Chart Week: June 20, 1987
\nSong: \u201cI Want Your Sex\u201d – George Michael
\nChart Position: #36, 3rd week on the chart. Peaked at #2 the week of August 8.<\/p>\n
Hey, a countdown that landed on my birthday! How did I celebrate turning 16? Well, we lived in San Leandro, CA at the time, and had dinner the night before at a seafood restaurant I loved in San Francisco. Being the Bay Area, it was like 50 and dreary. In late June. I wore a sweater and jeans to my birthday dinner, where on my first day at my new school the previous January, I had worn a t-shirt and shorts. Bay Area will always Bay Area.<\/p>\n
I also spent much of the night pouting because my parents thought it would be hilarious to get me a Hot Wheels car as a joke gift instead of the real car I wanted. I had no concept of how expensive cars were, so I was an ungrateful ass and refused to talk to them while they laughed at me.<\/p>\n
Michael Jackson isn\u2019t the only Giant of the Eighties I (unintentionally) ignored in the first 100 posts in this series. I have yet to get to his sister Janet, who on this countdown with \u201cThe Pleasure Principle\u201d became the first female solo artist to have six Top 40 singles from one album. Madonna is a Mount Rushmore of the Eighties artist, and I\u2019ve posted about her zero times.<\/p>\n
The final super-mega star of the era finally makes their RFTS debut this week, thanks to a bit of commonly accepted AT40 trivia that I discovered to be incorrect.<\/p>\n
George Michael hit #1 eight times in the Eighties. He did so as a member of Wham!, as a solo artist, and on his duet with Aretha Franklin, \u201cI Knew You Were Waiting (For Me).\u201d Tom Breihan has spent a lot of time covering Michael\u2019s career, so there\u2019s not much room for me to add anything new.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n While both \u201cCareless Whisper\u201d and \u201cA Different Corner\u201d were, officially, solo tracks, they appeared on Wham! albums. Thus, \u201cI Want Your Sex\u201d seemed like the proper beginning of his solo career. I\u2019m not sure anyone was ready for the wholesome voice behind Wham! to morph into anything like this.<\/p>\n The song initially didn\u2019t make much of an impact on me. For sure it was racy and suggestive, but as I wasn\u2019t a big Michael fan, I didn\u2019t devote much attention to it. It probably meant more to me that it was on the Beverly Hills Cop 2<\/em> soundtrack.<\/p>\n Until the video hit MTV.<\/p>\n Holy smokes!<\/p>\n Michael\u2019s girlfriend Kathy Jeung prancing around in lingerie and the couple frolicking together in satin sheets seemed like a late-night Cinemax movie being played every 90 minutes all day long. Remember back when MTV would tell you the exact times when they were going to play new videos? I doubt many teenage boys missed those premiere times for \u201cI Want Your Sex.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking back, like most things that were edgy 40 years ago, the video seems pretty tame today. You see more graphic, sexually suggestive scenes in promos for prime time shows that run during daytime sporting events. I bet if you showed the video to a 16-year-old boy today it wouldn\u2019t register much given what they have access to. I mean, they would probably still watch it, but its impact would be dramatically different than how it affected their dads.<\/p>\n It is also funny how many of us teenage horndogs were completely dubious of Michael\u2019s relationship with Jeung. Could a British guy who looked, sang, and danced like him really be into a woman who looked like that? Or any woman for that matter? We weren\u2019t familiar with the term \u201cbeard\u201d yet, but I bet there was about 99% consensus in my friend group that Michael wasn\u2019t really into her.<\/p>\n Turns out we were mostly right. Michael and Jeung had a genuine relationship, but he was also struggling to come to terms with being a gay man living in the public eye.<\/p>\n As for that piece of AT40 trivia I debunked\u2026<\/p>\n When people talk about \u201cI Want Your Sex\u201d and the various controversies around it – the refusal by many radio stations to play it, the video and the disclaimers Michael eventually added saying the song was not about casual sex – they often claim that Casey Kasem never uttered its title during the song\u2019s 13 weeks on American Top 40. A quick web search will return many sites that make this claim.<\/p>\n Turns out that is not true.<\/p>\n In this, the track\u2019s debut week on AT40, Casey introduced it by saying it might be difficult for some listeners to hear, as many radio stations were refusing to play it. He called it \u201cGeorge Michael\u2019s latest hit,\u201d but indeed identified it by its full title both before and after spinning it. For the rest of its chart run, it remained only \u201cGeorge Michael\u2019s latest hit,\u201d or some variation on that. Which is weird. Michael sings the full title six times, so Casey not saying it doesn\u2019t really change things.<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/Gl-XwsCgOG8?si=atdFbGt1eGxvaihR<\/p>\n For small town America, \u201cI \u201cWant Your Sex\u201d was far too overt. For the urban centers where the AIDS epidemic was spreading out of the gay community into the larger population, singing so directly about the joys of sex seemed irresponsible. Casey was always loyal to the hundreds of stations that carried his show, and I guess he was giving those program directors an assist by not saying the title and including directions for how to skip the song in each countdown\u2019s cue sheet<\/a>.<\/p>\n That reluctance by some radio stations to play \u201cI Want Your Sex\u201d probably kept it from reaching #1, a momentary speed bump in Michael\u2019s career. Casey never played favorites with songs, but I bet he was relieved that \u201cI Want Your Sex\u201d fell just short of the top spot and stations across the country didn\u2019t skip the end of the countdown.<\/p>\n The weirdest thing about \u201cI Want Your Sex,\u201d to me at least, is the irony in its title. For a song explicitly about sex, it\u2019s not very sexy. Wait, that\u2019s not true. From the porno-soundtrack bounce of the electric bass, synthesizers, and cowbell, to Michael\u2019s growling voice on his most insistent lines, there is plenty of sex here. However, there is nothing subtle about it. There are no clever, winking innuendos. It is raw, direct, and nakedly about lust, without any sense of seduction or romance. What once seemed titillating and provocative now comes across as over-the-top and, more than anything else, kind of silly. Could you ever sing this song with a straight face, as opposed to \u201cLet\u2019s Get It On,\u201d or \u201cAin\u2019t To Proud To Beg\u201d?<\/p>\n It reminds me of two drunk people, as they are closing down their third bar of the night, clumsily deciding to go home together. It\u2019s a physical transaction, devoid of romance, more focused on the end result than the process of getting there.<\/p>\n Michael didn\u2019t seem to love the song, either. He never performed it live after 1989 and refused to include it in two different greatest hits collections. In 2008 he described it as \u201ca bad Prince song,\u201d which is both harsh and pretty funny.<\/p>\n \u201cI Want Your Sex\u201d was very effective in serving as a hard break from the more innocent sound of Wham! as Michael transitioned to the music he felt represented him best. To me, though, it suffers because his songs that followed over the next year were so much better. 6\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n