Faith by George Michael

Faith, George Michael's first solo album, came out on 30 October 1987 on Columbia in America and a few days later on Epic in Britain, and it's the sound of one half of Wham! stepping out on his own and growing up in public. He wrote and produced every song but one, "Look at Your Hands", a co-write with David Austin, and played plenty of the instruments himself. What he built is sleek, sinewy pop shot through with R&B, funk and blue-eyed soul: the hip-swinging strut of the title track, the brooding, churchy slow burn of "Father Figure", the aching "One More Try", the twitchy "Monkey". The lyrics turn inward, and their hints about his private life got the gossips talking.

All four of those songs went to number one on the Hot 100. The album topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, became the first by a white solo artist to top Billboard's Top Black Albums chart, won Album of the Year at the 31st Grammys and has sold more than 25 million copies.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.