Hit Parade: The Imperial Elton and George Edition

Summary

Podcast Summary: Hit Parade – The Imperial Elton and George Edition

Host: Chris Molanphy
Date: June 30, 2017
Episode Theme:
An exploration of the careers of Elton John and George Michael—their imperial eras, musical legacies, complex relationship with chart stardom, influences on each other, and their navigation of public attitudes toward homosexuality in pop music from the 1970s through the 2010s. Through deep storytelling, Chris Molanphy traces their intersecting histories as Britain’s premier male pop stars and addresses how they shaped and reflected LGBTQ visibility.

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Episode Overview

Chris Molanphy examines what makes a song—and a pop star—“imperial,” focusing on the two defining British voices in pop: Elton John’s 70s dominance and George Michael’s 80s reign. The episode highlights their parallel chart successes, artistic influence, mutual admiration and occasional rivalry, as well as the broader implications of their careers for representation in music.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The 1988 Chart Battle: Elton John vs. George Michael

• Opening Scene (00:00–04:13):

  • Molanphy sets the stage: August 27, 1988, when George Michael’s “Monkey” (No. 1) prevented Elton John’s “I Don’t Wanna Go On with You Like That” from topping the Billboard Hot 100.
  • “George Michael was to the 80s what Elton John had been to the 70s.” (03:19–03:25)

• Irony of Friends as Competitors:

  • They were friends, collaborators, and each other’s admirers—yet here, chart rivals by accident, not design.
  • Both championed American R&B styles and confronted industry homophobia, often cautiously balancing private and public personas.

2. Imperial Years: Chart Dominance Defined

• George Michael’s Imperial 1988 (04:13–05:01):

  • “Faith” was the year’s top album and single. The album’s wide crossover (including R&B charts) exemplified a truly imperial run.
  • “Imperial year... one where he reigned over the charts and essentially could do no wrong.” (04:56–04:58)

• Elton John’s 1970s Reign (05:21–19:59):

  • Elton’s breakthrough in America outpaced his UK success.
  • Key elements of Elton’s American appeal:
    • Conversational, emotionally open lyrics with Bernie Taupin.
    • Adaptation of American R&B (Aretha Franklin’s “Border Song” cover hit no. 5 on R&B charts—07:05–08:52; Elton’s first US top ten as songwriter).
    • Parade of iconic albums/singles— “Rocket Man,” “Honky Chateau,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Benny & the Jets,” “Philadelphia Freedom.”
  • Revolutionary: First artist in history with an album debuting at No. 1 (Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, 1975).

3. Sexuality, Public Reception & Backlash

• Elton John’s 1976 Coming Out (22:00–27:50):

  • Rolling Stone cover story: Elton comes out as bisexual, provoking backlash—labelled a “moral midget” by some, with a quick career and chart decline.
  • Cultural context: Homophobic backlash reminiscent of later incidents such as The Dixie Chicks (2003).
  • Elton’s sudden shift: “... in the space of a few weeks in 1976, from the premier chart dominating demigod to a modest second tier pop act...” (23:25–23:38)

• Lessons for Future Artists:

  • Elton’s experience became a cautionary tale for closeted pop stars like Freddie Mercury and George Michael.

4. George Michael’s Musical Ascendancy & Artistic Depth

• Parallel Career Foundations (27:50–33:07):

  • Like Elton, George leaned on American R&B/hip-hop influences early.
  • Wham!’s breakthrough with “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” crossover UK/US success, the perennial “Last Christmas.”

• Transition from Teenybopper to Serious Artist:

  • “Careless Whisper” likened to Elton’s “Your Song”—brought Michael critical recognition and proved his depth (33:07–33:19).

• Elton on George’s Talent:

  • “You look at someone like George Michael… it’s quite frightening. At 21 I was a hopeless mess…” (Elton John, 35:00–35:12)

5. Iconic Collaborations and Mutual Influence

• Live Aid (1985):

  • Elton brings George (and Andrew Ridgeley) on stage—Michael leads “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.” (35:36–36:51)
  • Symbolic anointment of Michael as heir apparent.

• Further Duets:

  • 1985: George features on Elton’s “Wrap Her Up” (not a high point).
  • 1991: George surprises Elton at Wembley, leading to the definitive live duet of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” which later hits No. 1 in the US and UK (49:50–52:45).
    • Elton’s first US No. 1 in 16 years.
    • Molanphy: “It was sweet vindication for both men... but it would be the last time George Michael topped the Hot 100.” (52:10–52:19)

6. Navigating Sexuality in the Public Eye

• George Michael’s Closeted Years (41:00–47:00):

  • Despite deeply personal work (“A Different Corner,” “Father Figure”), Michael stayed closeted under industry/family pressure and the AIDS crisis backdrop.
  • “My depression at the end of Wham! was because I was beginning to realize I was gay, not bisexual.” (George Michael, 41:37–41:44)

• Controversy and Success:

  • “I Want Your Sex” (1987) stirs controversy but drives the massive “Faith” album, which outsold Michael Jackson’s “Bad” in the US.

• Industry Headwinds:

  • “Monkey” reaches No. 1 after a remix by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, aided by R&B airplay.
  • Irony: “Monkey” keeps Elton at No. 2—one friend outmaneuvering another by pure chance.

7. 1990s: Changing Fortunes & Personal Turmoil

• Elton’s Career Revival:

  • Lion King soundtrack (1994) and “Candle in the Wind 1997/Goodbye England’s Rose” launch Elton to the biggest sales of his career.

• George Michael’s Withdrawal:

  • Battles Sony for artistic control (“treated like ‘a piece of software’”); grieves loss of partner to AIDS.
  • After “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1” (1990), Michael’s releases slow; focuses on covers, collaborations.

• Public Outing (1998):

  • Arrested in Beverly Hills; turns incident into a wryly celebratory single (“Outside”). Candid about his sexuality at last (61:03–61:43):
    • George: “You know, apart from the fact that it was Beverly Hills, it was probably the most glamorous toilet in the world. You know, if you’re going to do it, do it right and everything.” (61:13–61:26)

8. Later Years, Legacy, and Social Change

• Friendship and Feud:

  • 2000s: Elton criticizes George’s drug use, leading to public spats, then reconciliation in the 2010s.

