You Never Forget Your First - The Triumph & Controversy of George Michael's Faith | MUSIC is not a GENRE - Season 3 Episode #3

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I found it! My CD collection has been moved twice in the last 18 months, and I have not done ANY reorganizing. Hunting through 600+ CDs to find the only one I want was not something I had any desire to do. So it was a huge relief that this one was sitting right out front on one of the shelves.

And why? Because I should have started my trip down CD lane with THIS ONE. It was the first CD I ever bought with my own money. My parents spent a ton of THEIR money to get a CD player, and as I was still living with them off & on, I had access. And of all the CDs I could have bought – and did eventually buy, let’s be honest – George Michael’s Faithwas the one that moved me the most.

Not enough can be said about George Michael or about this album. So much has already been said that I don’t feel the need to go into detail. I’ll just say that I can still remember the crisp, funky, pristine sound of these songs – and that VOICE. I can still remember what a revelation it was to hear his version of what a singer/songwriter/producer could be. And let’s not forget the HUGE HITS and the controversy that some of his lyrics and his not-yet-out personal life stirred up.

We could say that “these days” the scandal of someone singing about sex, let alone gay sex, is laughable. And for many of us it is. But it isn’t. Not really. Because for a huge portion of the population these things are still upsetting, scandalous, sinful, and just plain wrong. So what an incredible triumph for George Michael to not just sing about this stuff, not just do videos & visuals about it, but to do it in an extremely personal way. To be both a master of pop/r&b/dance music and to do it confessionally is an incredible feat, and is what makes this album a major classic.

I subsequently wrote a TON of songs inspired by this album, whether like the smash hits "Faith", "Father Figure", "One More Try", “I Want Your Sex”, and my favorite "Monkey", or like the lesser known single and jazz-pop genre exercise, “Kissing A Fool”. You can probably hear more of what he did in my music today than you even could back then. Here’s a great example – my version of singing about sex in a personal way:

REC – “Make Me Break Like Everyday” (from the album Syncopy for the Weird)

Do you remember this album? Can you still sing some of the songs even though you haven’t heard them in years? Do you remember how huge he and this album were? Does it make you sad to think of how his life ended? What was YOUR FIRST CD? Discuss dammit!

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