Beyoncé’s Lemonade released

Lemonade Beyoncé

Released: April 23, 2016 Peak: 11 US, 110 RB, 11 UK, 11 CN, 11 AU Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.4 UK, 5.9 world (includes US and UK) Genre: R&B

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Pray You Catch Me Hold Up (8/16/16, 13 US, 6 RB, 11 UK, 37 CN, 25 AU, platinum single) Don’t Hurt Yourself (with Jack White) Sorry (5/3/16, 11 US, 4 RB, 33 UK, 40 CN, 74 AU, platinum single) 6 Inch (with The Weeknd) Daddy Lessons Love Drought Sandcastles Forward (with James Blake) Freedom (with Kendrick Lamar) (9/6/16, 36 US, 21 RB, 40 UK, 60 CN, 62 AU) All Night (12/6/16, 38 US, 23 RB, 60 UK, 73 CN) Formation (2/6/16, 10 US, 6 RB, 31 UK, 32 CN, 17 AU, platinum single) Total Running Time: 45:42

Rating: 4.348 out of 5.00 (average of 15 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” The well-known proverb is spoken by Hattie White, Beyoncé’s grandmother-in-law, in the song “Freedom.” WK It serves as the the premise behind Beyoncé’s sixth studio album, a cathartic exploration of the emotional turmoil she endured after her husband, rapper and business mogul Jay-Z, cheated on her. In an interview with Elle magazine, she said, “Everyone experiences pain, but sometimes you need to be uncomfortable to transform.” WK She uses “her heartbreak masterpiece, Lemonade” RS500 “to demand contrition from her adulterous partner, assert her excellence, reflect upon the bonds with the men in her life, and their relationships with other women, and wonders if her trust can be earned back.” AMG She announces on the album, “Nine times out of 10 I’m in my feelings.” RS500 However, this album goes beyond the anger and hurt of a woman scorned. This is an “expansive and personal statement, tapping into marital breakdown and the state of the nation.” RS500 The song cycle explores “her husband’s infidelity in a generational and racial context.” WK “It was a different side than she’d shown before, raging over infidelity and jealousy, but reveling in the militant-feminist-funk strut of Formation.” RS500 Melina Matsoukas, who directed that song’s video, said Beyoncé “wanted to show the historical impact of slavery on black love, and what it has done to the black family, and black men and women – how we’re almost socialized not to be together.” WK Musically, Beyoncé is “claiming her place in all of America’s music traditions.” RS500 The album is rooted in R&B, but also incorporates Americana, blues, country, electronica, funk, gospel, hip-hop, reggae, rock, soul, and trap. WK She drew inspiration from female black singers including Bessie Smith, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Memphis Minnie, and Dionne Warwick. WK The album samples and interpolates a number of hip-hop and rock songs and also includes guest spots from James Blake, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, and Jack White. WK There is “an apparent disregard for appealing to commercial radio that makes Lemonade a distinct addition to her catalog.” AMG It was, in fact, dropped “as a Saturday-night surprise, knocking the world sideways.” RS500 However, the album was not only commercially successful, but the most acclaimed of her career, WK landing a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year and winning for Best Urban Contemporary Album and Best Music Video. It was named Album of the Year by Rolling Stone and Dave’s Music Database. In 2020, Pitchfork’s Marc Hogan called oit one of the great art pop albums of the last 20 years. WK The Associated Press named it the album of the decade. WK “The cathartic and wounded moments here resonate in a manner matched by few, if any, of Beyoncé's contemporaries.” AMG “There’s more power in the few seconds she chokes back tears while singing ‘Come back’ – timed with the backing vocal in Isaac Hayes’ version of ‘Walk on By’ – than there is in most contemporary ballads.” AMG Lemonade can “be heard as the dark flipside of [previous album] Beyoncé. When ‘Dishes smashed on the counter’ is bleakly observed, just before ‘Pictures snatched out the frame/Bitch, I scratched out your name and face’ is delivered with seething wrath, it’s hard to not flash back to ‘Drunk in Love,’ in which the presumably same couple were revelrous in the same room.” AMG “She sometimes eclipses herself in terms of raw emotion, as on the throttling…Don’t Hurt Yourself,” AMG a “blues metal with Jack White.” RS500 He said, “she took just sort of a sketch of a lyrical outline and turned it into the most bodacious, vicious, incredible song.” WK The song uses an excerpt from a Malcolm X speech and samples Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks,” a song originally performed by Memphis Minnie that referenced the displacement of hundreds of thousands of African Americans during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. WK That song and Daddy Lessons, on which she goes “outlaw country,” RS500 illustrate how genres established by African Americans are now seen predominantly as white music. WK “After the first three-quarters play out in compelling if somewhat erratic fashion, Lemonade closes with a torrid stretch. Freedom is a marching anthem of resilience and preservation, produced by Just Blaze with a glowing guest verse from Kendrick Lamar.” AMG “All Night is a tangle of emotions and hints at reconciliation, facilitated by the horns from OutKast’s ‘Spottie Ottie Dopaliscious.’ And then, at last, there's the strutting ‘Formation,’ simultaneously a tack-on and an ideal finale, where Beyoncé delights in her blackness, femininity, and Southern origin with supreme wordplay.” AMG Notes: The streaming edition of the album included a demo of “Sorry.” A sixty-five minute film aired on HBO which featured 11 chapters which corresponded to the songs on the album. It was released as a second disc to Lemonade.