• Changing Social Context:

  • Pace of LGBTQ acceptance—Adam Lambert (2012) as the first openly gay artist to debut at No. 1 in the US.
  • “Over the prior 40 years, roughly a dozen gay artists had scored number one albums... but all of these performers were closeted when they topped the charts. That included Elton John... and George Michael.” (66:45–67:20)

• Final Years & Legacy:

  • George Michael passes away on Christmas 2016, as “Last Christmas” is in heavy rotation.
  • Elton John pays tribute, calling Michael “the kindest, most generous man and one of the most brilliant songwriters England has ever produced.” (68:50–69:00)
  • Elton’s live performances after Michael’s passing subtly invoke Michael’s phrasing on “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” merging their artistic legacy.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On The Nature of Star Power:
  • Elton John (19:59–20:25):
    “If you’re successful, you get to a point where you can’t do any wrong. It’s like Madonna goes through that period at the moment. Phil Collins has been through it. You can’t fail.”
• On Resisting the Closet:
  • George Michael (41:37–41:44):
    “My depression at the end of Wham was because I was beginning to realize I was gay, not bisexual.”
  • Elton John, on the aftermath of his Rolling Stone interview (23:40–24:05):
    “...from the premier chart dominating demigod to a modest second tier pop act.”
• On Coming Out, Years Later:
  • George Michael (61:13–61:26):
    “You know, apart from the fact that it was Beverly Hills, it was probably the most glamorous toilet in the world. You know, if you’re going to do it, do it right and everything…”
• Elton’s Tribute to George Michael (68:50–69:00):
  “...the kindest, most generous man and one of the most brilliant songwriters England has ever produced.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Segment | |-------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–04:13 | Introduction; George Michael vs. Elton John chart battle | | 04:13–10:03 | Elton’s 1970s imperial period and US chart domination | | 14:12–16:00 | Elton’s R&B crossover success; Soul Train appearance | | 19:59–20:25 | Elton on his “can do no wrong” years (imperial phase) | | 22:00–27:50 | Elton John’s 1976 Rolling Stone coming out interview | | 27:50–35:12 | Wham’s beginnings, American R&B influence, chart ascent | | 35:12–36:51 | Live Aid duet of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” | | 41:00–47:00 | George Michael’s solo career, sexuality, and “Faith” | | 49:06–52:19 | “Monkey”/Elton comeback/Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me | | 55:34–57:31 | “Candle in the Wind 1997”—Elton’s career peak | | 61:03–61:43 | George Michael reflects on forced coming out | | 66:45–67:20 | Adam Lambert tops charts as openly gay artist | | 68:50–69:00 | Elton John’s tribute to George Michael after his passing |

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Episode Tone & Style

Chris Molanphy delivers a rich, empathetic, and detailed pop history with incisive analysis, warm appreciation, and a skill for connecting chart facts to broader social narratives. The tone is celebratory, a little nostalgic, and reflective—honoring two legends as cultural milestones, not just pop stars.

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Conclusion

This episode provides an engaging journey through a half-century of pop stardom, chart drama, friendship, rivalry, and the shifting landscape for LGBTQ artists. By tracing the twin “imperial” periods of Elton John and George Michael, Chris Molanphy shows how their music both shaped and mirrored changing times—and how their careers are woven together in both history and memory.

Transcript

[Chris Melanthe]

You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate and panoply about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanthe, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One? Series on today's show. Six months ago, on Christmas Day 2016, the music world mourned the loss of a singing superstar and pop craftsman, George Michael. Both with his duo Wham and in his solo career. George Michael scored a long list of hits, including such smashes as Careless Whisper, Freedom and One More Try. And also this up tempo chart topper, Monkey is perhaps less well remembered among George Michael's big hits, but it did top Billboard's Hot 100 in the summer of 1988. Its success was a sign of just how popular he was around the world at the time. So popular that the weak Monkey topped the Hot 100. It prevented this other song in the runner up slot from reaching the top.

[George Michael]

I don't wanna go on to you like that don't wanna be a feather in your Just wanna tell Honey I ain't mad But I don't wanna go.

[Chris Melanthe]

On. That's another British pop legend with an even longer list of hits, Elton John. And with this song, Elton was nearing the pinnacle of a hard earned decade long comeback. In a bit of chart irony, however, the man who kept Elton out of the number one spot was was a friend, an occasional duet partner and arguably his spiritual heir. George Michael was to the 80s what Elton John had been to the 70s. The premier male pop vocalist of his generation, Elton served as a mentor to George, rhapsodizing about the young man's talent from his earliest days in Wham. Each was a song stylist with facility in and appreciation for a range of popular song forms, especially American black music. The two men appeared on stage together in celebrated performances. Finally, and not incidentally, over the decades, both men would contend with homophobia and the music business closet as they cautiously navigated their careers and weighed just how much of their personal lives to share with the general public. Today on Hit Parade, as we close Pride Month in America, I'll reflect on these two superstars who by their twilight years as recording artists saw a sea change in the public's attitudes toward homosexuality. They supported each other and sometimes fought each other, even when their skirmishes were entirely accidental, like the week their respective 1988 hits did battle on the charts. And that's where your Hit Parade marches today, the week ending August 27, 1988 when the songs Monkey by George Michael and I Don't Wanna Go on with youh like that by Elton John held down the top two positions on the Hot 100. We've already talked about 1988 on Hit Parade in our first episode about UB40's unlikely chart topping reggae cover of the Neil diamond song Ra Red Red Wine. 1988 isn't really remembered by pop fans as a big year for reggae. If you were listening to American Top 40 radio anytime in 88, you were.

[George Michael]

Probably listening to George Michael.

