Fleapit revisited:Wham!

"Wham! bam! I am a man! Job or no job, you can't tell me that I'm not. Do you enjoy what you do? If not, just stop! Don't stay there and rot!" - Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do) - Wham!

Anyone my age will remember the songs. It may not have been what I was into at the time (I was a teenager when their first album came out and starting my journey into the world of The Smiths, The Fall, New Order, and Aztec Camera) but I can't even pretend the songs weren't catchy or memorable. That, and the fact that George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were very good looking young men, is the reason they became so massively successful.

Their career was short, just five years, but Chris Smith's new film, Wham! (Netflix), covers the years before Wham! as well as the Wham! years. It's an endearing watch and both George and Andrew (who narrate the film, George - obviously - from historical recordings) come across as a pair of absolutely lovely blokes who somehow managed to stay down to earth despite the fame and adulation that came their way. George Michael, I was pleased to discover, is not shy of dropping an f-bomb either.

We start in 1975 at Bushey Meads School a few miles from Watford. Andrew Ridgeley is twelve when a new boy arrives at the school. Eleven year old Georgios Panayiotou (as he was known then) was the son of a Greek-Cypriot restaurateur and an English dancer. He was shy, a bit chunky, and bespectacled. Andrew, whose own father was of Egyptian and Italian descent, offered to look after the "new boy" and they soon became the best of friends, bonding over their mutual love of Elton John, David Bowie, and larking about - of which we see lots of in this film.

Andrew nicknamed his new friend Yog and, quite touchingly, he still calls him that now and in 1979 the two teenagers, ridiculously fresh faced as they remain throughout the whole of this film, join a punky ska band called The Executive. They're enthusiastic but they're not particularly proficient and soon enough other members start leaving until it's just Andrew and Yog left.

The two of them continued writing songs and they continued to go out dancing. They chose the name Wham! (Yog had heard Andrew shouting it at nightclubs) and started to make demo tapes. The music a mix of disco, hip-hop, and straight out pop music. They boldly doorsteped record companies but none of them were interested so Andrew went to Mark Dean who ran Innervision and lived down the road from his parents.

With early songs like Wham Rap!, Club Tropicana, and Careless Whisper already written (if not perfected), Dean (who'd already 'discovered' ABC and Soft Cell) gave them a deal and Andrew's mum, rather sweetly, started her first Wham! scrapbook. It would not, in any way, be her last Wham! scrapbook.

Yog had been a fan of The Human League and, inspired by them, Wham! added Shirlie (Holliman, then Andrew's girlfriend) and Dee C. Lee (later to be replaced by Helen 'Pepsi' Demacque) as backing singers and dancers. The first single, Wham Rap!, came out in June 1982 and it, quite amazingly considering how the inkies were at the time, got a good review in Sounds.

The review didn't help. The record didn't crack the top 100 let alone the top 40. Yog changed his name to George Michael (George was an English version of Georgios and Michael was the name of one of his friend's dads - wow, that's disappointing) and the band set off on a tour of small clubs up and down the country. They knew they couldn't risk another flop so when the second single, Young Guns (Go For It), entered the charts at 72 it was an uncertain time. 

Better but still not good enough. The next week it went up to 42 (still not good enough) but a remarkably lucky break came their way. When another act, disappointingly not named, pulled out of Top of the Pops, Wham! were invited to take their place. Young Guns climbed to number three and the rest, as they say, is history.

Wham Rap! was re-released (number 8) and then Bad Boys hit number two. Although neither Andrew nor Yog were keen on Bad Boys. Yog dismissing it as too formulaic and vowing never to write anything as bad as that again (you can be the judge of that). At this point, Wham! were seen as socially conscious but with the next single, Club Tropicana (number 4), all that changed.

Wham! had a new identity and a new message. Out went the black leather and the songs about being on the dole and in came tight shorts, CHOOSE LIFE t-shirts, bright colours, and songs about living it up and drinking cocktails in swimming pools. I'd always wondered why, if Club Tropicana is an imaginary place - and it is, "all that's missing is the sea". Just imagine the sea is there, Yog, and, anyway, when you watch the video Club Tropicana IS on a beach! So the sea isn't missing. Mixed messages, man, mixed messages.

But not nearly as mixed as the ones Yog was sending out to the world. He'd come out as gay to Andrew who, as with most things wasn't fussed at all, but not to his family, not to his fans, not in public. For understandable reasons. The gutter press of the UK was notoriously homophobic at the time and it may (or may not) have destroyed his career just as it was really getting going and George Michael was nothing if not ambitious.

