George Michael’s Pop Paradise

Like many Americans, I first saw George Michael when he came blasting onto MTV alongside Andrew Ridgeley, in Wham!, in 1984. They wore white pants and white “CHOOSE LIFE” T-shirts, nearly glowing on a white stage, singing “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” and it was utterly dazzling, a little baffling. “Jitterbug.” Snap, snap. “Jitterbug.” Snap, snap. The song started dizzily, urgently, with undertones of organ music. “You put the boom-boom into my heart,” Michael sang, with zippy oo-oos in the background. “You send my soul sky-high when your lovin’ starts.” Who was this beautiful man, with his beautiful hair, his beautiful face, his lashes, his two gold hoop earrings? What was happening? In sixth-grade lunchroom conversation, we tried to sort it out, but we couldn’t. All we knew, instinctively, was that this performer was giddy in his sense of himself, his voice, his craft, and so were we. Michael was rhyming “go-go” with “yo-yo” and telling somebody to stay in bed with him and hitting delirious high notes, and we were powerless to resist; we couldn’t stop dancing.