[Chris Melanthe]

I Gotta have Faith. I Gotta Faith was the title song of George Michael's debut solo album. According to Billboard, that song and that album were respectively the top single and top album of the year. The Faith album also topped Billboard's R&B chart and spun off a string of crossover hits. In short, For George Michael, 1988 was what pop critics call an imperial year, one where he reigned over the charts and essentially could do no wrong. We'll come back to how George's career became imperial in a bit, but first, if we're going to talk about pop stars and imperial periods, one of the best examples happened nearly two decades earlier. Kicked off by this hit.

[George Michael]

It's a little bit funny this feeling inside I'm not one of those who can easily hide.

[Chris Melanthe]

It is difficult to overstate how dominant Elton John was in America in the first half of the 1970s. I emphasize America because oddly, the man born Reginald Dwight in Middlesex, England, was even more popular here in the US at first than he was in his home country in the United Kingdom. The future Sir Elton didn't score his first number one hit on until the mid-1970s, and he landed most of his British chart toppers in the 1990s. In the United States, Elton racked up a half dozen number ones by 1976 and 15 top 10s in that period, nearly twice as many as he did in the UK at the time. What was it that made young Reg Dwight sound so right on the US airwaves in the early 70s? Perhaps it was the almost conversational lyrics. You Can Hear it on youn Song, which was the first major pop hit not only for its performer but also its co writer, a lyricist named Bernie Taupin.

[George Michael]

If I was a sculptor.

[Chris Melanthe]

But then.

[George Michael]

Again no Or a man who makes potions in mud Travel and show.

[Chris Melanthe]

Bernie Taupin would send Elton John fully penned lyrics which Elton would then set to music, often without consulting Bernie further. This unusual lyrics first system, a kind of Tin Pan Alley format adapted for rock, generated songs that seemed Intensely personal, but actually reflected two men's sensibilities. John and Taupin caught a wave of singer, songwriter, soft rock just as it was taking over the top 40. But what also made Elton John a success here was his genuine love and absorption of American R and B. In fact, in December 1970, the very week he made his debut inside the American top 40, he did so twice. Once with his own youn Song and one notch higher with a cover of another of his songs by the most legendary female R B vocalist of all time, Casey Kasem, counted him down. Number 38 in a debut song in American top 40, your song by Elton John. And the next song in the countdown, number 37, was written by Elton John, sung by Aretha Franklin. Border Song. For a brief period just before Christmas 1970, the highest charting Elton John composition ever was the Queen of Souls remake of his gospel flavored single Border Song, which she subtitled Holy Moses over on the R and B chart then called Hot Soul Singles, Aretha's Border Song had broken into the top 10 one week earlier on its way to a number five peak, meaning Elton John's first top 10 hit in America as a songwriter was on the R and B chart.

[George Michael]

Yes, I have.

[Chris Melanthe]

Within a month, Elton's own youn Song would break into the pop top 10, reaching number eight by January 1971. That success could have wound up a fluke. The big hits didn't come immediately for Elton. After that, another single that's now one of Elton's most beloved, Tiny Dancer, peaked at number 41 in early 1972, actually missing the top 40 from the close.

[George Michael]

Up Time to Dancer Count the Headlights on the Highway.

[Chris Melanthe]

It would take another year for Elton to return to the US top 10, but that's when the hits became really iconic.

[George Michael]

Rocket Man Burning Attitudes.

[Chris Melanthe]

The Same week in July 1972, when Rocketman reached number six, its album Honky Chateau reached the top of the Billboard album chart. It would become Elton John's first of seven consecutive number one albums, still the longest streak of chart topping albums by anyone except the Beatles. After Honky Chateau and its top 10 smashes Rocketman and Honky Cat, the hits for John started coming faster. In less than half a year, John would score not only his second consecutive number one album with Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Piano Player, but also his first American no. 1 single. Crocodile Rock in essence introduced flamboyant Elton. His jackets began to sport stripes and wider lapels. The platform shoes grew higher. As for the song, it was pure kitsch a pastiche of 50s rock and roll signifiers. Its very first lyric, I remember when rock was young and references to the record machine and rockin around the clock. John and Taupin were ahead of the 70s wave of 50s nostalgia. Grease was just launching on Broadway and this was months before American Graffiti and years before Happy Days or the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Having already scored hits that adapted gospel music, Bowie esque alien folk rock and 50s kitsch, Elton turned his jumbo rose tinted glasses toward a range of other mini genres. From his next chart topping album, the double LP Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, John scored a string of smash hits, including a hard driving pub rock number. The who would later cover Saturday night's All Right for Fighting, A dreamy ballad that wedded Dorothy from Wizard of Oz imagery with gorgeous Beach Boys style harmonies. The album's title track, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. And finally, the album's biggest hit and another number one, a curious album cut that Elton resisted issuing as a single until it broke on Black Radio in Detroit. It was a blend of strutting R and B and glam rock, plus fake crowd noises and arena echo that imitated a live concert and lyrics by Bernie Taupin imagining a fictional fan letter to an invented band fronted by a woman wearing electric boots and a mohair suit called Benny and the J. Benny was a pinnacle of Johns and Taupin's adaptive approach to songwriting. It did so well at Black Radio that in addition to topping the Hot 100, it reached number 15 on Billboard's Hot Soul Singles. That crossover would get Elton invited onto TV's Soul Train a year later, where he not only performed Benny, but also premiered for host Don Cornelius, another single indebted to the sound of American R and B and dedicated to Elton's favorite tennis player, Elton. You.

[Elton John]

You have a new single you're going to introduce us to, is that right? Yeah, it's a song written about Philadelphia. It's a tribute to the music of Philadelphia from myself and the band and also to a lady called Billie Jean King who plays tennis or used to play tennis for the Philadelphia Freedoms tennis team. So we thought it'd be nice to write a song about the tennis team and the music of Philadelphia because it's given so many people a lot of pleasure. And so we decided to record it. Fantastic.

[George Michael]

How about again, for Elton John? I Used to be a Rolling Stone, you know, if the course was right.

