..:: audio-music dot info ::..


Main Page      The Desert Island      Copyright Notice
 Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz


George Michael: Symphonica

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Virgin EMI Records
Released: 2014.03.14
Time:
 64:17
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): George Michael, Phil Ramone
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.georgemichael.com
Appears with: Wham!
Purchase date: 2014
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Through (G.Michael) - 5:09
[2] My Baby Just Cares for Me (W.Donaldson/G.Kahn) - 1:56
[3] A Different Corner (G.Michael) - 4:14
[4] Praying for Time (G.Michael) - 4:58
[5] Let Her Down Easy (T.T.D'Arby) - 3:50
[6] The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (E.MacColl) - 5:24
[7] Feeling Good (A.Newley/L.Bricusse) - 3:15
[8] John and Elvis Are Dead (G.Michael/D.Austin) - 4:31
[9] One More Try (G.Michael) - 5:14
[10] Cowboys and Angels (G.Michael) - 7:24
[11] Idol (E.John/B.Taupin) - 4:29
[12] Brother Can You Spare a Dime (E.Y.Harburg/J.Gorney) - 4:51
[13] Wild Is the Wind (D.Tiomkin/N.Washington) - 4:15
[14] You've Changed (B.Carey/C.Fischer) - 4:44

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


George Michael - Vocals, Design, Producer

Chris Cameron - Arranger, Keyboards, Musical Direction
Henry Hey - Arranger, Musical Direction, Piano
Mike Brown - Guitar
Ben Butler - Guitar
Graham Kearns - Guitar
Phil Palmer - Guitar
Danny Cummings - Percussion
David Finck - Bass, Double Bass
Andy Hamilton - EWI, Keyboards, Saxophone
Carlos Hercules - Drums
Mark McLean - Drums
Lea Mullen - Percussion
Luke Smith - Keyboards
Steve Walters - Bass

Jay Henry - Background Vocals
Lincoln Jean-Marie - Background Vocals
Lucy Jules - Background Vocals
Shirley Lewis - Background Vocals
Lori Perry - Background Vocals
Sharon Perry - Background Vocals

Symphonica Air Orchestra - Orchestra
Symphonica US Orchestra - Orchestra
Gavin Greenaway - Conductor
Rob Mathes - Arranger, Conductor
Steve Sidwell - Conductor

Phil Ramone - Producer
David Austin - Composer, Executive Producer, Mastering
Niall Flynn - Engineer, Mastering, Pro-Tools
Geoff Foster - Engineer
Frank Filipetti - Engineer
Adam Miller - Assistant Engineer, Pro-Tools
Laurence Anslow - Assistant Engineer
Tom Bailey - Assistant Engineer
Chris Barrett - Assistant Engineer
Fiona Cruickshank - Assistant Engineer
Olga Fitzroy - Assistant Engineer
Laurence Greed - Assistant Engineer
John Prestage - Assistant Engineer
Ray Staff - Mastering
Gordon Goodwin - Arranger
Rob Mounsey - Arranger
Torrie Zito - Arranger
James Jackman - Programming
Simon Halfon - Design
Caroline True - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Gestating for a long time - at least two years, although George Michael hasn't released an album for a decade - Symphonica is a curious way for the pop singer to return to action. A live album recorded on his 2011-2012 tour, Symphonica showcases a singer on the supper club circuit, trading in a few of his big hits, all middle-brow favorites ("Praying for Time," "One More Try," "A Different Corner") and spending a lot of time on songs the audience knows and love, whether it's Ewan MacColl's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," Anthony Newley's "Feeling Good," or the American Popular Songbook standard "My Baby Just Cares for Me." Michael does indulge in some personal favorites - he tackles Terence Trent D'Arby's "Let Her Down Easy" and the deep Elton John track "Idol" - but the context is something familiar: a popular singer luxuriating in a symphonic setting. He doesn't push the limits of this template, choosing to enjoy the lush surroundings, so this winds up slightly anti-climactic: Michael is in good form but he's coasting, doing no more than he needs to, satisfying fans without surprising.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide



These ten covers and seven originals will keep fans happy until his 5th studio album arrives but sometimes the impressive technique is at the expense of spontaneity

