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UK #1
US #6
1. Jesus To A Child
2. Fastlove
3. Older
4. Spinning The Wheel
5. It Doesn't Really Matter
6. The Strangest Thing
7. To Be Forgiven
8. Move On
9. Star People
10. You Have Been Loved
11. Free
Upper (bonus disc)
1. Fastlove (part 2)
2. Spinning The Wheel (Forthright Mix)
3. Star People '97
4. The Strangest Thing '97
5. You Know That I Want To
6. Safe
Jesus To A Child- UK #1, US #7, US R&B #22
Fastlove UK #1, US #8, US R&B #44
Spinning The Wheel- UK #2
Older/I Can't Make You Love Me- UK #3
Star People '97- UK #2, US Dance #1
You Have Been Loved/The Strangest Thing '97- UK #2
wiki entry:
Older found Michael experimenting with new musical styles and expanding his artistic horizons. Particularly notable was the jazz flavour of the albums sound. The album marked a departure to the synthesised production of his previous projects, delivering a more organic sound with the inclusion of brass and strings. Michael was particularly inspired by the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim, who died in 1994, and to whom the album was dedicated. Another big influence was the album's producer, Johnny Douglas, who has mixed several George Michael songs as B-sides. They first met when Douglas produced Lisa Moorish's version of "I'm Your Man" in 1995, to which Michael added backing vocals. They both began to work together soon after, and they co-wrote "Spinning the Wheel" together and also co-wrote and produced "Fastlove". Douglas also played keyboards on those tracks.
Overall, the style of the album was melancholy, dark and sad. George Michael complemented this departure making a dramatic change of his clothes, hair style and overall appearance. The long hair, beard and jeans that represented him to the common knowledge during the late eighties, were replaced with a buzz cut and mostly leather clothes. Michael commented, on the The Oprah Winfrey Show about that new appearance:
"The way my image changed in Europe was that I looked very different, I had very short hair—I had really a kind of gay look in a way. I think I was trying to tell people I was okay with it, I just really didn't want to share it with journalists. The album I made in the middle nineties called Older was a tribute to Anselmo, really; there was a dedication to him on the album and fairly obvious male references. To my fans and the people that were really listening, I felt like I was trying to come out with them."
Michael grew back a longer hair style during 1998, as was first shown on the video he recorded for "Outside", premiered near the end of that year.
Older was a huge commercial success, specially in the European markets. In the UK the album was largely anticipated, and debuted at No.1 with an impressive 281,000 copies, becoming one of the biggest debuts ever in British history (it currently ranks as the 23rd fastest-selling album in the UK). It is also Virgin's fastest-selling album of all time. It became Michael's biggest-selling album in his homeland, achieving over 1.8 million copies sold, and receiving a 6xPlatinum certification by the BPI on 5 December 1997. In the UK, it spent a total of 147 weeks inside the Top 200, 99 of them on the Top 75, and 35 of them on the Top 10 (including 23 consecutive weeks). The steady sales of the album were the result of good promotion market and the release of six hit singles throughout a 2-year period. All of these singles (except for the one for the title track) were released and promoted as EP's, in two available formats, most of them containing previously unreleased material (including live tracks, alternate versions and, in the case for the "Spinning the Wheel E.P", two new studio recordings of brand-new George Michael compositions). Most of these singles were promoted with live performances at Top of the Pops and also music videos were recorded for the four first singles. All of this helped to push the album sales from one week to another, with the album usually returning to the Top 10 in the British charts. For example, when "Star People '97" was released in mid-1997, Older achieved a 21-14-10-7 progression on the charts. Very much the same happened when "You Have Been Loved" was issued as the sixth single (fourteen months after the original release of the album), and Older showed a 24-14-7 move on the UK charts. In all, Older currently sits as the 97th best selling album of all time in the United Kingdom.
In the United States, the album was received with lukewarm success. There (and in Canada), the album release was particularly notable as it was the first album released by the now-defunct DreamWorks Records. It was preceded nicely, with "Jesus to a Child" and "Fastlove" reaching the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, but debut sales for the album were very disappointing – the album only reached No.6 in the Billboard 200, it slipped down the charts very quickly, and in all it just sold over one million copies.
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