[Chris Melanthe]

Like Benny and the Jets, Philadelphia Freedom would make Both the Hot 100 and the R and B chart, topping the former and scraping the top 40 on the latter in early 1975. That was Elton's most imperial year. Just how big was ELTON JOHN? In 1975? He had three number one singles and three chart albums. But even those raw statistics don't capture the magnitude of his achievements that year. He led off the year already atop both the single and album charts, the former with his cover of the Beatles song Lucy in the sky with Diamonds, and the latter with his late 74 Greatest Hits album. By April 75, Philadelphia Freedom was atop the Hot 100. A month later, the prolific John issued the album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, hailed as a magnum opus. Upon release, the confessional soul bearing album debuted on the album chart all the way up at number one. Let's pause on that feat. Those of you who follow the charts in the 21st century might not consider it remarkable for an album to debut on top. In the quarter century since the Billboard charts were computerized with data from Nielsen SoundScan, it has become routine for albums to debut at number one. But that's not how the charts worked in 1975, back when Billboard relied on phoning or faxing record retailers to find out their best sellers for the week, the chart moved more slowly. A new album would typically debut somewhere in the middle of the chart, maybe the top 20 if it was by a superstar before rising. That's not what Captain Fantastic did. In the spring of 1975, it debuted on top, the first album in Billboard chart history ever to start its life at number one. No album by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin, no matter how hotly anticipated, had ever pulled this off. Elton John was the first, and he did it twice. In 1975 alone, less than four months after Captain Fantastic completed its seven week run atop the chart, John's next album, Rock of the Westies, repeated the feat and also debuted at number one. Unlike the florid and elaborately packaged Captain Fantastic, Rock of the Westies looked like it had been rushed. Its album cover was a close up picture of Elton's face, and he hadn't even shaved for the occasion. It didn't matter. The casual Westies debuted on top anyway, the second album in chart history to do so. Its lead off single, the appropriately laid back Island Girl, was on top of the Hot 100 at the same time. By the way, when Island Girl topped the Hot 100, it knocked out a number one song by Elton's friend Neil Sedaka called Bad Blood. No relation to the Taylor Swift song. Sedaka's Bad Blood single had been issued on Elton John's label, Rocket Records, and featured backing vocals by Elton himself. John had in effect replaced himself on top of the Hot 100. There have been other imperial stars across pop history, from Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson to Justin Bieber, but Elton John's Imperial period was both extraordinarily prolific and concentrated with a dizzying schedule of smash albums and singles practically every month. Looking back on this period a decade later, in a 1987 British interview, Elton didn't say the word imperial, but he defined it perfectly. Is there a period that you think.

[Elton John]

Was like your most fruitful songwriting period? I mean, songs that I wrote like a fruit. I'll rephrase that. Obviously, you know, in the early 70s or in the mid-70s when we could do no wrong. It's kind of. You kind of get. If you're successful, you get to a point where you can't do any wrong. It's like Madonna goes through that period at the moment. Phil Collins has been through it. You can't fail.

[Chris Melanthe]

Did you catch Elton's self deprecating joke to the interviewer about fruitful and like a fruit? In this short clip, John is summarizing with 2020 hindsight not only the time when he could do no wrong, but how it all came to a remarkably abrupt end in 1976. The prior year, John's hit from his Captain Fantastic album, Someone Saved My Life Tonight, had soul bearing lyrics depicting a man escaping a marriage to a controlling woman. Bernie Taupin's lyric was a thinly veiled story about his dear friend Elton, who nearly married a woman in the 1960s prior to his fame and was grateful he hadn't. This and other clues throughout Elton's rise had led to speculation about his sexuality, but remarkably little media attention. That summer of 76, John seemed as popular as ever, topping the charts one more time in a cheeky male female duet with British vocalist Kiki D. The single Don't Go Breaking My Heart even topped the charts in Elton's home country, his first ever British number one.

[George Michael]

Nobody knows it, nobody knows.

[Chris Melanthe]

In the fall of 1976, Elton sat for a cover story with Rolling Stone magazine in which he was asked directly about his sexuality for the first time by an interviewer, in this case a young freelancer named Cliff Jar, who was himself openly gay. Jar offered to turn off the tape when changing the subject to the singer's personal life, but Elton insisted they proceed on the record. Among Elton's quotes were, I don't know what I want to be exactly and I haven't met anybody that I would like to settle down with of either sex. When asked by Jar to confirm that he was bisexual, John replied, there's nothing wrong with going to bed with somebody of your own sex. I think everybody's bisexual to a certain degree. Before the interview was over, Cliff Jar got Elton to talk both about the woman in Someone Saved My Life Tonight whom he had nearly married, and allude to the men he had been intimate with since then. Every bio you'll ever read about Elton John will mention the 1976 Rolling Stone interview as a turning point in his career, the moment when America's love affair with Captain Fantastic ended. It may be hard for those of us steeped in 21st century mores to comprehend what a big deal this interview was. In a 2015 article looking back at this now legendary profile, Cue Points, Joe Fox wrote, quote, when the Rolling Stone cover story hit the stands In October of 1976, it was explosive. Walter Cronkite covered it on the evening news. It seems surprising now to think of Elton as closeted that his coming out would be big news. But at the time, it was scandalous for an entertainer in the public eye to openly admit to being bi or gay. Because we at Hit Parade look at music history through the prism of the charts, it's fair to review the data to determine just how big a deal this actually was. On the one hand, John was already coming off the staggering year of 1975, and he was due for a pullback. Even before the Rolling Stone interview, an exhausted Elton issued far fewer records in 1976 and was already talking about retiring from live performance. Also, looking over the decade to come, most pop singers would be perfectly happy with Elton John's chart fortunes for the rest of the 1970s and the 1980s. He continued to hit the top 40, both in America and England, year after year. But the lesser magnitude in America is what's remarkable. Most pop megastars exiting their imperial high point, say Prince at the end of the 1980s, or Lady Gaga in the mid 2010s, will experience a gradual step down, with hits getting slightly smaller but still sizable. Whereas Elton John, in the space of a few weeks in 1976, went from the premier chart dominating demigod to a modest second tier pop act. The Rolling Stone interview appeared just a couple of weeks before Elton released a new album, Blue Moves, in October 1976. When that album peaked at number three in Billboard, it became John's first new studio album to miss the number one spot since 1971. It would spend only five months total on the chart less than any current Elton album had ever. In November, Rolling Stone published a follow up letter to the interview from a reader in Provo, Utah, calling Elton a, quote, moral midget and accusing him of, quote, sexual perversion. One month later, the only major single from the Blue Moves album, Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest word, reached number six. It would be John's last top 10 hit for nearly three years. The swiftness of the backlash was analogous to the Dixie Chick's chart fall off in 2003 after their comments about President George W. Bush. As John spent the late 70s in the pop wilderness, one can imagine many a label headquarters conversation in which his 1976 experience was the cautionary tale for gay pop stars considering coming out. It made an impression on rock gods across the sexual orientation spectrum, from Freddie Mercury, who essentially put himself back in the closet for the bulk of his time fronting the band Queen, to David Bowie, who all but renounced his bisexuality. And it surely made an impression on a pop singer from North London, a half British, half Greek man born Georgios Kyrakos Panayatu, who first topped the UK charts at age 20 with his duo Wham in the summer of 1983. When we come back how george michael learned from from elton john's career. George Michael formed Wham with his secondary school chum Andrew Ridgeley while they were still teenagers. While Ridgeley shared some co songwriting duties, played a bit of guitar and served as co conspirator and moral support for his shy friend George Michael for most purposes was Wham their lead composer, producer, main singer and instrumentalist. Like Elton John more than a decade earlier, George Michael was an enormous fan and assimilator of American music, particularly African American music, including not just R and B, but the then new genre Hip hop. Just as Elton had his early breakthrough with a soulful song considered worthy of Aretha Franklin, George's first British hits with Wham found him making like Melly Mel.

