Wham! walked among those giants, matching them stride for stride.
There haven’t been as many eras so filled with big personalities producing enduring work.
Three main themes emerge: That Michael worked harder at his craft than many recognized at the time that the pop idol industry wasn’t going to give Michael the freedom to explore and express his homosexuality and that Ridgeley was a prince of a guy, who supported his friend even when it meant breaking up the band.Įven beyond the lessons learned though, “Wham!” is a treat for fans of ’80s culture. The prominence of those two voices in this documentary matters because Wham!’s success was such a whirlwind - and generated so many disparate opinions from pundits - that it’s refreshing to hear the more grounded perspective of the two guys at the center of it all.
“Wham!” might be a revelation, though, to latecomer fans, because there is such a wealth of audio and video for Smith to draw on - enough that Michael’s insights are as significant in the film as Ridgeley’s. press than in the U.S., where the serious rock magazines mostly treated Wham! as lightweights - while the mainstream media just asked the two about groupies and hairstyles. Michael and his musical partner Andrew Ridgeley were huge overseas before they made it here, and they were covered far more extensively in the U.K. pop scene, Chris Smith’s documentary “Wham!” likely won’t tell you much you didn’t already know.
radio: the well-coiffed, white-teethed, infectiously bubbly duo Wham!, with its throwback blue-eyed soul hit “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” The band notched a few more stateside hits - “Careless Whisper,” “I’m Your Man” and others - before lead singer and songwriter George Michael went solo, became a superstar and died young.įor those who were immersed in the 1980s U.K. Pop music had one of its all-time best years in 1984, when Prince, Van Halen, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner and Madonna all topped the Billboard singles charts.