GEORGE MICHAEL AND ARETHA FRANKLIN – "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)"

“Well, they say Aretha Franklin could make any old rubbish sound good, and I think she just has!” John Peel, Top of the Pops presenter, 1987…

Number 2 Watch: Two weeks of ‘Heartache’ for Pepsi & Shirley. George’s old colleagues nearly spoil his party.

coming on the heels of the previous number one this now seems doubly irrelevant.

George may have wanted to portray this as a case of standing on the shoulders of giants but if so it sounds as if Aretha is underwater gasping for air while he strikes poses above the waves.

#1 Pop and #5 R&B in the U.S. for this. While not anywhere near a classic duet, some facts need to be added to Tom’s post. This duet was put together by Clive Davis, who had Aretha signed to his Arista Records at the time. It was Davis’ idea to add Michael to the song. So, when Clive called Michael, what did you expect him to say? No, I won’t do a duet with Aretha Franklin? I don’t doubt that Michael was thinking, much like Clive, in commercial terms. Also, the song was released on Arista, not Columbia, so it’s even more of an Aretha single than a George Michael one. As for the finished product, nope it didn’t turn out to be a duet for the ages. But I don’t blame either duet partner. Michael is giving it his all as is Aretha. The production from Narada Michael Walden keeps it from taking off. George Michael did a better duet with Mary J Blige with their cover of Stevie Wonder’s “As” in 1999.

#7 Maybe I should revise my opinion somewhat in the light of that. But it still smells of marketing synergy to me, which would be OK if the record was better.

I got my info for this song from Fred Bronson’s book, The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. Something else to consider. This song was Aretha’s only #1 British single.

Aretha had been all over the charts with essentially this sound for a couple of years at this point with the Who’s Zoomin’ Who album, which had that hugely successful collab. with Annie Lennox (‘Sisters are doing’) on it as well as several other big hits (including the SOS-bandy, massive title-track). AF’s bridge to UK New Pop royalty had been well and truly built for her by now, and she was generally all over the place both in modern forms and in more retro ways (for which her show-stopping appearance in the Blues Brother had been a leading indicator in any case). The upshot was that this single was *no* ’80s kid’s intro to Aretha.

And that matters. This is *not* a rent-a-soul-star record for George Michael, it’s a rent-a-New-Pop-star for an again-very-well-established Aretha and her handlers and producers. [TomLane makes this point better above, at #7.Have to be quick around here.] Of course this association is all very useful for the younger artist too: it does take a bit of courage for a vocalist to go toe to toe with Aretha. Annie L. had done well, now it was George’s turn was how it felt.

As for the song itself: not bad, a bit stock lyrically as Tom argues (but no worse than that a-ha song people fawned over here!), but all its main hooky bits basically work I reckon. Of course (Peel’s point) the whole thing relies on the fact that Aretha and George can sing the phone-book and have it sound nifty, and, yeah, everyone’s coasting here. But these guys competently coasting is still pretty good: this is at least a high-ish 5/low-ish 6 in my view (but I’d give Elton and Kiki dee a solid 7 vs. Tom’s 5 – so I figure there’s a fundamental disagreement about the value of a certain sort of bouncy MOR material -exposure to their satanic majesties, the Carpenters at an early age may be the crucial variable here!). I’m very happy to have it on my ipod [where it always comes on right before Slayer’s ‘epidemic’ for some reason. Awesome. :)].

It is fairly depressing that this unworthy by-the-book exercise in eccht-soul – co-written by Mr By-The-Book himself, Simon Climie, half of Climie-Fisher – is Aretha’s only British number one single to date. Worse, the only other contender even to come close, “I Say A Little Prayer,” peaked at number four. Those who imagine the Queen Of Soul to have scored an unending fusillade of top ten smashes in the UK are in for a sober awakening on examination of her actual chart record; most of her hits typically made it to the mid-regions of the chart and no further. This raises a fear of Aretha’s rawness not quite being “pop,” and pop similarly being wary of Aretha, at least in a Britain which seemed to prefer their “soul” singers homely, British and preferably white.

