wham

Wham!

"Wham/ Bam/ I am a man"

Who?

George Michael is quite extraordinary. His boyband project - Wham! - bucked the usual trend. What normally happens is band will appear, make slushy, lovey dovery records and have an uptown image. Then, after they grow tired of having people launder knickers thrown at them, and of the constant jibes that they're all mimsy mothers boys, they'll smear axle grease on their faces, remove their shirts, and wear leather jackets. Wham! did it in reverse - kicking off with dole and bad boy anthems, then after a trio of hits, adopting a lotus eater, lotus driving style that saw through to the end of the line. This works because trying to pretend you're a rough, ass-kicking, butt-munching type of boy when everyone knows you could buy someone to have all of the Isle of Wight beaten up and you don't even wield a knife to cut your own fillet mingon is stupid. (See: when New Kids on the Block became NKOTB; East 17 became E17; etc etc)

Personnel

Mainly George Michael. The band had a permanent third wheel in the form of Andrew Ridgeley, George's old school chum who he carried with him until he suddenly realised that he was, in schoolyard terms, always eating the Toffos but never actually going to the tuck shop himself. It's telling that when George foolishly decided to fritter away hard earned record company cash on trying to kick start a solo career for one of his chums, he chose David Austin, who at least had a halfway chance in that he looked like someone you could imagine having sex with, unlike Ridgers, who looked like someone you probably would wind up having sex with in real life. Probably down the side alley by a nightclub. While he was pissed. And with a Spandau Ballet record playing in the distance.

Wham also featured two backing singers - at first, they got equal billing but eventually were spun off into their own act. At the outset, it was Dee C Lee and Shirley, but Dee ran off to marry Paul Weller (at the time, that wasn't the repugnant idea that it sounds like from a twenty first century perspective) and was replaced by Pepsi. She was called Pepsi because she was "black and bubbly", apparently, and not because of some multi-million tie up. It was as Pepsi and Shirley that they shook the lower reaches of the Top 40 with songs like... well, like Wham backing tracks, to be frank.

Essential

Fantastic, the debut album which featured the trio of bad wham anthems - Bad Boys, Young Guns and Wham Rap - should be purchased simply for the sleeve which is so gay, it could probably present its own Friday night channel four chat show. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, of course, and what Christmas would be complete without hearing Last Christmas at least seventy five times every fucking department store you step into? Quite why a record about being fucked over and dumped is viewed as the perfect accompaniement to a festive shopping splurge is up for debate...

In A Nutshell Then

Pop from an era when the stars worked at their pop career rather than their pecs.

Never Mind The Music, Give Us Trivia

George Michael had a really bad monobrow problem. They went to court to get out of a really bad deal they'd cut with first label Innervision, winning the action and signing to Sony. Michael apparently took the line "well, lightning can't strike twice" because he then had to go to court to break that deal, too, claiming he'd been, i dunno, drunk or something. Its lucky they dont have gay wedding contracts yet, or some poor sod would find Michael's lawyer explaining that "when my client said 'until death do us part', he had no idea that you intended on holding your date of death off for such a long and unnatural period."

Yes, Anna, They Are From

Bushey. In Hertfordshire

Pop Stars in Reduced Circumstances

Danny Baker's competition to find the least amount of money paid for a brand new record was won by a caller who not only found Ridgeley's single attempt at post-Wham music making, Son of Albert, for sale in the branch of Boots where he worked for ten pence, but also exercised his staff discount to get the album for 8p. Ridgeley also attempted to become a car driver, but was useless at that too.

Shirley married one of Spandau Ballet, in what always seemed like one of those 17th century weddings that were designed to unite disparate royal houses.