Zack: Faith is George Michael’s first solo album
after leaving Wham!, and it pretty much defined what everybody will think of
him from the day it was released until the end of time. The song Faith was so
big that even I, with my general dislike of anything from the 80s, could not
possibly hope to escape it growing up. I never liked that song, and so I didn’t
expect to like this album. And parts of it I really didn’t like. But there were
other parts that really won me over. The main one was Kissing a Fool, which was
sung so perfectly that I was kind of shocked that this gem had followed the
shittiness that is Monkey (I know that the song went #1 on Billboard as a
single but it still sucks; fight me if you care so much about it.) When Michael
slowed down and allowed more soul influences to bleed through, I was really
impressed. When he let the 80s flow through him with corny upbeat pop bullshit,
I was left pretty dour. Except for the 9-minute song explicitly about fucking,
that is.
Favorite Tracks: Kissing a Fool; Look at Your Hands; I Want
Your Sex
Emily: Many of the pop albums that we listen to affirm my belief that pop is a genre of singles, not albums. A great pop song can transcend genre and generations, but more often than not those great songs are featured on albums padded with filler that barely deserves to share a track listing with them. Of course, there are exceptions to this (Michael Jackson particularly comes to mind, but Thriller ended up being essentially all singles anyway). George Michael's Faith, unfortunately, lives up to the great-single-bad-album rule. Faith is upbeat and impossibly catchy, reminiscent of Michael's earlier band Wham, and the radio appeal of Father Figure and I Want Your Sex is clear. The rest of the album, however, feels like unnecessary filler. With the exception of the unexpected throwback soul of Kissing a Fool, the non-single parts of Faith don't even come close to the pop success of the title track.
Favorite Tracks: Faith; I Want Your Sex; Kissing a Fool
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