Although Aretha’s important work was more or less done by 1974, her revival took hold in the mid-’80s; Green’s prophecy of “Aretha” coming back in inverted commas as a signifier of – you guessed it – Real Soul seems to have been fully fulfilled. The Eurythmics collaboration “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves” is one of the most shameful disgraces in all of pop; Franklin forced to slum it in a gaudy mockery of her uncompromising demand for “Respect” a generation previously. But it worked in terms of bringing her back into the marketplace; apart from isolated sparks like 1982’s “Jump To It,” Aretha’s career had dived into a troubled nothingness – debilitated by agoraphobia and legal disputes, she missed the chance to sing on “We Are The World.” However, 1985’s Who’s Zoomin’ Who? album, though perfunctory and plastic, was a great success, and that lay the ground for the George Michael collaboration; sad to say, from a commercial perspective Aretha in the mid-’80s probably needed George more than vice versa.

The recording of the song, as well as the video, went well enough; George, understandably thrilled at the prospect of working with Aretha, would gladly have sung the contents of that day’s Woking And District Evening Chronicle. Aretha barely knew who George was but seemed to like him. In the video they symbolically perform before a huge video screen displaying monochrome footage of them in their younger years – another indication of signifiers outranking signified.

Despite Aretha’s immense efforts – hear her voice focus and bite on “Consumed by the shadows” and “I was crippled emotionally” – and George’s evident boyish enthusiasm, the song is processed conveyor belt nonsense, its rivers deep, valleys low and mountains high seemingly generated from a prototype Babelfish of “soul” memes, its production shallow in its gloss. Further, despite the theme of two lost souls finally coming together, it is clearly impossible to believe in 42-year-old Aretha and 23-year-old George as a couple; the relationship is palpably one of mother and son, or teacher and pupil. The explosive “HOW COULD” of the line “How could you treat me so bad?” in the second verse of “I Never Loved A Man” – which you will not be surprised to hear was not a hit in the Britain of 1967 – seems to be a more than fair question to ask of either participant.

Not much to add to the comments above apart from its Australian chart performance: number one for four weeks from 16 March 1987. A 4 sounds right to me.

Am I right in thinking that they weren’t even in the same country, let alone the same studio, when they recorded this: she in America because of a fear of flying and him in England? As others have said, this come out at the time of ‘let’s get another soul legend onto the record’ in order to give mediocre tunes some gravitas.

The Eurythmics collaboration “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves” is one of the most shameful disgraces in all of pop; Franklin forced to slum it in a gaudy mockery of her uncompromising demand for “Respect” a generation previously.
‘Sisters’ may not be your cup of tea, punctum, it’s not quite my sort of thing either as it happens, but its quasi-separatist theme is *not* a compromised version of Respect’s idea, it’s a considerable ratcheting up of the assertiveness involved in the earlier song. Lots of lesbo- /feminist-/student polie-types completely dug ‘Sisters’ for that reason (and I can say that from direct experience in both Australia and in the US). And it’s been widely covered ever since with that vaguely subversive thought in mind. I fail to see how it was any sort of degradation (let alone one of the worst things ever) for Aretha to have the third single (with the first two being chart-topping and near chart-topping respectively – Aretha *had* her comeback even without Sisters) off her W’sZW album be a joint project with Lennox and Stewart. In any case, I much prefer Sisters to Would I lie to you or Angel on the Eurythmics side: Lennox and Stewart seemed to lift their games with Aretha in the house, as it were. And Aretha in turn seemed to be a good collaborator and to enjoy the experience (she and Lennox do occasionally sing together still, though only on older, arguably better soul tunes as far as I know). ‘Shameful disgrace’ and ‘gaudy mockery’ would seem to more accurately attach to things like Aretha’s appearing in the lame Blues Brothers 2000 and belting a charmless version of Respect there.

