‘Older’: the album George Michael considered his “songwriting peak”
Every pop artist normally has an uphill battle trying to be taken seriously as an artist. There’s a lot of room for people to notch a handful of great songs onto the charts, but whereas most artists arrive fully formed, people getting their foot in the door as pop stars get treated like lightweight fluff compared to those who have something to say. George Michael was never about just bubblegum pop, and Older was the moment he felt everything clicked for him.
Before he released a note of music on his own, Michael would be looked at as the kid from WHAM with the golden voice. Sure, he had spellbinding moments on ‘Careless Whisper’, but how was it going to sound once he shed his childhood self and tried his hand at competing with the Princes and the Michael Jacksons of the world?
Well, we got our answer as clear as day from the minute that the acoustic guitars started on the song, ‘Faith’. Despite not being the most imaginative tune in the world, it delivered a clear message that this wasn’t the Michael of old and that the next version of him was the amplified sex god that some fans had been anticipating.
While hits like ‘I Want Your Sex’ and ‘Father Figure’ did cement him as an artist, he still felt that he wasn’t exactly where he needed to be yet. Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 was received fairly well, but in between tracks like ‘Freedom ‘90’, there were still pieces of his sound that leaned more towards pop rather than the R&B-flavoured star that he wanted to be.
Once ‘Jesus to a Child’ came out, though, there was a much different person at work here. Michael had stopped caring about what constituted a hit and now made the kind of record that he wanted. One minute, it would be easy listening heartbreak tunes, and the next, he would be making insane takes on dance music like on ‘Fastlove’.
When listening to the record as a whole, there are still pieces of the man behind ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’, but there was no chance of getting a ‘Wham Rap’ ever again. Considering Michael was also going through his first major heartbreak at the time, hearing him inhabit every one of the tunes as a reflection of his pain was even more emotionally devastating for his audience to cry along with him.
Even years removed from the record’s release, Michael told People that he considered Older one of the major watermarks of his career, saying, “Older is where I hit my songwriting peak, [but] I really wouldn’t like to suffer like that again.” The damage had been done, though, and the rest of the world was willing to listen, with artists like Adele eventually delivering their own covers from this album in Michael’s memory after his death.
Although Michael was willing to risk his career for his art, Older proves the age-old point that putting raw emotion into an album works so well. It’s one thing to make catchy songs that people can listen to on their way to work, but when you bleed in front of your audience, no one else can knock you for it ever again.
