Wham! 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go'

Chart Peak: 1 [2 weeks]

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At about the 1:14 mark in this video, George Michael is wearing a pink shirt, tight shorts, fingerless gloves and ear-rings and singing "You make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day." 14 years later he announced he was gay, whoever would have guessed etc.

'Wake Me Up' was Wham!'s first Number One and marks the start of their hugeness: presumably its placement as track 24 on Now 3 represents an attempt to spread the big songs throughout the album, rather than an attempt to bury the song. It's a turning point in their career too, as they moved away from the political and social commentary of early songs like 'Young Guns' and 'Wham! Rap' in favour of glossier, more straightforward lyrics allied to a Sixties musical pastiche - or at least what George Michael would have thought was a Sixties sound at the time, it's now rather obviously of its time. Despite the presence of a drummer in the video, the drums on the track are synthesised, just as Pepsi and Shirlie are clearly miming to Michael's backing vocal for most of the song. And as much as I realise that the video isn't really part of the remit of this blog (it doesn't even have the excuse of being on the VHS version of Now 3) it's hard not to notice it, because it seemed so much a part of the success of the duo, and seemed so emblematic of the times: even I can remember people wearing those CHOOSE LIFE t-shirts and variations on them, although I don't recall that Andrew Ridgeley's Foreign Legion-style helmet ever took off in the same way. The song and video seem to have fixed most people's idea of what they were, much to Michael's later annoyance but the more pompous and self-regarding his solo career gets the more time I have for daffy little numbers like this one. Not a song I'd go out of my way to listen to, but I can at least admit to its qualities now.

Also appearing on: Now 7
Available on: The Final

Wham! 'The Edge Of Heaven'

Chart Peak: 1 (2 weeks)

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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