In October 1987 the 24-year-old George Michael released his first solo album, Faith. The title single “Faith” stood at #1 Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in December 1987. The album - #1 Billboard 200 and #1 UK Albums Chart. By 2024 Faith had sold 25 million copies worldwide, and the song “Faith” was one of the 10 most-streamed solo 80s tracks. More important than the charts: with this album George Michael closed the Wham! chapter and built the “serious solo artist” persona that would carry him for the next 30 years.
How George Michael reinvented himself
After the breakup of Wham! in June 1986, George (Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou) had two options: (1) continue as a pop star with dance hits, (2) become a serious singer-songwriter in the Boy George / Sting vein. He picked option two.
In a 1987 Smash Hits interview George said: “I was sick of being the perfectly groomed lad from Wham!. I wanted to show I could write difficult songs, produce myself, be more than a face on a poster. „Faith" is me saying: „I'm a grown man now"”.
The visual reinvention was radical. George grew a short beard, put on a leather jacket, Ray-Ban shades, fingerless leather gloves, and a white T-shirt. That look was built by stylist Ray Petri - a London stylist working out of The Face magazine. Petri also dressed Madonna during her “Like a Virgin” era - the “scruffy punk chic” silhouette trended 1987-89.
Recording: Sarm West Studios, London, February-April 1987
George Michael recorded “Faith” alone - he was producer, arranger, writer, and performer of every part. The only session player was Deon Estus on bass (who had played on “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”).
Tracking took place at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill (the same studio where Wham! cut “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”). The session ran six weeks - very fast for a career-defining album.
“Faith”'s main instrumental move is the rhythm acoustic guitar with a sharp attack. George plays a Gibson J-200 (12-string acoustic). It's not a typical “rock guitar” but a rockabilly tone referencing Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran from the 1950s. The guitar runs through a Sunrise Model 1 pickup into a Fender Twin Reverb tuned “cold” for that surf attack.
Over that - drum programming on a Roland TR-909 (not yet common in pop at the time; acid house would only claim the 909 as its main engine in 1988). George used the 909 for kick and snare, adding a live tambourine on top.
- Key: B major, no modulations
- BPM: 96
- Length: 3:16 (single), 3:14 (album)
- Producer: George Michael
- Album: Faith (30 October 1987, Epic Records)
- US sales: 10 million album copies (Diamond)
- Worldwide: 25 million album copies
- Single sales: 3 million US, 7 million worldwide
“I wrote „Faith" with one idea in my head: show that a pop song can be as nimble as rockabilly classics. Everyone said pop had to be heavy and serious. I wanted to prove - it can be light and smart.”
- George Michael, Rolling Stone, February 1988
Chart history
The single came out on 15 October 1987. By December - #1 Billboard Hot 100, four weeks. UK - #2 (held off by Pet Shop Boys' “Always on My Mind”). #1 in Canada, Australia, Netherlands. Germany - #2.
The Faith album held #1 Billboard 200 for 12 consecutive weeks - rare for a debuting solo artist. In 1988 the album won the Grammy for Album of the Year - the first time the award went to a solo pop artist (it usually went to rock albums).
Four #1 Billboard singles came from it: “Faith”, “Father Figure”, “One More Try”, “Monkey”. A fifth single “Kissing a Fool” reached #5. It was a unique 80s pop moment: a debut solo album where 5 of 11 tracks became top-5 hits.
Trans-album: from pop ideal to dark themes
Though “Faith” sounds like a rockabilly number, the rest of Faith is George Michael's revision of what “pop singer” means. “Father Figure” - a song about an age gap in a relationship (“I will be your father figure, put your tiny hand in mine”). “I Want Your Sex” (released as the first single, May 1987) - an explicit song about sex, banned on BBC 1 and on US Southern radio.
“I Want Your Sex” was even more provocative: George shot a video in which his then-girlfriend Kathy Jeung lay on a bed in lace lingerie while he wrote “explore monogamy” in red lipstick on her back. In 1987 that was scandalous - CNN, NBC, ABC refused to air it.
All of it was part of George's strategy - to present as a “mature artist”. By the end of 1988 he was the most commercially successful solo artist in the world (per Billboard Year-End ranking).
“Faith” as a rockabilly homage to Elvis Presley
Few notice: “Faith” is effectively a tribute to Elvis Presley. The song's structure, the rhythm guitar part, and George's vocal approach on the verse (with a light vibrato) are all direct references to Elvis's “Jailhouse Rock” (1957) and “Hound Dog” (1956).
George openly admitted this. In a 1988 MTV interview he said: “I wanted to make my version of „Jailhouse Rock". I listened to Elvis a thousand times in my teens. „Faith" is my love letter to him”.
There's a direct quotation too: the “Faith” intro carries a brief organ fragment from the Wham! song “Freedom”. George did it deliberately - “that was me then (Wham!), this is me now (solo). I've changed”.
Death and revival
George Michael died on 25 December 2016 at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. Cause: dilated cardiomyopathy, possibly aggravated by drug use. He was 53.
After his death all his albums spiked in sales. In January 2017 Faith returned to #1 UK Albums Chart - 29 years after its first appearance there. It was selling 80,000 copies a week. In that same January George Michael became the most-streamed artist on Spotify in the UK.
By 2024 “Faith” had crossed 1.2 billion Spotify streams. Limp Bizkit covered it in 1998 (poorly but notably), Fergie sampled it in 2006 on “Fergalicious”, Ariana Grande performed it on her 2015 “Honeymoon” tour as a tribute.
What to listen to next
For the “George Michael - from Wham! to solo” arc: “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” Wham! (1984) → “Careless Whisper” George Michael (1984) → “Faith” (1987). Three stages of an artist's evolution: pop ideal → ballad at the edge of going solo → rockabilly declaration.
For “solo albums of 1987 that defined the decade”, listen to Faith alongside Michael Jackson's Bad (August 1987) and Whitney Houston's self-titled reissue (June 1987). Three albums, each of which split the year into “before and after”.