George Michael bows out from chart-topping duty, after eleven #1s – both solo and with Wham! – in just under twelve years. And dare we say he bows out with his best…?
Fastlove, by George Michael (his 7th and final solo #1)
3 weeks, from 28th April – 19th May 1996
I doubt many other people would name ‘Fastlove’ as Michael’s best chart-topper, but it’s my favourite. As worthy, and lyrically beautiful, as ‘Jesus to a Child’ was; I’m glad that he wraps up with this banger. Gotta get up to get down… And if his number one from earlier in the year was an ode to a lost love, then this is an ode to getting over a lost love. An ode to anonymous and fleeting satisfaction, as Cher once memorably put it.
I ain’t mister right, But if you’re looking for fast love… he purrs, over a funky bassline and some contemporary disco beats. All that bullshit conversation, Baby can’t you read the signs… I also love the line about all his friends having babies, while he’s just wanting to have fun, which is something every gay man in their thirties can relate to. In the background we can hear ‘interpolated’ – as we must always refer to sampling from hereon in – the hook from 1982 hit ‘Forget Me Nots’ by Patrice Rushen (which Will Smith will soon ‘interpolate’ even more blatantly).
I called this a ‘banger’, but it’s actually quite smooth and slinky. The melody and the groove wrap themselves around you like a particularly sexy snake, and don’t let go. There are still some of the over-indulgences that, for me, always mark George Michael’s work down a notch: the muzaky saxophones, and the fact that it goes on for over five minutes. A three-minute quicky would have been more appropriate here, especially given the subject matter. But the funky break in the middle is a thing of beauty.
Like all great pop songs, though, there is more going on under the surface. The lyrics aren’t just celebratory, they reveal a pain behind all the sex. George needs affirmation, needs someone to ease his mind. In the absence of security, I made my way into the night… Which sounds quite dark, until a few lines later he proposes a quick shag in his BMW. But there’s enough here to suggest that his need for ‘fastlove’ isn’t an entirely healthy thing, and may be linked to the loss in ‘Jesus to a Child’. The most telling line is surely I miss my baby… It’s admirable that he made a very catchy pop song out of such personal issues.
Post-‘Fastlove’, George Michael would remain a fairly regular presence in the UK charts, including four more #2s. One of which is the truly glorious, and definitely worthy of the term ‘banger’, ‘Outside’ – a brilliant middle-finger to all the fuss over his sexuality. He died in 2016, aged just fifty-three, and took his place in the highest-echelons of dead pop superstars. I have my opinions on his current standing among the greats, but it seems churlish to drone on about them here.
And, of course, he isn’t actually done with chart-topping, as the streaming era has given ‘Last Christmas’ – for years the highest-selling #2 hit of all time – a new lease of life. But that’s something that we’ll get to, again, and again, and again, in due course…