Resources and Related Links: AMG All Music Guide review by Andy Kellman RS500 Rolling Stone (9/22/2020). “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 9/24/2020; last updated 4/21/2022.

Jimi Hendrix’s The Cry of Love released posthumously

The Cry of Love Jimi Hendrix

Recorded: 3/13/68 to 8/24/70 Released: March 5, 1971 Peak: 8 US, 2 UK, 3 CN, -- AU, 12 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 1.0 US Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. Freedom [3:25] Drifting [3:48] Ezy Ryder [4:10] Night Bird Flying [3:50] My Friend [4:38] Straight Ahead [4:42] Astro Man [3:32] Angel [4:25] In from the Storm [3:41] Belly Button Window [3:37] Total Running Time: 39:48 The Players: Jimi Hendrix (vocals, guitar, etc.) Billy Cox (bass) Mitch Mitchell (drums)

First Rays of the New Rising Sun Jimi Hendrix

Recorded: 3/13/68 to 8/24/70 Released: April 22, 1997 Peak: 49 US, 37 UK, -- CN, -- AU, 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK), 6.04 EAS Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. Freedom Izabella Night Bird Flying Angel Room Full of Mirrors Dolly Dagger Ezy Ryder Drifting Beginnings Stepping Stone My Friend Straight Ahead Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) Earth Blues Astro Man In from the Storm Belly Button Window Total Running Time: 69:27 Other Songs from This Era Recorded 6/26/70 to 8/24/70: Pali Gap Come Down Hard on Me The Players: Jimi Hendrix (vocals, guitar, etc.) Billy Cox (bass) Mitch Mitchell (drums)

Rating (The Cry of Love): 3.887 out of 5.00 (average of 8 ratings) Rating (First Rays of the New Rising Sun): 4.183 out of 5.00 (average of 8 ratings) Awards (The Cry of Love/First Rays of the New Rising Sun): (Click on award to learn more).

