“Pure cheese”: why George Michael thought ‘Last Christmas’ was incredibly corny
Some of the biggest stars of all time aren’t afraid to get a little bit corny now and again. Even though they might have some important things to say whenever they step up to the microphone, no one can go wrong with the kind of whimsical atmosphere that made those Paul McCartney tunes sound like so much fun and made the teenybopper crowd grate on cynics back in the day. Although George Michael would eventually grow out of his teenage skin, he still felt that there was no escaping this piece of corny pop fluff.
At the same time, there’s no way to really blame Michael for where he got his start. Him and Andrew Ridgely were still barely out of their teens when they put together Wham!, and even if they had some juvenile outlooks on the world, there was still that sense of child-like wonder to them that drove every one of their fans wild whenever they played together.
Judging by their first records, though, half of their greatest material hasn’t exactly aged well. Despite having some of the best pop hooks of the 1980s, hearing songs like ‘Wham Rap’ today with fresh ears sounds like the kind of music that plays at a high-class work function rapped by sales associates who try to look cool among their peers. Thankfully, we only had to worry about that for one album.
By the time of Make It Big, Michael knew his days as an emcee were behind him, and judging by how well songs like ‘Careless Whisper’ and ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ went over, it’s not like he was looking to create a sequel to his hip-hop leaning tunes. His new material gave the duo momentum like a rocketship, but nothing could have prepared them for what Michael had in store on ‘Last Christmas’.
While Christmas songs tend to be a slippery slope for any modern act, Michael’s attempt at a song of heartbreak is still one of the better takes on the typical yuletide carols. Even though he didn’t have a prayer of hitting number one ahead of Band-Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’, the tune is rightfully considered a Christmas classic, even if some of the rhymes do seem a bit like middle-school poetry in some spots.
Looking back, Michael didn’t even try to hide the fact that the tune was too corny for his typical taste, saying, “The thing that pleases me most about ‘Last Christmas’ is that it is pure cheese really, and as a friend of mine says, ‘fromage is our friend!’ I mean it is cheese, but you want cheese at Christmas, don’t you – chocolate and cheese!”
And despite the years of overplay, the stench of that cheese hasn’t become any less pungent, either. There might be some people who roll their eyes the minute those synths start coming in, but it’s hard to find a better way to capture Christmas than hearing Michael’s brilliant tenor voice soaring above everything as fans watch him and Ridgely go to a ski lodge and get drunk off their asses in the video.
Yes, it’s cliche, but ‘Last Christmas’ is one of the modern festive songs that proves that cliches exist for a reason. It might seem corny and dated, but for anyone who is going through their own sense of heartache over the holidays, hearing this tune is still capable of melting a few more hearts.