[George Michael]

A married man, you're out of your head Sleep snaps on an HP bed a daddy by the time you're 21 if you're happy with a nappy then you're in for fun but you're here and you're there but there's guys like teachers everywhere and looking back on the good old days well Fitzgerald Gonzalez portion.

[Chris Melanthe]

Pays Young Guns was the first of four straight British top tens for Wham, including the follow up Wham Rap, which made even heavier use of Michael's rapping skills. To be sure, no one in hip hop culture was popping and locking to these teenybopper Wham hits in 1982 or 1983. But at a time when leading British musicians were heavy into new Romantic preening, a la Spandao Ballet and a Flock of Seagulls, young George Michael was spitting over a beat. Barely three years after rap had broken through on the charts with Rapper's Delight, Wham's debut album, Fantastic, topped the UK charts but made little impression in America. To break through in the country whose music they loved, George Michael and Andrew Ridgely would have to be even more slick. What finally did it for them in The Fall of 1984 was a single written by Michael that, like Elton John's first American number one, Crocodile Rock made nostalgic reference to early rock and soul and even threw in an incongruous reference to the 30s dance the jitterbug. Wake Me up before youe Go Go made stars of WHAM in America, thanks in part to its exuberant video in which Michael and Ridgely cavorted in white choose life T shirts, neon gloves and short shorts. Like Elton John, Wham knew the power of a sassy ensemble. This single and video made Wham a teenybopper sensation. In the year of peak Duran Duran, pop fans older than 16 might have been forgiven for thinking at the time that Wham, whose group title came complete with an exclamation point, were destined to be flashes in the pan. In his home country, George Michael was issuing new singles that would ensure his immortality. The same week, Go Go was sitting ATOP the Hot 100 in America. For its final week, WHAM in England were dropping a massive holiday single, Last.

[George Michael]

Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away.

[Chris Melanthe]

Last Christmas is one of very few songs in the final two decades of the 20th century to wind up in the holiday musical canon. Alongside Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is yous. Last Christmas is one of the best selling British singles of all time, certified for sales of nearly 2 million copies in the UK alone. It was ratification in England that Wham were no passing fancy and that George Michael could write sturdy, enduring compositions. Last Christmas has been covered by literally dozens of artists. It wasn't a hit in America in 1984. Wham had just broken through here with Wake Me up before youe Go Go, and the holiday single would have confused the US marketplace. But Last Christmas is now WHAM's most enduring perennial, even here dominating US radio playlists every December. But going into 1985, if George Michael was going to Fortify his reputation in the US as he had in the uk, he would have to turn to an even more sophisticated single.

[George Michael]

Should have known Shadow. So I'll never go.

[Chris Melanthe]

Careless Whisper was in essence George Michael's yous Song. It sounded little like that early Elton John ballad, but it served the same purpose for Michael's career as a conversational soft rock ballad that made pop fans around the world take the young singer songwriter more seriously. It was also a US pop smash, topping the Hot 100 for three weeks in February 1985 and later named Billboard's top single of the year. It even reached number eight on Billboard's R&B chart. Remarkable considering the prior single Go Go didn't have any traction on Black Radio. One month after Careless Whisper topped the Hot 100, Wham's album Make It Big began a three week run atop the album chart. It would be quadruple platinum by year's end. By May, another single hit the top. An R B flavored mid tempo jam, Everything she wants, which was Wham's third straight number one on the Hot 100 and a number 12 hit at R B. You could draw Parallels with the 70s work of Elton John like Someone Saved My Life Tonight, the single on which Elton reflected on how close he came to a loveless marriage to a woman in his younger days. On Everything She Wants, George Michael was lamenting an imagined acquisitive and pregnant wife. By the middle of 1985, Elton had taken notice of George and began singing his praises publicly.

[Elton John]

You look at someone like George Michael who's 21 and see how much talent he's got and say Al got his head screwed on. It's quite frightening. At 21, I was a hopeless mess, so I didn't even make records.

[Chris Melanthe]

John wasn't simply talking up Michael in interviews. At July 1985's star studded live Aid concert, Elton brought the young performer on stage at Wembley Stadium to sing with him. Actually he brought out both members of wham, but Andrew Ridgley didn't have much to do. In fact, Elton almost forgot to introduce Ridgley.

[George Michael]

I'm going to introduce a friend of mine now who's going to sing one of my songs. And this guy I admire very much for his musical talent more than anything else. So on stage, Mr. George Michael and Mr. Andrew Lizzy.

