Every New Zealand #1 single…
8
Faith by George Michael
Topped the NZ chart: from 6 December 1987 for 7 weeks.
Wham! evolved from a partnership to a vehicle for George Michael. So it wasn’t surprising when Wham! disbanded and Michael went solo. As previously noted, Wham! topped the chart once during the 1980s, with ‘I’m Your Man‘.
Faith
Curiously, George Michael’s only solo number one is also a retro pastiche. ‘Faith‘ was originally a quickly-written, two-minute song, a charming throwaway. Michael wrote ‘Faith’ after publisher Dick Leahy suggested a 1950s pastiche. It uses the Bo Diddley beat, and a delay on the vocals to emulate Prince.
“Faith” was never actually intended as a single when I first recorded it. And then I listened to it more and more and… ’cause in fact, originally it was two minutes long. Originally there was no guitar solo. There was no real guitar sound on it or anything.
And everyone said it’s great, it’s great but it’s too short, you know. And everyone kept saying that “I love ‘Faith’, I love ‘Faith'”. So I thought, well maybe I should put it out as a single when it came to that. I said, I think a two-minute long single is a bit, you know… so I went in and extended it. But it was originally never intended as a single. It was just gonna be a small track on the album, a really short track.
George Michael, Countdown magazine
When Michael realised ‘Faith’ was a potential single, he fleshed it out. He added a bridge, and guitarist Hugh Burns played a 1950s-inspired guitar solo on a Geffen custom Stratocaster. ‘Faith’ was Michael’s second solo single, after ‘I Want Your Sex’, and the title track of his debut album.
Michael was amazingly successful in the USA during this era. ‘Faith’ was the best-selling single of 1988, while three other singles from the album also topped the charts.
The verdict
I like Michael, but ‘Faith’ isn’t his strongest song. I see the appeal of its simplicity, but I got tired of it on the radio. It’s the fault of radio programmers – ‘Faith’ was the only 1980s Michael song I ever heard on the radio, but they could have easily played ‘Monkey’, ‘Father Figure’, ‘Freedom’, or ‘Praying For Time’.
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While I liked Wham! back in the ’80s, I’ve become lukewarm about their songs, though I still acknowledge they were undeniably catchy. By comparison, George Michael’s solo music holds up better to me. I actually like “Faith.” While as far as I can recall that song didn’t suffer from obscurity on the radio back in Germany, I guess I never heard it too often, so didn’t get tired of it.
Wham are a bit teenybopper – although I think Last Christmas is a great song. I like Michael’s solo stuff better too.
I like(d) “Faith”, but prefer “Father Figure” and One More Try” much more, which is why I bought this album.
I hate how classic rock radio massively shrinks the playlist. I’m sure there are a bunch of George Michael solo songs they could play, but it’s always Faith.
It appears radio stations in NZ are as bad as those in the U.S.
I imagine someone in America makes the playlists, although they throw a few NZ songs in. I feel like they science themselves to oblivion, working out which songs people are least likely to turn off. But when you do that you end up with barely any songs left.
I remember when it came out. It was huge. And I secretly loved it!
It’s not that embarrassing right? Maybe mostly embarrassing because it was so big?
Massive album. Not my cup of tea musically but what a voice!
Yeah, he’s a good singer. Uses production techniques to mess with his voice on this song though.
This is the one that caught my attention the most of his but as Deke said…it really wasn’t me. But all in all I really liked it at the time. Soon though it got the “Every Breath You Take” treatment for a while and it got very old quickly.
It’s always the same thing with radio – would be much better if they played way more variety of songs instead of the same ones all the time.