George Michael - Faith (2011)

It seems almost from the start of his career with Wham!, George Michael was planning for the day he would “go solo”.

Of course, he didn’t bother waiting until Wham! split – Careless Whisper was a George Michael solo single, which also appeared as a Wham! track on their second album, Make It Big (in the US the song was credited to Wham! featuring George Michael).

By the time his second solo single, A Different Corner, was released in early 1986, Wham! had already announced that they would break-up that summer, leaving George a year to write and record his first solo album.

When the record finally came out in October 1987, no one expected it to be anything other than a success, but the scale of the success – especially in the US – was stunning. The album spent 12 weeks at no.1 in America that year, and spawned six Top 5 Billboard Hot 100 hits, four of which reached no.1. Faith became the best-selling album of 1988 in the US and sold 10 million copies.

22 years later the album has been remastered, repackaged and given generally given the ‘deluxe’ treatment.

Originally scheduled for September 2010, a four month delay ensued while George was (ahem) otherwise engaged, and the reissue of Faith finally hit the shops at the end of Jan 2011.

The album itself has been remastered with George’s full involvement and it sounds excellent. It was a full digital recording to begin with, which doesn’t always bode well for remasters, but there is lots of dynamic range and it is not too ‘loud’, as is often the way with lots of modern remasterings.

The album has aged much better than many from the same period. It still plays like a greatest hits collection and Faith, the single, still sounds like the phenomenal pop song that it is. It’s hard to imagine any music lover who has not heard this album (or at least many of the singles from it) but make no mistake, Faith is still a fantastic album.

However, since CD 1 as just the basic album most of us know and love – and probably already own – the bonus content on CD 2 should be the big attraction. So what has George dug out of his archives to persuade us to buy Faith, second time around?