The First Posthumous Hendrix Album “Posthumous reconstructions of unfinished works are inherently dangerous, principally because even the most capable scholar or producer can only make, at best, an educated guess as to how the work in question would have been completed.” AM2 “Hendrix had gone so long between albums, seemingly adrift stylistically at various times, that there’s no telling exactly what direction he was finally going to end up working toward.” AM2 The Cry of Love Cry of Love “was the first of the posthumous releases in the Jimi Hendrix catalog and probably the best as it collected most of the studio tracks that were either completed or very near completion before Hendrix died.” AM1 “Eddie Kramer and Mitch Mitchell sat down to organize his library of half-finished tapes and arrange them into an album. Mitch played a whole lot of things again and added new stuff where something was missing. The state of the songs ranged from Night Bird Flyingand Freedom, which was almost finished, to Angel and Drifting, that was missing serious amounts of work. After five months, the record was ready for release.” AK The Cry of Love was a “flawed, single disc” AM2 featuring material that was “tampered with, mostly in the form of posthumous overdubbed embellishments supervised by producer Alan Douglas.” AM2 First Rays of the New Rising Sun “After years of legal wrangling,” CD Hendrix’s family “wrested control of Hendrix’s estate from the vile Alan Douglas.” WA They “made a genuine effort to reconstruct Hendrix’s final project,” WA an intended double-album sequel to Electric Ladyland which was tentatively to be called First Rays of the New Rising Sun. It was initially intended as a double-album sequel to Electric Ladyland. It included “all of Cry of Love, plus seven tracks that had been the high points of the two cash-in albums that followed (1971’s Rainbow Bridge and 1972's War Heroes).” JA “Even though all of these tracks had been released on assorted LPs a quarter-century earlier, the disc does bring together classics like the blazingly psychedelic Room Full of Mirrors and the thundering Dolly Dagger, and it also features only the original performances and mixes [as opposed to the Alan Douglas versions with added session musicians]…The solid track listing and respectful presentation make the collection nearly as essential as Hendrix's three classic studio albums.” WA Of course, the nature of a posthumous release is such that no one can know for sure exactly what Hendrix might have released, including the title and which songs appeared on it “or what embellishments he would have added to any of them in the course of completing them, or even if he might not have totally reconsidered such matters as tempo and approach to any of them.” AM2 However, First Rays offers “the best representation of where the songs were at the point that he died.” AM2 It was “presented in drastically improved sound” AM1 and “lovingly produced by Hendrix’s studio collaborators” GD with the overdubbing “stripped off and the multi-track masters retrieved and restored.” AM2 It is “fully competitive, in terms of merits and surprises, with his trio of completed studio albums.” AM2 It “is a beautiful, poignant testimonial, a fitting coda to the career of a man who was clearly the finest electric guitarist to be produced by the Sixties, bar none.” RS “Hendrix remains the center of a musical universe whose light was snuffed out far too soon.” CD Transition to More Serious Musician? The album “allows us to see the many sides of this innovative artist.” CD This is an “earthier successor to Electric Ladyland's psychedelic excursions.” AM2 “Hendrix appeared to be in transition between flamboyant showman and serious musician personas at the time (meaning his work, had he lived, might have been twice as meritorious and half as fun), and that makes many of these tracks all the more interesting.” AZ “Hendrix's voice is not only powerful and expressive throughout, but a more melodic instrument than it seemed on his earlier releases.” AM2 “Partly this is because Hendrix and engineer Eddie Kramer never finished embellishing the songs or completed the final mixes. But whatever the reasons, the change is refreshing.” AM2 “These tracks work as individual compositions.” RC There are “songs here… [that] show him finally” AM2 “embracing R&B and funk elements in his singing, playing, and overall sound.” AM2 The Songs Below is a breakdown of songs recorded by Hendrix from 6/26/70 to 8/24/70. This includes all songs from The Cry of Love except “ My Friend,” which was recorded 3/3/68 so is included on the page for Electric Ladyland.