[Chris Melanthe]

It was a major global showcase for George, a seal of approval from the prior decade's top British male star to his 80s heir apparent. Even though they were performing one of Elton's own songs, the 1974 hit Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me, John ceded the spotlight to Michael, letting him take the lead vocal alone. Actually, if you watch the video closely, at the start of the second verse, Elton appears ready to start singing, but George just keeps going. But to sing.

[George Michael]

The way I feel.

[Chris Melanthe]

This would not be the last time the two men performed that song together live. It wouldn't even be the last time they duetted in 1985. By the end of the year, Elton issued a single prominently featuring George hitching his wagon to Michael's rising star. The truth is, Elton had not had a bad first half of the 1980s. Although he hadn't reached the heights of his 70s mega stardom, he'd scored a string of sizable and very respectable hits. These included the 1983 no. 12 hit I'm Still Standing, The early 1984 number four hit I guess that's why they Call it the Blues.

[George Michael]

Hands, Good Time with you.

[Chris Melanthe]

And the Summer 1984 Number 5 hit sad songs say so Much.

[George Michael]

Sad songs say so much if Someone Else Is Suffering and Enough.

[Chris Melanthe]

But after sad songs, Elton was finding it difficult to generate worthy radio hits. So he brought in George Michael for the lead single of his next album, Ice on Fire. It was not Elton's finest hour. On the very 80s sounding and regrettable single titled Wrap Her up, the two men run down a list of all the famous female sex symbols they'd like to take home with them. Wrap her up was not a highlight of either man's 1985, but for George Michael, it was merely a speed bump. He and Ridgeley were invited to perform in China, the first western pop group so honored by the People's Republic. And they took one final victory lap as Wham late that year, issuing a final album and a string of singles into 1986 before amicably breaking up as a duo. And the farewell Wham songs were as exuberant as ever. Even before Wham Were broken up, Michael was revealing further depths to his songwriting and hinting at his inner life. The final Wham. Album contained another George Michael solo single, A Different Corner, his first truly solo top 10 hit in America and a chart topper in the UK. It was notable not only because Michael wrote, produced, arranged and performed the hit entirely by himself, but for how personal the song very obviously was.

[George Michael]

Lose you would cut like a knife so I don't dare no, I don't dare.

[Chris Melanthe]

In a commemoration of George Michael's career after his death last December, critic and cultural commentator Alfred Stto had this. This to say about a different to be gay requires watching for hints. When nearly 100% of pop songs aren't about or for the queer life, gay fans learn to study shifts in emphasis to stay alert. In 1986's A Different Corner, George Michael admits that falling in love is terrifying. Straight men don't sing and write songs like A Different Corner. If he'd turned a different corner, he would have been mocked, ostracized, alone, so he didn't dare. Unquote. At this point in the mid-80s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, both Elton John and George Michael were actively living a straight, identified life. In 1985, Elton surprised friends by marrying a woman, his friend and studio collaborator Renate Blaewell, a companionship that ended in divorce less than four years later. As for George, in a 2009 interview he explained the moroseness of songs like A Different Corner, saying, my depression at the end of Wham was because I was beginning to realize I was gay, not bisexual, unquote. Michael was still dating women at the time and feared that revealing too much about his sexuality amid his stardom would be hard on his family. So in 1987, at the formal launch of his post Wham solo career, he doubled down on his straight presentation. I Want your Sex was arguably the most controversial hit single of 1987. Michael insisted the song was about monogamy, and in the song's music video he appeared with then girlfriend Katie Jung in various states of undress and writing Explore monogamy in Lipstick on Her Back. Issued first as a single from the 1987 summer blockbuster movie Beverly Hills Cop 2, I Want yout Sex peaked on the Hot 100 at number two, and it would have gone all the way if more radio stations had been willing to play it. In addition to being banned by the BBC in England, I Want yout Sex was either left off American radio station's playlists or played only in a censored I Want yout Love version. And yet for several weeks, the steamy track was the biggest selling single in America. The song went platinum, highly unusual for the US Singles market at the time. However controversial, I Want yout Sex served as an attention getting teaser for Faith, Michael's solo debut album, which landed in October 1987 and went on to dominate the charts for the next 15 months. It spun off five more top five singles, including four number ones. It made George Michael the biggest solo male music star of the late 1980s, topping even Michael Jackson, whose 1987 follow up to Thriller. The album Bad sold millions fewer copies in the United States than Faith did. Faith's run of no. 1 hits kicked off with its rockabilly flavored title track, but the rest of its singles were all crossover smashes on both the Hot 100 and the R and B chart. These crossover hits included a pair of torchy ballads. First, the sultry gospel inflected Father Figure.

[George Michael]

I will be the one who loves you till the end of Time.

[Chris Melanthe]

And it was quickly followed by the soulful, organ drenched lament One More Try, which actually hit number one on both the pop chart and the R B chart. So dominant was George Michael in the summer of 88 that his label went deeper into his album to find more hits, plucking songs that were not obvious candidates. That included Monkey, which led off this episode. It was one of George Michael's least likely and hence most imperial hits because it required a remix to be worthy of single release. In its original incarnation on the Faith album, Monkey was a more ethereal skeletal pop funk track. Remember when Elton John was skeptical that 1973's Benny and the jets should be a single and only changed his mind when it took off at Black Radio in Detroit? George Michael's Monkey got a similar assist from the R and B side of the dial. Super producer duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the former associates of Prince who had just produced Janet Jackson's blockbuster Control album, completely rearranged the track, pumping up the intro and turning Monkey into a hot summer hit. As we told you, you at the top of the show, Monkey's leap to the top of the Hot 100 kept Georgia's friend Elton John at number two with I Don't Want to Go on with youh like that. Elton was hungry for a comeback. His last album had been the worst seller of his career and he had not scored a number one hit in either the US or the UK since 1976's Don't Go Breaking My Heart with Kiki D. Although John did sing with Dionne Warwick on her 1986 number one AIDS charity record that what Friends Are for, the chart topper had been credited to Dion and friends. Elton John wanted to be back in the game, and on his 1988 album he wasn't subtle about it. The album's self deprecating title was Reg Strikes Back and the COVID was a photograph of piles of flamboyant costumes John was auctioning for charity. John began to get his house in order in more ways than one around the release of the album. Having divorced Blau, Elton told the press he was comfortable being gay. And just before recording the album, he underwent throat surgery and came back with his voice stronger, as evidenced by his comeback hit.

