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| Birth Name(s) : Georgios-Kyriacos Panayiotou |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Partner:
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| Profession:
Singer, songwriter |
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Full George Michael Biography
Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (Greek: Γιώργος-Κυριάκος Παναγιώτου) (born June 25, 1963), best known as George Michael, is a two-time Grammy Award winning English singer-songwriter who performs soul influenced pop, and who (as a solo artist and half of the duo Wham!) has enjoyed massive global success since 1982. His biggest commercial success to date was in 1987 with his debut solo album Faith which has sold to date well over the 20 million mark worldwide.George Michael has been named the most played artist on British radio over the past 20 years. He is one of the world's most successful male artists, selling over 85 million records globally and encompassing 12 British #1 singles, 9 British #1 albums, 10 US #1 singles and 2 US #1 albums.
Despite censorship and airplay issues, "I Want Your Sex" reached #2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on the week of August 8, 1987. Moreover, the single remained in the Top 10 for six weeks and the Top 40 for a total of fourteen weeks, becoming one of the most popular songs of the summer of 1987. The song charted at #3 in Britain, where the song's reprise maintained an audience for many years thanks to BBC Radio 1's breakfast show host Simon Mayo using a looped version as backing music for his daily feature On This Day In History. In 2002, several years after the major controversy that followed the release of the song, the music video was featured at #3 on MTV's countdown of the most controversial videos in the channel's history.
The album debuted in the Billboard 200 list at #22 but quickly the following week climbed to #5, then to #4 and finally reached his peak position of #2, being blocked from the top spot by MC Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt Em. From then the album managed to spent the rest of 1990 inside the Top 10, and a total of 42 week inside the entire list, not even the half of the 87 weeks spent by the previous "Faith".
As if to prove the song's sentiment, George refused to appear in the video, which was directed by David Fincher, and instead recruited a number of supermodels (including Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz and Cindy Crawford) to mouth the words. It also featured the destruction of various symbols of George's past, including the famous guitar, jukebox, and leather jacket of the Faith era.
"Too Funky" was released as a single by Epic Records in spring 1992. The song was lyrically a basic, animalistic plea from George for sexual activity with an individual and musically it was the most upbeat record he had released since Faith almost five years previously.
In outlining his case, Michael's counsel, Mark Cran, said his client had signed up with a recording company at age 18 and had been a prisoner of that action ever since. Mr. Cran described his client, who together with his partner formed the then-struggling pop group Wham!, as "completely unknown" at the time and as "effectively supplicants looking for any contract they could get." What they got, Mr. Cran insisted, was a lifetime commitment to their record company. "This case is not about money," Mr. Cran argued. "It is about restraint of free trade ... an agreement which binds George Michael for the whole of his professional career to terms capable of being worked to his substantial disadvantage." In quantifying that disadvantage, Mr. Cran insisted that the profit Sony had made from Mr. Michael was six times what George Michael himself had received. Mr. Cran cited documents provided by Sony in 1991 that put its net profit on each compact-disc recording at £2.45 ($3.71), compared with Mr. Michael's bottom-line profit on CD sales of 37 pence.
Among Michael's complaints was that Sony had not fully supported the release of his second solo album resulting in its poor performance in the U.S. compared to Faith. Sony responded that Michael had refused to appear in promotional videos and it was this that had caused the poor response to the album.
It's said that the reason for Michael's departure from Sony, however, had little to do with his record contract and more to do with the way he was treated by then-label president Donnie Ienner. During a phone conversation between Ienner and George Michael's then-manager Robert Kahane, Ienner reportedly told Kahane "You tell that fucking faggot (George Michael)..." Unbeknownst to Ienner, George was listening in on another phone, and Michael went ballistic when he heard Ienner's disparaging remarks. As a result, Michael told Ienner that he would never record for Sony again and proceeded with his lawsuit against Sony.
Patience is a 2004 album by George Michael. It debuted at number one on the UK album charts and at number 2 in Australia on March 22, 2004. The album become one of the fastest selling albums in the UK , selling over 200000 copies in first week alone.
During 2006, a series of incidents occurred which suggested he was still in turmoil. On February 26, 2006, Michael was arrested for possession of Class C drugs, an incident that he described as "my own stupid fault, as usual." He was cautioned by the police and released. |
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