on the Billboard 200 with 50,000 copies sold during the week of 28 November 1998, the next week it dropped to No.

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af "British certifications – George Michael".His cover of Nina Simone’s My Baby Just Cares For Me is melodic, frothy fun but the emotional heft of these orchestral reworkings is best seen in the wonderful A Different Corner and powerful Praying For Time with George altering the lyrics to “I sang 20 years and a day, but nothing changed/ The human race found some other guy and walked into the flames.

It included the singles " I Want Your Sex", " Faith" (the Billboard Hot 100 year-end number-one single of 1988 in the United States), " Father Figure", " One More Try"," Monkey" and Kissing A Fool. The songs are arranged on two complementing discs: the slower, ballady productions are on the first disc ("for the heart"), and the more dancey, poppy numbers are on the second ("for the feet"). It was released through Sony Music Entertainment as a condition of severing contractual ties with the label. The album contains songs mainly from Michael's solo career and two new songs: " An Easier Affair" and " This Is Not Real Love" (a duet with Mutya Buena, then a member of the Sugababes, and now a member of Mutya Keisha Siobhan). Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", "Too Funky", "Fastlove", "Jesus to a Child", "Spinning the Wheel", "Older", "Outside", "As", "Freeek!This time, though, further stylistic shifts are added to the mix including the social commentary anthemics of John Lennon on the beautiful, stately opener Praying For Time. In his career, Michael sold an estimated 100 million to 125 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time.

In 1992, Michael recorded " Too Funky", for the charity project Red Hot + Dance; the song reached number four in the UK and number ten in the US. Mother’s Pride, a heart-wrenching ballad about those whose lives have been torn apart by military conflict struck a chord with those families affected by the Gulf War of 1990/91. Few artists could tread into genuinely emotive tear-stained soul like George without resorting to mawkish over-sentimentality but his visceral examination of a fractured relationship on One More Try still sounds astonishing from the pen of someone aged only 24. Michael drafted in James Bond composer David Arnold to score Through and there are further Bondian references with a sample of John Barry’s Moonraker theme in Please Send Me Someone (Anselmo’s Song). Also superb are the sympathetic covers of Seal and Adamski’s Killer and soul gem Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone by The Temptations recorded at a separate Wembley Arena date.

Once more, the LP was mined for singles – there were six releases in all – three of which made the Top 10 in the UK and the LP went on to healthy sales of more than four million.

Track listing: "Waiting (Reprise)", "Fastlove", "I'm Your Man", "Flawless (Go to the City)", "Father Figure", "You Have Been Loved", "An Easier Affair", "Everything She Wants", "One More Try", "A Different Corner", "Too Funky", "Shoot the Dog", "John And Elvis Are Dead", "Faith", "Spinning the Wheel", "Feeling Good", "Roxanne", "My Mother Had a Brother", "Amazing", "Fantasy", "Outside", "Careless Whisper" and "Freedom! Equally intriguing is the rescue job he does on Elton John’s Idol, a by-now largely forgotten track on his 1976 album Blue Moves; its lyrics fit Michael’s defiant nature like a glove (“Bulldog stubborn, born uneven/ But don’t bet them, they can’t take him to the very bottom”). While it’s true that George used this as a stopgap between Older and the long-in-gestation Patience, such is the variety of source material on offer here that Songs From The Last Century makes for an unusual and rewarding runt in the Michael litter. Patience’s use of samples and reinterpretations continues on Flawless (Go To The City), which utilises US dance act The Ones’ Flawless as its foundation.

Also includes an interview with Michael Parkinson and a biography documentary about his music career. Alison Bellach from The Daily Vault gave the album an A− and wrote that "the collection is amazing" and that she was "pleased to note that the album included "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", a duet with Elton John recorded for the Duets album", but she complained about "the version of "I Want Your Sex" that was chosen" because according to her "the original was something I could laugh at or snicker about" and the chosen version "doesn't even afford the listener a standard melody. His next single was " White Light", and it was a commercial success, reaching number 15 on the UK Singles Chart.