Earth Blues Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 12/19/69, 1/20/70, 6/26/70 at Record Plant & Electric Lady in New York City Released: 2/18/2013 (single), Rainbow Bridge (soundtrack, 1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: 21 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.97 streaming About the Song: Earth Blues features a guest appearance from the Ronettes. CD

Stepping Stone Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 11/14/69 and 6/26/70 (overdubs) at the Record Plant in New York City Released: War Heroes (1972), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: 46 CL, 21 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.66 streaming About the Song: Stepping Stone showcases Hendrix’s “runaway flights of fancy.” CD

Drifting Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 6/29/70 Released: The Cry of Love (1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: 24 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 6.37 streaming About the Song: “A beautiful guitar figure opens [Drifting, soft and formless, and waits as the rest of the instruments slowly slide in, seemingly revolving one around the other.” RS The song demonstrates how “Hendrix had the uncanny knack of molding his music perfectly to his lyrics.” RS “Hendrix' vocal is right up front, almost studied, filled with lovely images of ‘Driftin’/On a sea of forgotten teardrops/On a lifeboat ...’ and floating off from there. It's a ghostly cut, one of the most moving pieces Hendrix ever created, and it says much for the breadth and scope of his talent.” RS

Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) (aka “Gypsy Boy (New Rising Sun)”) Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 7/1/70 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City Released: Rainbow Bridge (soundtrack, 1971), Midnight Lightning (1975), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 7.51 streaming About the Song: A

Pali Gap Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 7/1/70 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City Released: Rainbow Bridge (soundtrack, 1971) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 8.39 streaming About the Song: A

Beginning (aka “Beginnings”) Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Mitch Mitchell Recorded: 6/16/70 and/or 7/1/70 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City Released: War Heroes (1972), Midnight Lightning (1975), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.47 streaming About the Song: The instrumental Beginnings sports “a fantastic riffing exercise.” GS

Come Down Hard on Me Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 7/15/70 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City Released: Loose Ends (1974), Crash Landing (1975) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.25 streaming About the Song: A

Angel Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 7/23/70, 8/20/70 Released: 3/8/71 (B side of “Freedom”), The Cry of Love (1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: 12 CL, 4 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 21.34 streaming About the Song: “Night Bird Flying” and Angel are both “offhand rhapsodies,” RC but on the latter “blazing, confessional ballad,” GS “Jimi's tortured soul steps on the surface and he lets go with a blazing, confessional ballad…that rivals 'Little Wing' as his most emotional piece of writing.” GS “If whoever put together [this album] had a flair for the melodramatic, ‘Angel’ might have been placed at the end of the record, its deathlike images of salvation and resurrection providing the final touch to a memorial album. But programmed as it is…it stands on its own merits, a beautiful piece of work.” RS

Freedom Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 8/20/70 Released: 3/8/71 (single), The Cry of Love (1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) B Side: “Angel” Peak: 59 BB, 76 CB, 62 HR, 20 CL, 16 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 20.42 streaming About the Song: “Freedom, all flashes and exuberance, …pointedly sets the tone for the record.” RS It is “a scorching blues tune with precise and thought out, Creamy licks that we're not grown to expect” GS of Hendrix. It is “one of Hendrix' best, full of straining tensions and masterful releases, ripping along at a pace that is not to be believed, picking up speed as it goes. Hendrix always knew how to kick a band, and he is at his peak here. Mitch Mitchell follows him along perfectly and shows a few of the reasons why he was always Hendrix' greatest foundation.” RS

Straight Ahead Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 8/20/70 Released: The Cry of Love (1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.46 streaming About the Song: On Straight Ahead, “Hendrix plays a nice wah-wah guitar, but the song is dragged down by some fairly obvious Socially Significant lyrics and a lethargic reading.” RS

Dolly Dagger Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 6/25/70, 7/14/70, 7/19/70, 8/14/70, 8/20/70 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City Released: 10/23/71 (single), Rainbow Bridge (soundtrack, 1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) B Side: “The Star Spangled Banner” Peak: 74 BB, 94 CB, 94 HR, 8 CL, 18 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 8.23 streaming About the Song: There’s also "the thundering Dolly Dagger.” JA

