Young Guns (Go For It) - Wham 7" 45

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Over the past decade, stories about Michael’s drug use, sex life and ill-health overshadowed the music he made. He remained defiant in interviews and onstage, but it still seemed a shame: what turned out to be his final album, Patience, was often opaque, overlong and frequently required effort on the part of the listener – it really did sound like an album made by a man who smoked a lot of marijuana – but its highlights suggested his songwriting abilities were unimpaired: My Mother Had a Brother, Round Here, the glittery spectacular of Flawless (Go to the City). Ridgeley and Michael worked persistently to get a foot in the door with recording executives. Ridgeley would frequently run into Mark Dean from Innervision Records at The Three Crowns in Hertfordshire, and hand him the band's demo tape. [12] Wham in China – Foreign Skies (1986) AKA Lindsay Anderson's If You Were There". Archived from the original on 5 March 2016 . Retrieved 11 December 2015. Wham! reunion rumours quashed by George Michael". ITV News. 20 June 2012 . Retrieved 29 December 2012. The debut record to be released by the band was "Wham Rap!" in June 1982. It was a double A-side including the Social Mix and the Unsocial Mix. The record was not playlisted by BBC Radio 1 in the UK, partly because of the profanity in the Unsocial Mix. The song charted at only No. 105. [15]

There were far fewer pop hooks on offer, more social commentary, a sense of melancholy introspection that infects the only two songs you could reasonably describe as uptempo. Young Guns (Go For It!)’ had been released in September 1982, but with it only landing at number 73 in the charts, the odds of Wham! becoming internationally famous were lengthening by the day," says Andrew Ridgeley. Wham Rap!" was the first song written by Michael and Ridgeley following the breakup of their previous band, The Executive, but before they had officially formed (or named) Wham! The genesis of the song began in 1981 and was a result of Ridgeley making up his own words ("Wham! Bam! I am the man!") while dancing to " Rapper's Delight" with Michael and Shirley in Bogart's nightclub in South Harrow. [1] As they continued to work on the song an ultimatum to Michael from his father inspired the line "Get yourself a job or get out of this house". [2] A remix of the song was made in 1986, combining some of the Unsocial Mix with the album version. This version, entitled "Wham! Rap '86", was released on their American and Japanese album Music from the Edge of Heaven, and as the B-side on the 7-inch single " The Edge of Heaven" in the UK, Australia and Europe. George Michael wrote the song about a teenage boy's worry that his best friend was getting too committed to a girl when he should have been enjoying his youth and the single life. It featured a middle eight aside in which the girl conversely tried to get her boyfriend to ditch the best friend, prompting a vocal battle, akin to a tug of war, between the girlfriend and the best friend, which prompted the 'go for it' aspect of the song, as featured in the title.Young Guns’ moved up the charts, but only as far as number 42. It hadn’t broken us into the all-important Top 40. While it was a huge step in the right direction, we were still in limbo. Andrew Ridgeley moved to Monaco after Wham!'s break-up and tried his hand at Formula Three motor racing. Meeting with little success, Ridgeley moved to Los Angeles to pursue his singing/acting career, the failure of which caused him to return to England in 1990. Regardless, CBS Records, having taken up the option on Wham!'s contract that specified solo albums from Michael and Ridgeley, released a solo effort from Ridgeley, Son of Albert, in 1990. After poor sales, CBS declined the option of a second album. On 25 June 1988, George Michael's 25th birthday, Michael played the third of three dates at Birmingham's NEC as part of the Faith World Tour. He appeared deeply moved when he was surprised on stage by many members of his family with Andrew Ridgeley, who was pushing a trolley carrying a huge birthday cake. They led the 13,000-strong crowd in a rendition of " Happy Birthday" before Ridgeley accompanied Michael in a performance of " I'm Your Man". The song didn't make Billboard's Top 100 chart, but on November 29th, 1982 it peaked at #3* {for 1 week} on the United Kingdom's Singles chart.. Wham!’s later hits increasingly tended towards irrepressible 60s soul pastiches: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Freedom, The Edge Of Heaven. A Different Corner was something else entirely: a sombre, fragile, drumless drift of a song with no hook-laden chorus. The fact that it went to No 1 perhaps said more about the degree of success Wham! were enjoying at the time – their farewell concert was in front of 72,000 people at Wembley Stadium – than its commerciality. British director Lindsay Anderson was engaged to accompany Wham! to China and make a documentary film about the visit. Anderson called his one-hour and 18 minute film If You Were There.

It's a hilarious contrast to the song's lyrics, "Young guns having some fun, crazy ladies keep 'em on the run", when it seems like nothing can get them up and running. Davis, S. (2012). 80s Chart-Toppers: Every Chart-Topper Tells a Story. Mainstream Publishing. p.264. ISBN 978-1-78057-411-0 . Retrieved 17 June 2019. Paul Kelbie, Scotland Correspondent (17 August 2012). "How Wham! made Lindsay Anderson see red in China". The Independent . Retrieved 11 December 2015. They're clearly poking fun at the lifestyle of the rich and the famous, but also showing that all celebrities or superstars struggle with the same morning motivation as all of us. Wham! were just outside the top 40 threshold of the UK Singles Chart at the time they were invited to perform on Top of the Pops, which meant they had not climbed high enough in normal circumstances to get on the show, but they were recruited nonetheless as the highest-placed artists still climbing the charts from outside the top 40.Both George and Andrew look like they'd rather be elsewhere, trudging about the streets like zombies in their dressing gowns.

Rettenmund, Matthew (15 October 1996). Totally awesome 80s. St. Martin's Press. pp.60–. ISBN 978-0-312-14436-4 . Retrieved 6 May 2011. In the final stages of editing, Anderson was dismissed [30] by Wham!'s management, the editing team quit, and the film was re-edited, renamed and released as Wham! in China: Foreign Skies. According to a 2006 interview with The Independent, [31] Andy Stephens, manager for Michael, said that the film [Anderson's version] was simply not good enough to be shown in public: "It's a dreadful film... It's 20 years old and it's rubbish. Why on earth should we allow it to be shown?", although after viewing it in 2008 critic and journalist John Harris described it as "a rich, poetic, panoramic portrait of China's strangeness to the eyes of outsiders". [32] Live Aid (1985) [ edit ]

Notes

For several years after becoming a solo artist, Michael spoke negatively, in public, about his time with Wham!, partly because of the negativity of intense media coverage on Ridgeley. Michael complained of the constant pressure he felt, and he claimed that the duo had been mistreated financially. He also spoke disparagingly about some of the videos and songs from the Wham! repertoire, especially the video from "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", and the songs from Fantastic. However, his perspective on the era softened somewhat in the later years of his life. At his solo concerts he would still perform "I'm Your Man" and "Everything She Wants", the latter being one of the more critically acclaimed songs from the Wham! era. Wham! (briefly known in the US as Wham! UK) were an English pop duo formed in Bushey in 1981. [3] [4] The duo consisted of singers George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. They were one of the most successful pop acts during the 1980s, selling more than 30 million certified records worldwide from 1982 to 1986. [5]