I know you’re not going to dig this in 2010.

Must say I don’t have much of a problem with this one at all. Not one of my 80s favourites, but among the better exhibits of ’87 even so. I like swanstep’s “competently coasting” – it’s a good hook, average-to-good song and two outstanding vocalists. Punctum has a good point with the generational thing – although there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with a 19-year age gap, there’s a performance and not a relationship going on, emphasised by the leather-jacket image which portrays George as the rebellious youth (watching the video again I had a bizarre flashback to Robbie Williams at the Brits with Tom Jones). Regardless of whether it sounds irrelevant alongside the previous number one, it’s still this one that I’d prefer to hear again.

Looking further down the chart that February we see two none-more-1987 acts side by side – Blow Monkeys and Curiosity Killed The Cat both reaching their chart peaks in the top 5. Plus Randy Crawford’s “Almaz” at four – now that was a beaut.

What are the best duets between young pup and revered veteran, anyway? Of the top of my head, only Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash, and Afrika Bambaataa & James Brown immediately come to mind.

Did Sinatra’s Duets albums yield anything decent? Or Tony Bennett’s?

Something by McCartney & Costello, perhaps? Although none of them were songs for the ages.

Trying to think of indie/veteran duets that actually made it onto a record. Noel Gallagher and the zombie John Lennon?

Bono has recorded enough duets now (in both age directions) to release a compilation album of his own.

The U2/Johnny Cash team-up, ‘The Wanderer’ is great, and has a degree of moral authority and lived experience sadly lacking in the rest of U2’s work. Mind you, Bono very sensibly SHUTS HIS BIG MOUTH FOR ONCE in that song and lets Cash get on with it.

not quite the same thing, but ‘i can’t go to sleep’, the wu-tang/isaac hayes hookup is awe-inspiring.

and there was some sort of televised concert a few years ago where justin timberlake sang ‘let’s stay together’ as a duet with al green. it’s fair to say that, in this instance, young justin did not come out the winner.

Willie Nelson and Sinead O’Connor doing “Don’t Give Up” has to be one of the wierdest.

ah yes (having belated got #25) i fear you might be right.

@41 The title track was the biggest-selling single in the US in 1988, apparently. As far as rockabilly-tinged tracks went, I liked it better when it was “Sonic Boom Boy” by Westworld. (Hey, a February 1987 UK hit!) I suspect there are bigger solo-George fans who could say something more profound about it all…

“I Want Your Sex” was a bit of a cultural landmark, too, in the post-AIDS landscape.

#40-43 Yes in a recent pop quiz my team-mate and I pondered whether “Faith” had got to number one and wrongly decided it had !

On the one hand you could say that it was an indication of George Michael’s success in crossing over to an adult audience that he didn’t shift as many singles as before. Or perhaps in trying so hard to be taken seriously he mislaid the ability to write a good hook. Certainly none of the singles from either “Faith” or “Listen Without Prejudice” are whistle-in-the-bath pop tunes.

I remember it came as quite a jolt when I saw in Smash Hits’ review of 1990 (which I should long since have stopped buying by then) that he was one of the artists mentioned in a column on “Boring Pop”. Not because I was a great fan of his music but at the thinly-veiled insinuation that he was too old to count (George being the same age as me of course).

oh dear. free at last, they took your job, they could not take your PRIDE.

i was going to say that you were ahead of yr time, U2 certainly weren’t getting any good reviews by the time i was reading nme a couple of years later. but actually, i rather think they *were*.

well i was a freelancer, so i think the claim that it was “my” job is a bit of a stretch… but yes, there’s a certain* balancing amount of pleasure to be had when you’ve slated a record, and had the review pulled in favour of a glowing one, seeing it filling bargain bins for the next three years HAHA

*where certain = vast if spiteful