Room Full of Mirrors Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 11/17/69, June ’70, July ’70, 8/20/70 at Record Plant and Electric Lady Studios in New York City Released: Rainbow Bridge (soundtrack, 1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: 27 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 3.41 streaming About the Song: “The blazingly psychedelic Room Full of Mirrors” JA exhibits Hendrix’s ability to craft “overcharged rock/funk explosions.” CD “The unique guitar tone…turns it into a head-spinning psychedelic experience.” GS

Ezy Ryder Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 8/22/70 Released: The Cry of Love (1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: 27 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 5.74 streaming About the Song: “Ezy Ryder is a rocker, plain and simple, and Hendrix and Co. light into it with a fury. The guitar leads are short and to the point, and there isn't a wasted moment. The cut fades at the end and then returns with a sudden lick, almost as an afterthought – a nice touch.” RS This is also one of the songs where “famous friends dot the sonic landscape (Steve Winwood and Chris Wood).” CD

Night Bird Flying Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 8/22/70 Released: The Cry of Love (1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: 27 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 5.11 streaming About the Song: "Night Bird Flying starts sluggishly, as if most of the musicians weren't quite sure what to do with it, but picks up a little as Hendrix begins to jam with his own guitar work on another track.” RS

Astro Man Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 8/22/70 Released: The Cry of Love (1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: 27 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.27 streaming About the Song: Along with “Ezy Ryder,” Astro Man stands as an example of one of Hendrix’s “primal riffsongs.” RC “This one has the most incomplete feel, with nobody really sure of where the song is heading. Yet building from [its] science fiction chords…it easily overcomes any of its deficiencies, loose limbed and rocking at every turn.” RS It also "captures a light moment for the artist, as he opens the guitar workout with a quote from the Mighty Mouse theme song…beneath the guitar.” AM2

Belly Button Window Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 8/22/70 Released: The Cry of Love (1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.41 streaming About the Song: Like “My Friend,” Belly Button Window, is another of Hendrix’s “inspired goofs.” RC It is also “one of his most successful traditional bluesy outings,” AM2 “a kind of slow and mellow blues which Hendrix performs accompanied only by his guitar, a sly smile on his face, a few light whistles as the fade comes in.” RS

In from the Storm Jimi Hendrix

Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix Recorded: 8/24/70 Released: The Cry of Love (1971), First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997) Peak: 27 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.52 streaming About the Song: The “frantic In from the Storm, [shows] Hendrix shining at his most furious, changing the structure of the song three or four times until things finally run out of steam.” RS

Resources/References: AM1 AllMusic.com review of The Cry of Love by Sean Westergaard AM2 AllMusic.com review by Bruce Eder & Cub Koda JA warr.org review by John Alroy AZ Amazon.com review by Steven Solder CD CD Universe RC Robert Christgau review of The Cry of Love GD Gary Graff & Daniel Durchholz. (1999). Music Hound: Rock – The Essential Album Guide. Visible Ink Press: Farmington Hills, MI. RS Rolling Stone (4/1/1971). Review of The Cry of Love by Lenny Kaye. GS George Starostin DBW warr.org review by David B. Wilson Related DMDB Pages: First posted 9/6/2006; last updated 7/28/2026.

   

Neil Young “Rockin’ in the Free World” charted

Rockin’ in the Free World Neil Young

Writer(s): Neil Young (see lyrics here) Released: November 14, 1989 First Charted: September 23, 1989 Peak: 2 AR, 39 CN, 5 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 27.6 video, -- streaming

