And from the 'For What It's Worth' department; their "Club Fantastic Megamix" was their only non-Top 10 record of their eleven charted records, it peaked at #15... Ridgeley explained that the name originated from a need for "something that captured the essence of what set us apart—our energy and our friendship—and then it came to us: Wham! Wham! was snappy, immediate, fun and boisterous too." [10] British graphic design studio Stylorouge was credited with adding the exclamation mark to the name of the band. [11] Pennanen, Timo (2021). "Wham!". Sisältää hitin - 2. laitos Levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla 1.1.1960–30.6.2021 (PDF). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. p.280 . Retrieved 9 June 2022.

Tellingly, Michael released the lovelorn Careless Whisper under his name, as if he felt it didn’t fit with the brand he had helped create. More telling still was the release of his second solo single, A Different Corner, shortly before Wham! announced their split.It sounded like the start of an intriguing new chapter, but Michael’s musical legacy was already sealed years ago. His career showed that you could escape teen pop stardom with aplomb, or at least you could if you were Michael. Young Guns’ moved up the charts, but only as far as number 42. It hadn’t broken us into the all-important Top 40. While it was a huge step in the right direction, we were still in limbo. Because of their Top Of The Pops performance promoting the single, it wasn't long before both George and Andrew joined the rich and famous themselves. It did not make Billboard's Hot Top 100* chart, but on March 22nd, 1983 it peaked at #1 {for 2 weeks} on the Swedish 'Topplistan' Top Singles chart...

Jovanovic, R. (2015). George Michael: The biography. Little, Brown Book Group. p.35. ISBN 978-0-349-41124-8 . Retrieved 16 June 2019. Herbert, E. (2017). George Michael - The Life: 1963-2016: The Man, The Legend, The Music. John Blake Publishing. p.24. ISBN 978-1-78606-471-4 . Retrieved 17 June 2019. Wham! reunion rumours quashed by George Michael". ITV News. 20 June 2012 . Retrieved 29 December 2012.

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Herbert, E. (2017). George Michael - The Life: 1963-2016: The Man, The Legend, The Music. John Blake Publishing. p.27. ISBN 978-1-78606-471-4 . Retrieved 17 June 2019.

For a while, it looked like our appearance on Saturday Superstore might represent the dizziest heights of our success. Wham in China – Foreign Skies (1986) AKA Lindsay Anderson's If You Were There". Archived from the original on 5 March 2016 . Retrieved 11 December 2015. Young Guns’ had been released in September 1982, but with it only landing at number 73 in the charts, the odds of Wham! becoming internationally famous were lengthening by the day," says Andrew Ridgeley. Pictured George Michael and Dee C. Lee.

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The song was Wham!'s first hit, achieved with help from the BBC music programme Top of the Pops, which invited Wham! on to the show as a last-minute replacement for another act which had pulled out. The producer of Top of the Pops Michael Hurll, had seen them on another programme, Saturday Superstore. [2] Composition [ edit ] Just over five months later on August 14th, 1983 the duo would enter the Top 100 for the first time when "Bad Boys" debut at #90... Initially the pair wrote songs such as " Wham Rap (Enjoy What You Do)" and " Club Tropicana" together, but part way through the recording of their debut album Fantastic, the pair agreed that Michael was the stronger songwriter, and would take creative control. [14] Still teenagers, they promoted themselves as hedonistic youngsters, proud to live a carefree life without work or commitment. This was reflected in their earliest singles which, part-parody, part-social comment, briefly earned Wham! a reputation as a dance protest group. Wham! (briefly known in the US as Wham! UK) were an English pop duo formed in Bushey in 1981. [3] [4] The duo consisted of singers George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. They were one of the most successful pop acts during the 1980s, selling more than 30 million certified records worldwide from 1982 to 1986. [5]

Offiziellecharts.de – Wham! – Young Guns (Go for It)" (in German). GfK Entertainment charts. Retrieved 6 March 2016. Michael later claimed the album was another attempt to quietly reveal the fact that he was gay to his fans without involving the press. When the newspapers finally did get their story two years later, with his arrest for engaging in a lewd act in a Beverly Hills toilet, it seemed to reignite the sense of sly humour that had been largely absent from his work since Wham!’s demise. Harris, John (19 September 2008). "Sentenced to a lifetime of stress". theguardian.com . Retrieved 11 January 2017. At London's Wembley Stadium on 28 June 1986, Wham! bid goodbye to their fans and each other with an emotional embrace at the end of its final concert. 72,000 people attended the eight-hour event, [24] which included support artists, on a scorching hot day in London. The duo had been together for five years, selling over 28 million records and 15 million singles. Foreign Skies, the documentary of their tour of China, received its world premiere as part of the festivities. A powerful streak of knowing irony and camp ran through their music that’s perhaps easier to see in retrospect than it was at the time. Frequently depicted as the musical incarnation of the Thatcher era, they played benefit gigs for miners during the 1984-85 strike.The next single was " Freedom" and was simply promoted as a Wham! single. Wham! used a video edited together from footage of their tour in China for "Freedom"'s single release in the US, which was in July 1985. Their second album, Make It Big, climbed to No. 1 on the album charts and the band set off on an arena tour at the end of 1984. [24]