George Michael is famously frank about his own life, his views, and his loves. Here are some of George Michael’s famous quotes:
Whether you love George or hate him, you can’t deny that he’s done it his way, from shoving shuttlecocks down his impossibly tight shorts, to standing up against the might of the major labels, to responding to being caught with his trousers down in a public toilet by recording a video that takes a look the Village People introduced to the world and makes it more gay than they could possibly have imagined. George really is in a class of his own.
I looked up to him as a role model as a gay artist in pop music. I’d watch his interviews all the time and how he held himself. I loved how flawed he was. He was a superstar but he was a human at the same time, that’s inspiring to me. He wasn’t a robot.”
George was always super happy creating. He lived a full life, happy with his work, his friends, his creativity.
I was equal parts inspired and terrified, not of George, but of the prospect of trying to be something like George.
I was on a few award ceremonies with him in Take That and when I had just left Take That. And when he arrived on stage, whether it be rehearsing or doing the actual performance, you were in the presence of such a magnetic personality, such charisma.
So I used to be at the side of the stage going ‘how on earth can I beat that? Because that’s godlike’. And of course, his music will last forever. His music is eternal. He inspired in a lot of different ways. I just thought he was a god.
I am proud of George Michael for standing up for life and sanity. I am delighted that he chose a song of mine to express these feelings. We must remember that the Wizard is really a cowardly old man hiding behind a curtain with a loud microphone. It takes courage and a song to pull the curtain open and expose him.
Good Luck George
I never met George Michael but I wish I had. I would have thanked him for the beautiful performance of my song “The Grave” which he did to protest the invasion of Iraq and the disastrous war which he knew would follow and still continues. The authorities had everybody cowered in the shadows as we hoped for a ’60s style protest which never materialized. George Michael was fearless and had a great artist’s need to speak the truth even in cowardly times. We should remember what he did. I always will.
George Michael has begun to think that he should provide something to his fans beyond fun and games. Fun and games at Michael’s level needn’t be underrated — as he sings on “Freedom 90,” such stratagems happened to yield a captivating sound for millions of people who like to listen to the radio. On this anxiously titled album, though, he’s operating from the proposition that a damn good sound is only the starting point for how much pop music can achieve. If Listen Without Prejudice starts a trend among Michael’s pop generation to move beyond image to integrity, it could make “rock and roll TV” sound more consistently and convincingly like music.
Listen Without Prejudice is political, self-exploring, self-criticising, confused and intelligent.
It’s also generous. It seems Michael wants to let us know that fame and fortune is not all it’s cracked up to be and that those who crave would be advised to be careful what they ask for. Michael was suffocating in that bubble. It’s an honest appraisal of the high life from way up there – beyond the reach of us mere mortals – from where Michael seems to question the need for fame at all, especially the kind of mega-celebrity he was at the time, and ponders its value in a world of need and sadness.
George Michael wasn’t just a brilliant purveyor of pop—he was a scholar of it, studying the ins and outs with a keen eye and taking those lessons to heart in the studio and on the stage.
Michael’s extensive repertoire of covers further reveals the deep respect he had for pop’s artistic merits and ability to bring people together.
Thank you for your soulful music and open heart.” When asked about what she meant by “open heart,” she recalled the feeling of being on set with him that day.
“It was about his vulnerability,” she says. “Without knowing him very well, certainly there was a sense that he was a person who struggled a lot having a persona and trying to maintain some kind of private life publicly. There are some people who do it better than others, clearly, and I thought he was just very open-hearted about what he was dealing with in the moment at any phase of his life and career. And I think that’s something to respect. It’s something to learn from.”
George is a hit machine. I’ve never yet worked out how he can write songs the way he does. I was once on a plane with him and heard this banging behind me. It was George hammering out the rhythm with his hands on my seat for a new song.