My Top 100, No. 4: "Freedom '90" by George Michael

I've got an intellectual appreciation for so many of these songs, but "Freedom '90" is just so much the fuckin' jam it makes me regret wearing out the phrase "the fuckin' jam" on so many lesser songs throughout this project.

A while back, a friend of mine moved away for a year and started showing up in Facebook pictures with a girl, whom he never said anything about until he got back. When asked who she was, he just giggled nervously and said, "Well, she's the light of my life." And that's pretty much how I feel about "Freedom '90," as songs go.

So I'm going to list, in no particular order, my eight favorite things about this song and its accompanying music video.

1. It's called "Freedom '90" because Wham! already had a song called "Freedom," which is actually pretty decent. I'm still not entirely sure what Andrew Ridgeley did.
2. The chorus to "Freedom" gets played on the organ and sampled in the intro to the music video for "Faith." 
3. The iconic jukebox, guitar and leather jacket from "Faith" get lit on fire and/or blown up in the "Freedom '90" video.
4. George Michael is more attractive than most of the supermodels who appear in this video.
5. David Goddamn Fincher directed the music video.
6. That's a pretty nifty piano part, which nobody ever talks about.
7. The chorus has one of the best countermelodies in modern pop music, with the "Freedom / Freedom / Freedom / You've got to give for what you take" climbing with sort of a gospel choir feel; meanwhile, the first verse--"I won't let you down / I will not give you up / Gotta have some faith in the sound / It's the one good thing that I've got"--dances in the white space under the chorus. 
8. In part because of that, and in part because of its length, "Freedom '90" has a ton of words to it. You could read the words to "Brothers in Arms" about 20 times in one readthrough of "Freedom '90," which makes sense because George Michael sings best, while Mark Knopfler plays guitar best.

It's ironic, that a song that's ostensibly about being disillusioned with celebrity culture is this joyful and, even without the music video, ostentatiously glamorous. It takes a special kind of singer, and indeed, celebrity, to make "Freedom '90" work. You can't pull this off unless you're George Michael, and if you don't believe me, get a load of the Robbie Williams version. Seriously, fuck outta here, Robbie Williams, thou vile pretender. Thou store-brand anglo Jordan Knight crossed with a store-brand Mirror Universe Liam Gallagher.

There is only one George Michael, and he writes and sings the fuckin' jam, with joy and virtuosity emanating from his lips and hands, as heat rises from the core of the Earth.