[George Michael]

The Guards Turn out the Light. I don't want to go on to you like that.

[Chris Melanthe]

When. When I Don't Want To Go on with youh like that peaked at number two. It was still Elton's biggest hit in a dozen years, but it wasn't the number one he craved. By a fluke of timing, George Michael had bested his friend. The two men were not in competition, but not only would George pay Elton back over the next decade, he would essentially trade places with John, pulling back from the spotlight while Elton had a stunning career renaissance. It started with George Michael's follow up to Faith. Listen Without Prejudice, Volume 1 arrived in late 1990, three years after Faith's release. Michael's face was not on the COVID of the album. He appeared in no videos and did no interviews. And its first single was a beautiful but mournful dirge titled Praying For Time. On the follow up, the joyous autobiographical dance track Freedom 90, George did what Elton had just done on the COVID of Reg Strikes Back. He said goodbye to the trappings of fame, leaving the music video to uphold posse of supermodels and asking director David Fincher to set fire to his famous Faith guitar jukebox and leather jacket. George Michael was, in a word, embattled both with his label Sony Music, and in his personal life. Michael accused Sony, which had acquired his contract when it bought CBS records in 1987, of not promoting him properly. In an eventual court case. Michael claimed the conglomerate was treating him like, quote, a piece of software. By the way, this will go down as one of the smartest and most far sighted complaints by an artist in music business history, more than a decade before itunes and Spotify were invented. Meanwhile, in his personal life, Michael was mourning the illness of his lover, Anselmo Filepa, who was diagnosed HIV positive in 1991 and died two years later. Still not public about his sexuality, Michael grieved privately. Still, even in 1991, George Michael was capable of generating hits and was a huge live draw. And that's when he in essence, gave Elton John a number one single. That year, Michael was on a tour he called Cover to Cover. It was not a promotional tour for the then current Listen Without Prejudice album, about which he and Sony were warring. Instead, Michael was structuring the tour around covers of other artists songs, wrapping his supple voice around hits ranging from Stevie Wonder's Superstition to the Doobie Brothers what a Fool Believes. Among the hits regularly in the setlist was Elton John's Don't Let the Sun Go down on Me, the song he and Elton had performed together at Live Aids six years earlier. And for the tour's final show at Wembley arena In London on March 23, 1991, Michael brought out John himself as a surprise guest. As Elton had done for him as a new artist at Live Aid, Michael introduced John triumphantly, and unlike in 1985, he hung back and let Elton sing a verse of his song. In Elton John's original, original incarnation in 1974, at the height of his Imperial period, don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me peaked at number two. As happy as he was to perform the song live with his friend again in 1991, John was surprised when Michael told him he planned to release the live duet as a single. He didn't think it would be a big hit. Even Sony balked at issuing the single at first, since it wasn't tied to a live album. But George Michael's instincts about the live version of sun proved right on. Released as a single just before Christmas 1991, it reached number one on the Hot 100 at the end of January 1992. It was Elton John's first credited no. 1 hit since his Kiki D duet nearly 16 years earlier. It was sweet vindication for both men, but it would be the last time George Michael topped the Hot 100. The 1990s were very different for Elton John and George Michael. For the former, Don't Let the Sun Go down on Me would mark the beginning of a career upswing. Two years after that song reached the top, Elton teamed with Tim Rice, former songwriting partner of Andrew Lloyd Webber and the lyricist behind a string of smash theatrical musicals for the soundtrack to the Disney animated feature the Lion King. The soundtrack topped the Billboard album chart for most of the summer of 1994, giving Elton partial claim to a number one album for the first time since Rock of the Westies in 1975. And at the 67th Academy Awards in 1995, John and Rice accepted the best original song Oscar for the sentimental can youn Feel the Love Tonight?

[George Michael]

And can you feel the Love Tonight.

[Chris Melanthe]

Huge as it was, the Lion King turned out to be merely a throat clearing exercise for Elton's biggest hit of the 90s and of his career. Like Don't Let the Sun Go down on Me, it was a re recording of a song from his 70s Imperial Peak. And like the remake of sun, this remake would be a number one hit. But what led to this blockbuster was just about the saddest circumstance possible.

[George Michael]

Goodbye droves may you ever mirror in our hearts you were the grace, the place to save where light were torn apart.

[Chris Melanthe]

Inspired by the August 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales, a dear friend of Elton's, John re recorded his song Candle in the Wind in tribute to her. The original candle was an album cut on 1973's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It was a modest hit in England and never issued as a single in America. Only a 1987 live version recorded in Australia had ever charted on the Hot 100. As originally conceived by Bernie Taupin, its lyrics were a tribute to fallen Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe. At John's request, Taupin rewrote those lyrics, starting with Goodbye Norma Jean, which became Goodbye England's Rose. And Elton recorded the poignant remake with a symphony arranged by legendary Beatles producer George Martin.

[George Michael]

And it seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the Wind.

