10:39
26 Dec

Getty Images
That’s all from us today on this Music News LIVE George Michael tribute special.

Scroll down for detailed reaction to the sad news of the singer’s death on Christmas Day, plus a look back at just why he was so well-loved by so many people.

We’ll leave you with this festive classic, that as of this Christmas just took on a whole new meaning.

Thanks for the memories George.

Warning: Third party content, may contain ads.


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Get Involved: Your favourite George Michael moment
Posted at
10:29
26 Dec
Here’s some more of your favourite George Michael moments then…

Mike Doyle said on Facebook: “My favourite song of George is the ones on his album Older, so awesome but love the rest too ❤❤❤❤”

Four hearts means Mike loves that record a lot.

Lynne Robinson said: “A Different Corner for me and my hubby but the whole of his music played such an important part in my life. He will be so missed.”

We heard you Lynne.

Sam Hankin added: “I was 7 years old, loved club tropicana, my first crush, careless whisper is my old time favourite song ever! Fastlove amazing song. He will be missed. R.I.P George. ”

So this absolute classic goes out to you then Sam…

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Thanks for all your varied suggestions today on Facebook, Twitter and email, reminding us of just how many hits George had in his arsenal.

Finally Sunshine suggests this soulful number from a more mature George in 1998.


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26 Dec
 BBC Music ✔ @bbcmusic
‘You gotta have faith!’  Tell us your favourite George Michael moment…http://bbc.in/2i7nHF8 pic.twitter.com/kyk4ww6xNq
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8:30 AM – 26 Dec 2016
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George Michael: Master craftsman of pop
Posted at
10:22
26 Dec

PA
From teenager pop idol in Wham! to his solo career as a serious independently minded artist, George Michael made pop work for him.

Music Reporter Mark Savage has a look at his career.

“Faith put him on a par with other 80s superstars like Michael Jackson and Madonna. In the US, it appealed equally to both black and white audiences, selling 20 million copies, and became the first album by a white act to top Billboard’s R&B chart.

“Michael was rightfully proud of the record’s musical diversity: ‘If you can listen to this album and not like anything on it, then you do not like pop music,’ he told Rolling Stone magazine.”

Read more

–partial content borrowed from the BBC for testing

After more than 15 years of piracy, scalping and other bogeymen who’ve shown up to slash jobs and loot artists, the music business’ 2016 was … not terrible.

There was Beyonce. And Drake. And Chance the Rapper, Rihanna, the return of Guns N’ Roses, Axl Rose fronting AC/DC, Justin Bieber and every song you could ever want streaming from one of a zillion different services. It’s not like the halcyon days of $18 CDs are back — or ever will be — but the record industry has grown for two straight years, the first time since 1999 and the Recording Industry Association of America reports music retail spending grew 8.1 percent in the first half of 2016. Plus, promoters figured out if you put the Who, the Stones and a bunch of other veteran rock superstars in a field, they could make $150 million. Six reasons to feel optimistic about Big Music in 2016:
1. Record labels are actually bringing in money.
YouTube recently announced it paid $1 billion to artists, publishers and record labels in 2016; the RIAA reported revenues jumped from $3.2 billion in mid-year 2015 to $3.4 billion this past half-year. That’s good news, but it’s not to say artists are suddenly getting rich again off their songs and albums. Over the summer, Eagles manager Irving Azoff ripped YouTube in an open letter, declaring: “You have built a business that works really well for you and for Google, but it doesn’t work well for artists.” Azoff has been leading a coalition of artists critical of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allows YouTube to post any song or video as long as it takes it down with an artist’s permission. “They’re working harder to get tools to make it easier for you to take stuff down,” Azoff tells Rolling Stone. “But I get no sense they’re getting ready to pay anything near what they should pay per user.”
2. The concert business is super-healthy.
Ticket sales jumped 3.1 percent by mid-year, according to Pollstar. Live Nation reported record-setting revenues in the third quarter and megastars such as Adele, the Rolling Stones, Beyonce, Madonna, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen (who grossed $170 million in the first half) were on the road. Plus, Beyonce, McCartney, Luke Bryan and Coldplay were among the many artists who filled stadiums—with more on the way next year. “It’s just strong,” says David Zedeck, Live Nation’s president of global talent. “There are bands playing stadiums and multiple arenas already in 2017. We’re coming off a strong year and ’17 is going to be the same way.”
3. The biggest festivals are bigger than ever.
Desert Trip, starring the Stones, McCartney, Bob Dylan, The Who and others, proved bigger than its “Oldchella” reputation, grossing an estimated $150 million last fall in Indio, California. And while Bonnaroo had an off-year, Coachella (600,000 fans) and Lollapalooza (400,000) scored record crowds.

–partial article borrowed from RollingStone for testing

Dear Julianne, Ann, and guests,

Well, hell, welcome to the 2016 Slate Music Club. This year-end critics’ roundtable has been running since 2002, so it’s seen some dark days, but in my own shorter tenure, I haven’t experienced a year when there was such a clear consensus, best expressed by Last Week Tonight With John Oliver: “Fuck you, 2016.”

I’m sure we’ll discuss the musical greats we lost this year, a byproduct mostly of boomer aging that’s only going to intensify. As the U.K. critic and producer Paul Morley put it in July, “Death is now the future of rock. Mourning will be a consistent thing for the next few years.” (We’ve been debating whether rock as a genre is “dead” for a long time; the metaphor is getting grimly literal.) But grief for fallen icons is a small weight to shoulder compared with the great spreading social and political Age of Dis-Enlightenment signaled by the twin shocks of the Brexit and Trump votes.

This makes 2016 in music a weird one to talk about, the major themes at once too obvious and too bewildering. Allow me to set the table with an opinionated recap, and then you folks can pull my chair out from under me and/or fill our plates with richer fare. I’ll also make a toast to my own favorite albums of 2016.

There was an unruly energy to the first third of the year, when we witnessed experiments in album form and content from Beyoncé, Kanye West, Rihanna, Chance the Rapper, and Kendrick Lamar. Perpetual procrastinator Frank Ocean’s Endless/Blonde diptych came later but belongs in that company, as our sometime Music Club member Lindsay Zoladz discussed in her Ringer year-end piece. With album sales scraping ever-lower lows, including a plummet in digital downloads, it’s clear that streaming is now the emperor of all media—the new label wars are between Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play, YouTube, and Tidal, etc., with Bandcamp and SoundCloud as the scrappy indies. The ontological status of the album has been in flux for years, but in a streaming context it’s more abstract than ever, totally malleable to the user’s whims as well as the artist’s.

–partial article borrowed from The Slate for testing.