Classic Album Review: George Michael - Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1

Posted by Anthony - 30th June 2011

George Michael has recently announced his Symphonica Tour and already extra dates have been added owing to huge demand. This is testament to his amazing popularity even though he rarely tours and has issued only 5 original albums since Wham! split in 1986.

These 5 albums are all excellent but it is the second, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 from 1990, that stands out as his best to date even if it was not the most commercially successful one. That, by the way, was his first solo album Faith which has sold over 25 million copies.

Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 features a different sound to its predecessor. It is a more sober affair and has a more uniform feel. Instrumentally, things are kept simple with a pleasing absence of fussy arrangements and this suits the songs perfectly. There is an acoustic feel and in the main George has used just guitar, percussion and keyboard. It exudes class and musicality.

The production and performances are first rate throughout with George Michael acting as both arranger and producer. George wrote 9 out of the 10 songs, the odd one out being Stevie Wonder's They Won't Go When I Go. This is an underrated song in my view and here George Michael does a superb rendition - my favourite track on the album. Having said that, it's difficult to pick out one track because they are all so good. Here is that rare beast, an album without a single mediocre track on it.

The original songs vary from ballads such as the haunting Mother's Pride, to the soft rock of the truly beautiful Cowboys & Angels, to the dance track Freedom. The song writing is of a uniformly high standard. This is George Michael at his best. The songs seem to have been written when George was in a reflective state and cover such topics as love, sexuality and war.

By any standards this is a masterpiece and deserves to be regarded as one of the all time greats. In 1991 it won the Brit Award for Best British Album of the year. It was due to be followed up by Vol. 2 but this failed to materialise, probably the victim of George's well publicised dispute with Sony Music.

Regrettably George Michael has not released an original album since 2004's Patience. Indeed he announced that this would be his last physical album for sale to the public and that any future new recordings would be for download only. And that has been it apart from a few download tracks here and there. His main CD activity has been compilations of his hits and the start of remastering his old albums.

Hopefully this is not the end of the road. Maybe the Symphonica Tour will reawaken his recording interest and we can look forward to the long awaited Vol. 2. The music world is much the poorer during the continuing absence of this major talent.