Awards (Neil Young): Click on award for more details. Awards (Pearl Jam): Click on award for more details. Awards (Indigo Girls): Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Some music fans don’t want to see politics in rock ‘n’ roll, but “artists like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan have woven politics seamlessly into the fabric of their music, chronicling the American condition over decades. And anger has always been part of the backbone of rock music, whether the singer’s angry at the government, another man, or a girl who’s done him wrong.” UCR “When the result is a barnburner like Neil Young ‘Rockin’ in the Free World,’ it’s hard to deny the value of self-righteous rage when it comes to penning a classic tune.” UCR “Young captured that anger perfectly with ‘Ohio’ in the wake of the Kent State shootings in 1970, and he did it again in 1989.” UCR “There may be no better explosion of rage on record than ‘Rockin’ in the Free World.’” UCR “It feels like decades of rage over every betrayal of the American promise, spitting out line by line and lick by lick over three and a half minutes.” UCR “Whatever your political leanings, there’s plenty to love about this track, not least of which is the simple gut-punch riff that churns throughout the tune. Young shreds away at his guitar with the ferocity of a pissed-off teenager in his garage, spitting out words that were a scathing indictment of America under George H.W. Bush, but seem timeless decades years later, especially when his attention turns to a baby in the arms of a poor drug addict living on the streets: ‘There’s one more kid / That will never go to school / Never get to fall in love / Never get to be cool.’” UCR The song has been widely covered by other artists including the Alarm, Pearl Jam, Indigo Girls, and Bon Jovi. On my personal charts, Pearl Jam and Indigo Girls each got to #1 with their versions. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Neil Young UCR UltimateClassicRock.com (6/20/2013). “Top 100 Classic Rock Songs” WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 7/31/2022.

Wham! hit #1 in UK with Make It Big

First posted 5/30/2008; updated 11/29/2020.

Make It Big Wham!

Released: November 5, 1984 Peak: 13 US, 12 UK, 1 CN, 12 AU Sales (in millions): 6.0 US, 1.2 UK, 13.8 world (includes US and UK) Genre: pop

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (5/26/84, 13 US, 12 CB, 12 RR, 4 AC, 12 UK, 14 CN, 17 AU, sales: 2.84 million) Everything She Wants (12/15/84, 1 US, 4 AC, 12 RB, sales: ½ million) Heartbeat Like a Baby Freedom (10/13/84, 3 US, 1 UK, 4 AC) If You Were There Credit Card Baby Careless Whisper (8/4/84, 13 US, 14 CB, 12 RR, 15 AC, 8 RB, 13 UK, 12 CN, 14 AU, sales: 6 million) Total Running Time: 38:02 The Players: George Michael (vocals, keyboards) Andrew Ridgeley (guitar, backing vocals)

Rating: 3.952 out of 5.00 (average of 11 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “The title was a promise to themselves, Wham!’s assurance that they would make it big after struggling out of the gates the first time out. They succeeded on a grander scale than they ever could have imagined, conquering the world and elsewhere with this effervescent set of giddy new wave pop-soul, thereby making George Michael a superstar and consigning Andrew Ridgeley to the confines of Trivial Pursuit.” AMG “It was so big and the singles were so strong that it’s easy to overlook its patchwork qualities. It’s no longer than eight tracks, short even for the pre-CD era, and while the four singles are strong, the rest is filler, including an Isley Brothers cover. Thankfully, it’s the kind of filler that’s so tied to its time that it’s fascinating in its stilted post-disco dance-pop rhythms and Thatcher/Reagan materialism – an era that encouraged songs called Credit Card Baby.” AMG “If this dichotomy between the A-sides and B-sides is far too great to make this essential, the way Faith later would be, those A-sides range from good to terrific. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go is absolute silliness whose very stupidity is its strength, and if Everything She Wants is merely agreeable bubblegum, Freedom is astounding, a sparkling Motown rip-off rippling with spirit and a timeless melody later ripped off by Noel Gallagher.” AMG “Then, there’s the concluding Careless Whisper, a soulful slow one where Michael regrets a one-night stand over a richly seductive background and a yearning saxophone. It was an instant classic, and it was the first indication of George Michael’s strengths as a pop craftsman – which means it points the way to Faith, not the halfhearted Edge of Heaven.” AMG The album reached #1 in the UK in November 1984. Three months later, it topped the charts in the United States as well.

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Wham! DMDB encyclopedia entry for George Michael AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine