George Michael - "Too Funky"

[POP!]

I think this one tends to get overlooked because it fell between Listen Without Prejudice Volume 1 and Older, and I believe was meant to be included on the shelved LWOPV2. A shame because it's STELLAR.

 

[RJN]

A 10 just like most of his 90s singles

I don’t think I’ve ever heard it outside of my own choice

 

[ZZ]

I LOVE this!
Effortlessly a 10

 

[funky]

I never go to this one out of choice but it’s still great

Usually gets overshadowed by much of his other stuff.

 

[lolly]

It very much is one of my go tos for him. It's just effortlessly immaculate in every respect, isn't it? And it really couldn't be by anyone other than him.

 

[POP!]

I’m quite partial these days to “Fantasy” too. From the same era, I think?

 

[funky]

There’s such a mythology around LWPV2 and it’s a tragedy it never happened and we had to wait 6 years for a follow up when he was in the peak of his career, creatively and commercially. I think it was all triggered by a charity album he was doing, there’s a couple of dance tracks on there that were meant for V2 in some form I believe, but Sony were micro managing him at every turn and rejected them for a studio album?

Not sure of the specifics but I imagine he wanted to explore more club music and Sony were worried it would alienate his older audience and his American audience …

 

[POP!]

I always assumed it was GM boycotting Sony than the other way around but I’m not 100% sure. He felt they allowed LWOPV1 to underperform /didn’t properly promote it. But then he also refused to appear in any of the videos or promo images for the project from the outset after being a visual oriented artist for Faith - so it’s kind of bewildering

 

[funky]

I always assumed it was GM boycotting Sony than the other way around but I’m not 100% sure. He felt they allowed LWOPV1 to underperform /didn’t properly promote it. But then he also refused to appear in any of the videos or promo images for the project from the outset after being a visual oriented artist for Faith - so it’s kind of bewildering

I think it was all of that and maybe a vicious cycle - he wasn’t supporting the promotion because of how they were promoting it. Similar in many ways to Prince round the same time (although some of WB’s choices with Prince were actually fair - he was impossible to manage when it came to promoting an album properly)

But I think there was some disagreement around the music direction. They wanted pop music, he didn’t.

 

[Sheena]

There’s such a mythology around LWPV2 and it’s a tragedy it never happened and we had to wait 6 years for a follow up when he was in the peak of his career, creatively and commercially. I think it was all triggered by a charity album he was doing, there’s a couple of dance tracks on there that were meant for V2 in some form I believe, but Sony were micro managing him at every turn and rejected them for a studio album?

Not sure of the specifics but I imagine he wanted to explore more club music and Sony were worried it would alienate his older audience and his American audience …

Some of the songs for LWPV2 turned up on "Red Hot And Dance", which was the second album in the AIDS charity series. With the exception of "Too Funky", which was the lead single, the other two are fairly middling from memory.

There are a few other bits and bobs from the era which appeared- Fantasy was released as a b-side in a remixed form during Older (and the original appeared on Ladies and Gentlemen) and I think some others appeared/ leaked, but there was nothing as stonking as Too Funky that emerged.

 

[Cerro de Casa]

I GOT to see you NAKED @funky
I'd LIKE to think that SOMETIME maybe
TONIGHT
My GOAL's in sight
Yeah