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Their final single and their fourth No. 1 following 'Wake Me Up', 'Freedom' and 'I'm Your Man', 'The Edge Of Heaven' reached the top on 24th June for 2 weeks.
The funny thing is, I don't remember Wham! splitting up being that big a deal at the time. That probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was a boy, but I suspect fans were somewhat reassured by the fact that George Michael had already proved himself as a solo artist: even more so than Midge Ure, as he'd scored two massive Number One hits with his first two solo efforts. He was evidently still contractually obliged to supply new Wham! material though, and so they became one of the few acts to release an intentional farewell single, and of even fewer to top the charts with one; the only others I could think of offhand were The Jam.
The difference is of course that where 'Beat Surrender' is obviously the product of weeks if not months of deliberation and planning as Paul Weller tried to create the most fitting epitaph for his band, 'The Edge Of Heaven' has rather an air of "better get that Wham! single finished before Coronation Street comes on," which might be how we end up with a chorus lyric that consists entirely of "Yeah yeah yeah, na na na na na na" and verses that sort of semi-make sense. It's not all bad news though, as George isn't exactly immune to overdoing things and this less thought-out track is actually OK musically, in a slick undemanding way. As something of a fan of a good pre-chorus section I quite like the one here (which is where the title is hidden). The video is almost a premonition of his solo career - the half-decent idea of inserting clips from earlier vids is totally undermined by the pretentious decision to put everything in moody black-and-white. That's George Michael in a nutshell for me.
Also appearing on: Now 3
Available on: If You Were There/The Best Of Wham
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