Wham!'s first album, Fantastic, went to the top of the album charts but Club Tropicana lost them a lot of their credibility (we see John Peel hilariously refer to it as Casablanca). Yog was hurt. He was desperate to be taken seriously as an artist (one of his solo albums was called Listen Without Prejudice Vol.1 ffs) but perhaps, in retrospect, shoving a shuttlecock down his sweaty shorts during live performances and then batting it into the crowd worked against that ambition.

It wasn't just kudos that George and Andrew were missing out on. It was money. They were playing to rooms full of screaming fans, selling millions of records, and they were always in the tabloids - but they were completely skint. They were receiving four pence for each 7" single sold in the UK, two pence for each 7" sold abroad, and nothing at all for 12"'s. At a time when the 12" format was in its dominance.

Fed up with their poor deal with Innervision, they took on Simon Napier-Bell as a manager and signed a new deal with CBS. That put them in a different league and soon George was sent to Alabama to record Careless Whisper with Jerry Wexler and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. Wexler had worked with Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, and Led Zeppelin and George admits:- "I was absolutely shitting myself".

But the results didn't please either George or Andrew so it was re-recorded and this time George produced it himself. He was now singer, songwriter, and producer and, with Andrew's full agreement - despite him co-writing the song, it was released as George Michael's first solo single. It went to number one. Two months after Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go had become Wham!'s first number one single.

Later that year Freedom hit number one and Everything She Wants reached number two. They decamped to Chateau Miraval in the south of France to record the second album, Make It Big, and they started to crack America which made it even more difficult for George to come out. He was, by this point, a full on pin up and it was believed that his fans needed to believe he was, however implausible, at least in theory, sexually available to them.

Global megastars by this point, they toured the world and George was convinced that in Last Christmas they'd have the festive number one single and score four number ones in one year (1984) but, of course, Band Aid happened, Do They Know It's Christmas happened, and that kept Wham! at number two. George could console himself that he was part of Band Aid but he'd been dead nearly four years when Last Christmas finally reached number one in 2020. A feat it repeated last year. It's actually been in the top forty seventeen (17) times since its release and will no doubt reappear again this Christmas. A deathless classic by anyone's standards. 

Wham! gave all their profits from Last Christmas to the Ethiopian relief fund but George admits a small "mad" part of him was aggrieved that they didn't get their four number ones in a year. More than success, however, he craved affirmation and respect and he got it in the form of an Ivor Novello award. George cried when he received it. Not bad for a lad whose dad had told him he couldn't sing to save his life, banned him from using the family stereo, and wanted him to train to become a doctor or an accountant. His dad, speaking years later, admits he was very proud of his son. Happy, it seems, to be proved wrong.

Wham! notched up another couple of number ones in 1985 and 1986 (I'm Your Man and The Edge of Heaven), they toured US stadiums, and they played those two infamous gigs in China (Beijing and Canton - now Guangzhou, the first modern Western pop or rock act to play in the People's Republic, a big deal, Andrew wore his QPR football top) but it was obvious that Wham! were coming to the end of the road.

Not least during Live Aid in the summer of 1985 when, instead of appearing with Wham!, George Michael appeared with Elton John singing Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me (a song Elton dedicated to Yog at this year's Glastonbury). Andrew Ridgeley was reduced to a role as one of the backing vocalists. Something he claims, quite sincerely I think, to be grateful for but something that also told him Wham! were pretty much over - and they were.

When the eventual split came, Andrew Ridgeley was eminently reasonable about it and hugely supportive of his more talented, more driven, and, ultimately, more successful friend. Wham played one final show, The Final, at Wembley Stadium on 28th June 1986. The last song they ever played live was I'm Your Man (with Elton John and Simon Le Bon on guest vocals) and that was it.

Andrew Ridgeley released one solo album (Son of Albert hardly set the world alight) before settling down into a comfortable retirement (he was in a relationship with Bananarama's Keren Woodward for nearly thirty years, the lucky blighter) and George Michael? Well, we all know the story there. The good times, the bad times, the horribly early demise, and the love so many have for him to this day. A love that, if you're a fan of Wham! or not, you must concede he deserved.

Wham! (the film) doesn't have any drug overdoses, there's no adultery or mad parties, and there's no televisions being thrown out of hotel windows. There are lots of random faces you'll remember from the time (Toyah, Timmy Mallett, Mike Read, Terry Wogan, Gary Crowley, Paula Yates, Mike Smith, and Russell Harty), some very catchy tunes, and an enjoyable trip down memory lane with two very engaging and affable narrators. It's ultimately the story of two working class lads, both sons of immigrant fathers, making their dreams come true. A tale as old as time.