Burn Rubber On Me.” George Michael definitely knows his shit – that’s for sure. That song was actually one of his favourites when he was young….he’s mentioned this a few times before in his career.

YOU HAVE BEEN LOVED: In this song George sings about a woman whose son has just passed away and actually it even sounds a bit like they’re on their way to his funeral because George sings about going past the school he used to attend & what not. He caps it all of with a scene where the mother is telling her son to take care of himself because he’d been loved, which then gives me the impression that this is yet another ode to his dead lover. Only difference is that this time it’s the guy’s mother doing all of the grieving instead of George.

FREE: This is a mostly instrumental piece, which opens up with the hornline from the title track and ends with the sitar licks from “The Strangest Thing” followed by George singing the phrase, “Feels good to be free.” Overall it’s not that exciting, but it’s also the last track so, no biggie.

VERDICT: This album definitely lives up to its name, because it’s certainly a much “older” George Michael singing songs to you this time around. I also think it’s one of those albums where you need to be grown enough to fully understand what’s being said, because I know that when I bought this album at age fourteen, there were some things that I wouldn’t have completely understood being that I was so young at the time….but overall it’s quite a good disc that I still enjoy listening to from time to time……and why not?