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Rating: I would like to start talking about this album precisely from the chosen title: Listen Without Prejudice.
As a listener, I admit that I approached Georgios's tracks with skepticism.
His image, indissolubly linked to the Wham! brand and to a blatantly trendy advertising, has always made me underestimate the value of his works; I was grossly mistaken and that title is there to remind me of it.
George Michael released in an essential manner. Between one album and another (five official solo records), there are years lived with ups and downs, years of considered work. Nothing is left to chance.
Faith sold a lot, and so much energy was required that Michael wanted to distance himself from the more popular than artistic image that the public consciousness had of him. For the next project, he decided not to even appear in the music videos. The tensions related to sales, which were fewer than those of Faith, resulted in a legal battle where the singer accused Sony of lack of support for the album. How much did Listen Without Prejudice sell? Eight million copies worldwide, including two in America.
That Vol.1 was indeed there to announce the release of a second album with a character more extrovert than the first, which, however, was never published.
Listen Without Prejudice is an album of ten tracks, an album that presents itself with a not very colorful cover and with a darkness at the background which, however, is not an end in itself as it reassures the listener. The most serene moments of the album are indeed only indices of hope but never of joy. Just rely on the sad Mother's Pride, which during the Gulf War was interpreted by many as an anthem of that mentioned hope.
The beach of Coney Island on the cover was immortalized by the famous photographer Arthur Fellig - known as Weegee - on a scorching summer afternoon in 1940. Naked City by John Zorn took their name precisely from one of his collections, as well as the snapshot of the murdered gangster they used as the cover of their first album. A huge crowd of bathers, which I believe signifies, in Michael's intentions, the feeling of being under pressure or nonetheless under the watchful eyes of an audience to whom to prove something.
The something to be proven is a sublime sound care (Praying For Time but also the sustained Soul Free which has something to do with Screamadelica). A tracklist without fillers. George Michael was also the arranger of his album, as usual.
The references are different, especially to the Stones. You Can't Always Get What You Want is cited in Waiting For That Day, which can be considered a tribute (Jagger and Richards are listed among the authors) but also the single Freedom! '90 is, in my opinion, an alternate version of Sympathy For The Devil. The theatrically epic quality of Michael's voice takes center stage in the crescendo of They Won't Go When I Go, a successful cover from Stevie Wonder who was inspired by Chopin in its composition.
The character is intimate, as already mentioned; folk and lounge traits imbued in tracks like Something To Save and Cowboys And Angels from someone who knows how to honor and exploit those traits to the fullest. The structure of Cowboys And Angels is fascinating; a song written about a love triangle and the absurdity of wanting what you can't have.
Journalist Alfred Soto wrote about how, in his opinion, the historical period of the HIV boom had determined a melancholic attitude in the homosexual artistic climate, found in several cases (for example, Behaviour by the Pet Shop Boys and, precisely, Listen Without Prejudice). According to the writer, it is not exactly the most rightful thing in the world to contextualize the melancholy of a work to private life particulars, but in the case of George Michael, personal events led to the creation of real gems that are also found in the subsequent Older.
They can be surmised, but they can also be assimilated and made one's own, the pains and concerns etched into Listen Without Prejudice.
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Praying For Time (04:41)
These are the days of the open hand
They will not be the last
Look around now
These are the days of the beggars and the choosers
This is the year of the hungry man
Whose place is in the past
Hand in hand with ignorance
And legitimate excuses
The rich declare themselves poor
And most of us are not sure
If we have too much
But we'll take our chances
Cause God's stopped keeping score
I guess somewhere along the way
He must have let us all out to play
Turned his back and all god's children
Crept out the back door
And it's hard to love, there's so much to hate
Hanging on to hope
When there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it's much too much too late
Well maybe we should all be praying for time
These are the days of the empty hand
Oh you hold on to what you can
And charity is a coat you wear twice a year
This is the year of the guilty man
Your television takes a stand
And you find that what was over there is over here
So you scream from behind your door
Say what's mine is mine and not yours
I may have too much but I'll take my chances
Cause God's stopped keeping score
And you cling to the things they sold you
Did you cover your eyes when they told you
That he can't come back
Because he has no children to come back for
It's hard to love there's so much to hate
Hanging on to hope when there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it's much too late
So maybe we should all be praying for time
02 Freedom 90 (06:30)
I won't let you down
I will not give you up
Gotta have some faith in the sound
It's the one good thing that I've got
I won't let you down
So please don't give me up
Because I would really, really love to stick around
Heaven knows I was just a young boy
Didn't know what I wanted to be
I was every little hungry schoolgirl's pride and joy
And I guess it was enough for me
To win the race? A prettier face!
Brand new clothes and a big fat place
On your rock and roll TV
But today the way I play the game is not the same
No way
Think I'm gonna get me some happy
I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I told you so
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone else I've got to be
Take back your picture in a frame
Take back your singing in the rain
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man
All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me
Freedom
You've gotta give for what you take
Freedom
You've gotta give for what you take
Heaven knows we sure had some fun boy
What a kick just a buddy and me
We had every big shot good-time band on the run boy
We were living in a fantasy
We won the race
Got out of the place
I went back home got a brand new face
For the boys on MTV
But today the way I play the game has got to change
Oh yeah
Now I'm gonna get myself happy
I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I stopped the show
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone I forgot to be
Take back your picture in a frame
Don't think that I'll be back again
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man
All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me
Freedom
You've gotta give for what you take
Freedom
You've gotta give for what you take
Well it looks like the road to heaven
But it feels like the road to hell
When I knew which side my bread was buttered
I took the knife as well
Posing for another picture
Everybody's got to sell
But when you shake your ass
They notice fast
And some mistakes were built to last
That's what you get
I say that's what you get
That's what you get for changing your mind
And after all this time
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes
Do not make the man
I'll hold on to my freedom
May not be what you want from me
Just the way it's got to be
Lose the face now
I've got to live
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