Damn it I grew up listening to this guy's music. "Careless Whisper" is my favorite song to play on the saxophone. I wish this guy's family the best. Oh and when I say I grew up listening to him, I mean I listened to him in the 2000's not the 80's. Me & my mother love this guy's music & used to sing along to it in the car all the time. Now I awoke from my nap to see this news.
As if you though 2016 was finished. 2016 just doesn't wanna chill.

 

Thinking of doing a tribute to this song.

 

So many great songs throughout his career

 

Yes great singer and songwriter. Then again, he was playing women acting like he was straight to get the chicks and the money and fame. Anyone who knows even a little about higher tantric sexuality knows that male homosexuality is a dead end street leading to premature aging and death, especially when coupled with excessive drug & alcohol use. In other words he committed suicide...

 

RIP .....The world is sad :-(

 

Ne juge pas man ..... est du respect !!!!bordel ......Pauvre garçon

retiens cela : None shall escape from judgement !!!!!!

 

I don't think so.

People don't commit suicide because they're gay. The are pressured into it by others issues; depression, trauma, lonelyness and the like. Oh. and quite often the prejudice of others. who seem to beleive they have some moral highground, but are usually just gullibe fools.

 

It's very sad, we here in Russia love him and his music since 80s. Sad that he dies at Christmas.

 

RIP "The Singing Greek". An amazing talent who gave us do much great art throughout his career. So many of his songs have made it into our universal musical lexicon, songs that that have the ability to transport us magically into the past and helping to pinpoint exact emotions and locations we inhabited, breaking us out of the space/time continuum as we become part if his music. That my friends is true power. I for one thank the universe for George Michael!!

 

The bottom line is, those not busy being born are busy dying. As a tantric master you surely understand that,
ne pas vous, ma belle?

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/toosoon/
This subreddit has already gone full on savage on this guy's death.

 

Man, I had no idea he was in ill-health at all. I knew he had a close call a few years back with severe pneumonia, but I figured he has been fine since. This really, really sucks. Whether you like him or not, care for his lifestyle or not, or even like his music or not there is no denying that George Michael was one of the top talents of the last 30 years. What really bothers me about this is the man has been in a pretty constant state of depression for a hell of a long time. He has had a lot of things go wrong in his life. Things like coming to grips with the fact he was gay and then having to hide it (which would be especially frustrating when pretty much every girl on the planet wanted him), then he met the guy who he thought was the one only to have him die of AIDS a year or so later, a huge battle with his record company that got very nasty and he ended up losing, the loss of his mother hit him particularly hard, the incident in the Hollywood Park bathroom with the undercover cop that outed him to the entire world in one day as well as the fact that the media made a huge deal out of it. He also had a few embarrassing arrests, and embarrassing car accidents while being high, then the nearly dying of pneumonia. Also, if you remember, not long after his release from the hospital for the pneumonia episode he "fell out" of the car he was riding in that was going full speed on a London highway and smashed his head on the ground. My guess is that very well could have been a suicide attempt. Take all that and add the constant media attention and people hounding him constantly and he was essentially in a miserable state most of the time so it's only natural that he did turn to drugs.

Anybody criticizing him and being disrespectful because of his lifestyle choices should just keep it to themselves. To be honest I wouldn't care if the guy spent all day at the zoo humping panda bears and doing nitrous hits every 5 minutes. Thats his business and the result of the way he chose to live influenced him to write some absolutely beautiful music that attracted millions of listeners (not to mention it probably helped a lot of guys get laid, two people on here have already said that his music was their first slow dance so I am sure there are many out there that went beyond dancing when out with their girl and one of his songs would come on).

This just made a piece of sh*t year that much worse. It has easily been the worst in my 40 years of existence as far as the people we've lost since last January. May George Michael Rest In Peace.

 

thx @SAiNT for edit

 

I never cared much for George Michael. Clearly he can write a song (Careless Whisper) but it always troubled me how much he hid the 'gay': to the extent that all the videos feature/exploit women.

Prince had already asked "Am I straight or Gay?" Disco had already happened. Bronski Beat, Boy George, Human League, Gary Numan....even the straight guys seemed gay in the 80s.....except Wham.

Yet George Michael always kept commercial by denying (lying) about the sexuality of his songs. All the videos feature women (in basic exploitative fashion). And Faith is a rip of Prince's Kiss. Even the leather jacket.

Careless Whisper I like, and I love the saxophone in it. "Guilty feet have got no rhythm" is a great line. As is "So I'm never gonna dance again, the way I danced with you............."

Only girls liked Wham when I was school, as they totally lacked any "edge". Frankie Goes to Hollywood were obviously gay as hell and yet Two Tribes and Relax were edgy as hell - and great tunes. Meanwhile Wham were still lying about their sexual orientation and singing about chuff.

It's not "serious" music, is it?

 

Currently he has arrived in heaven. It was a tough decision. PM me for first hand details.

 

I said the same thing! ironic and creepy!

i sooooooo second that!

damn.... the party is being shutdown......... Careless Whisper, Last Xmas, the entire "Older" album, and almost everything after that, proved that he wasn't some piece of 80's pop bubblegum ....... it showed he was the real serious deal..... i remember reading how he wasn't really trained musically (no sight reading or sheet music writing, etc.) all of those amazing songs came straight from his head and soul..... back in the day other people had to transcribe his music.... that level of musical orchestration came from whatever he made up and tweaked on the fly and with improvisation. .... the end result always came out as something that rivaled or surpassed (subjectively) professionally trained composers!

R.I.P. Mr. Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou aka George Michael, you are already missed.

 

Was never really a fan of his music, but nobody can deny he wrote some of the greatest pop songs ever and was an exceedingly talented artist.

RIP.

 

'Hid the gay'? I suppose in the early days of Wham!, before he came out (or was outed by Fleet St I think if my memory serves) then OK, but the 80's were very different times and he was very young. Once he was 'out' though, he didn't give a flying fuck just what people thought of his sexuality.

Even in Wham! the lyrics were far different from the usual pop pap of the 80's. 'I'm a soul boy, I'm a dole boy, I take pleasure in leisure, I believe in joy'. Fantastic two fingers up at Thatcher's government and a real tonic to those of us that were young and jobless at the time. See also 'Everything She Wants' as a brilliantly sharp commentary on 80's consumerism. He also supported the striking miners, which wasn't the 'done thing' for most pop acts at the time.

Sounds to me like you haven't the first idea about the man or his art to me!

 

I loved that guy's singing, and some of his songs still really move me. The melody of "Heal the Pain" is so beautiful, and it's based on an artful combination of just a handful of chords. And he OWNED that Queen song with how he sang it.

I remember going, late at night, to a storage facility where I'd kept my stuff while I was homeless, and the clerk behind the booth was listening to "Kissing a Fool" really loud. I smiled at her in approval, but then noticed that she was crying.

 

Powerful story.