10 Perfect Pop Albums Of The 1980s
8. Faith - George Michael
When you start off in show business from a young age, it gets a little bit harder for people to take you seriously once you've grown up. Though we've seen this a lot more these days with the likes of Justin Timberlake or Miley Cyrus, the only breakout child star that everyone still adored at the time may have just been Michael Jackson making his way out of his brothers' shadow. Once George Michael grew out the facial hair though, we were in for something a lot more sophisticated.
Breaking out of the confines of WHAM, Faith is George getting a lot more comfortable in his own skin, going for a James Dean style look and ruling the world with one ballad after another like Father Figure and One More Try. Don't go thinking that George is trying on a Michael Buble brand of ballads or anything. Working with some of the best producers in the world, George touches on any genre that will have him, going for an almost rockabilly sound to kick everything off on the title track and eventually bringing out the funkier side of his sound on tracks like I Want Your Sex and Monkey.
If those last song titles didn't tip you off either, this album isn't exactly subtle in its topics, going for something that was a bit more raunchy than the likes of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. The end of the '80s was looking like a much different decade, and George was more than ready to get in touch with his mature side.