[Chris Melanthe]

Released one week after Diana's funeral, at which John performed the song Eulogy for the first and only time, candle 1997 sold better than any single in modern pop history. It debuted at number one in both the US and and uk, setting sales records in both countries. In America, it was eventually certified diamond for 10 million in sales. In England, it topped Band Aid's do they Know It's Christmas as the best selling British single of all time. And speaking of Christmas, only White Christmas by Bing Crosby has sold more copies. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Elton John's Candle in the Wind 1997 now ranks as the second best selling single of all time, with 30 million in global sales. The 1990s was the decade Elton John went from beloved superstar to British cultural institution. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998. And Sir Elton settled down happily with Canadian filmmaker David Furnished, whom he later married in the 2000s when civil partnerships and eventually same sex marriage were legalized in England. For George Michael, however, the 90s began a long, gradual pullback from the spotlight on his own terms, at least at first. After a split with Sony Music, he didn't release another album until 1996, six years after Listen Without Prejudice. Its first two singles, The Torch ballad Jesus to a Child and the uptempo dance jam Fast Love, were number one hits in England and top ten hits in America. Jesus to a Child was particularly affecting, written by Michael as a memorial for Anselmo Felipe, Michael's former lover, who had died in 1993. Yet remarkably, as late as 1996, George Michael was still not public about his sexuality. That all changed two years later, and not on Michael's terms. In 1998, a police sting in Beverly Hills, California, snared George Michael for solicitation in a public park men's room. Michael was finally outed as a gay man under less than flattering circumstances. To his credit, Michael leaned into the tabloid exposure, giving interviews in which he laughed off the revelation and even recording a single called Outside, with lyrical references to al fresco lovemaking and a music video featuring Michael dancing in a men's loo in a police uniform. Years later, talking to veteran BBC interviewer Michael Parkinson, George Michael mostly sounded bemused and relieved to at last be fully open with the public.

[George Michael (Interviewee)]

Maybe you wanted to declare what you were. Now I look back and I think there were certain elements that are just undeniable. You know, apart from the fact that it was Beverly Hills, it was probably the most glamorous toilet in the world. You know, if you're going to do it, do it right and everything.

[Chris Melanthe]

So what you, what you're saying in a sense was that May subconsciously you colluded?

[George Michael (Interviewee)]

Yeah, I think subconsciously that was my way of coming out and talk about, you know, showbiz or what that was like. That was the full. I, I think not wholly, I mean, if it hadn't happened, I don't think I would have been heartbroken, but I think my subconscious definitely led me into that situation.

[Chris Melanthe]

George Michael recorded that BBC interview in 2004 on the release of what would turn out to be his last studio album, Patience. Michael lived for just 16 years into the 21st century. He recorded sporadically in his final decade and a half in America. Michael never scored another Hot 100 hit after the mid-90s. But as Michael himself pointed out, his career had already cooled in the US several years before the 1998 Beverly Hills incident. On the other side of the Atlantic, Michael scored a handful of modest UK chart hits in the 2000s, with a couple of singles reaching the top five. In his homeland. He continued to reside just outside of London and enjoyed his status as a treasured British pop veteran. Both Michael and Elton John spent the 21st century reflecting on their survival of the music business. You could hear it in several of their songs. One of Elton's most acclaimed latter day hits, the 2002 single this Train Don't Stop Here Anymore, was an homage to his 70s imperial period and the loneliness he felt at the top. The music video even depicts a 1975 era Elton, played by a young Justin Timberlake in a loud striped jacket and feather boa backstage at a concert, surrounded by well wishers but feeling sad and trapped.

[George Michael]

I don't care, it really means my engines breaking down.

[Chris Melanthe]

George George Michael's final British top 40 hit, 2012's White Light, brought him into the era of electronic dance music, but its lyrics depicted a man in middle age refusing to quit. I'm not through, george sings. I'm alive. As for George and Elton's friendship, it endured a nasty years long feud during the 2000s centered around Michael's drug habit. In the early aughts, Elton publicly admonished George for his voluminous marijuana use. As a longtime, now recovered drug addict himself, John was a vigilant teetotaler and tended to use the press to send warning flares to musician friends. He did similarly with tourmate Billy Joel. In this period, Michael fired back that his elder should mind his own business, and Fleet street chronicled their sniping at each other over several years. But in the early 2010s, John and Michael reconciled as George played Elton's AIDS charity concert, and the two rekindled their friendship. Elton and George found this peace just as public attitudes toward homosexuality in both the US and UK were undergoing a remarkable metamorphosis. Obviously, and most famously, both countries would legalize gay marriage by the mid 2010s. But this change in attitudes was also reflected in smaller ways in the music business. In 2012, an album called Trespassing by American Idol finalist Adam Lambert debuted at number one on the Billboard album chart. Though it only spent one week on top and didn't chart long, Lambert's album set a historic, historic benchmark the first no. 1 album by an openly gay performer. Over the prior 40 years, roughly a dozen gay artists had scored number one albums, from Queen's Freddie Mercury to REM's Michael Stipe to Ricky Martin and Luther Vandross. But all of these performers were closeted when they topped the charts. That included Elton John with his seven number one albums in the 1970s and George Michael both with Wham and his solo album faith in the 1980s. In the 2000s, John and Michael lived long enough to see an uncloseted artist top the charts in America, the country that had shunned Elton for his bisexuality in 1976. On Christmas Day 2016, George Michael was found dead of heart failure by his boyfriend, Fadi Fawaz. In one final irony, Michael died on a day when radio stations in both America and England were already power rotating Wham's 1984 classic Last Christmas. Tributes to the singer poured in from music stars around the world, from Madonna to Boy George to Adele, who performed one of Michael's songs on the following February's Grammy Awards. But the most persistent and heartfelt eulogizer over the last six months has been Elton John. Elton dedicated a whole episode of his Apple Music Beats one radio show Rocket Hour to George Michael, playing some of his favorite sad songs and favorite George Michael songs and calling Michael, quote, the kindest, most generous man and one of the most brilliant songwriters England has ever produced. And in his live residency at Caesar's palace in Las Vegas not long after his friend's death, Elton quietly displayed a photo of the late singer while performing Don't Let the Sun Go down on Me, the song they took to number one together. Though the song will always be Elton's when he sings it now, his vocal delivery channels George Michael's phrasing. It's a final acknowledgment by Elton that the song, a young Wham frontman co opted from him at Live Aid 32 years earlier, now belongs to George Michael, even in the Great Beyond. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Peru. My producer is Chris Beruben. The executive producer of Slate Podcasts is Steve Lichti. Panoply's chief content officer is Andy Bowers. Check out their entire roster of podcasts at Panoply fm. Thank you. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the HIT parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melancholy.

[George Michael]

Alive throughout the Free. Everything is like the sun going down on me.

[Chris Melanthe]

Sam.