Though it's being marketed as a new album, Symphonica is really a placeholder, recorded live on his 2011/12 orchestral tour and released to keep fans going until Michael's fifth studio album (scheduled for this year, a full 10 years after his fourth). For a live record, though, this collection of 10 covers and seven originals has an oddly manicured feel, with a lack of the mistakes and ad-libs that pump oxygen into live recordings. Despite the applause and sporadic bits of improvisation (he changes the lyric to Praying for Time and banters on Feeling Good: "It's too much to expect a white man to do it like Nina"), these tracks could pass for studio versions. Michael glides through the songs like a pop swan, foregrounding his elegance as a balladeer. Really, the album is all about technique – his and the orchestra's. To be fair, he can croon the stuffing out of the most well-worn covers (Brother Can You Spare a Dime is a searingly emotional trip through several octaves), but it's at the expense of spontaneity.

Caroline Sullivan - 13 March 2014
© 2015 Guardian News and Media



George Michael’s first album in 10 years offers few surprises – as might be expected of a live offering, even if – unlike the pop he is best known for – it is recorded with a full orchestra. Documenting his 2010-11 tour, it’s co-produced by the late Phil Ramone, whose early experience working with Frank Sinatra comes in handy on the featherbed orchestral arrangements of “Through” and “A Different Corner”, as well as the languid cabaret jazz of “Cowboys And Angels”, a slinky blend of loping double bass, sparse piano chords and subtle shivers of strings.

The majority of the set is covers, ranging from the sumptuous piety of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” to swaggering big-band versions of “Feeling Good” and  “My Baby Just Cares For Me”.

They show Michael does the swing thing with a much more natural grace than Robbie Williams. And rather than the kind of grating “Let’s face it, Robbie, you’re a little bit gay” bromance indulgences of Williams’ last album, here the latter song’s suggestive connotations are more coyly restricted to a wry eyebrow-twitch, Michael changing the line about Liberace to refer to “Ricky Martin’s smile”.

The arrangements are for the most part sensitively handled, with nice touches like the subtle oboe underscoring the poignant flush of shame in the opener “Through” (“All this cruelty and money instead of love/ People, have we no shame?”). The luxurious-upholstered reading of the Depression anthem “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” does rather betray the song’s spirit, however. Several other song choices also reflect the singer’s political attitudes, including the guilty-liberal hand-wringing of “Praying For Time” (“These are the days of the empty hand/ We hold on to what we can”), an agnostic “John And Elvis Are Dead” set to small, pulsing waves of strings, and a thoughtful cover of Rufus Wainwright’s anti-American broadside “Going To A Town”.

By contrast, Elton John’s “Idol” seems a tad laborious, the tribute to an elder statesman of pop rather clumsily redirected towards its writer.

The most effective piece here is the most unexpected: a cover of Terence Trent D’Arby’s “Let Her Down Easy” crooned with a rare tenderness and empathy.

Competently organised and confidently delivered, it’s an engaging set, but ultimately, like all live albums, essentially a souvenir. And the reliance on cover versions rather than the opportunity to unveil new material, as is customary, does nothing to scotch rumours that the singer has finally hung up his microphone for good.

When Michael’s website was replaced with a closed curtain last December, his people hurried to deny assumptions that this represented the end of his career, claiming that 2014 would be an exciting year musically for him. Since it’s hard to imagine Symphonica alone being the cause of widespread excitement, one can only surmise that the coming months will see his decade-long silence broken in a more conclusive manner. Can an album of new material, perhaps, be waiting in the wings?

Andy Gill, 17 March 2014
© independent.co.uk



George Michael crooning "Wild Is the Wind"? With a full orchestra? Now there's a concept. For his first album in 10 years, produced by the late Phil Ramone, the man who invented stubble teams up with an orchestra full of sexy people for a swank live set of classic makeout ballads. Some are vintage – the jazz standard "My Baby Just Cares for Me," "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" – and some come from his own songbook. Mr. Explore Monogamy lounges it up on "One More Try" and "Praying for Time"; best of all is when he torches up the Wham!-era oldie "A Different Corner," giving it a touch of autumnal wisdom.

Rob Sheffield - March 18, 2014
RollingStone.com



There’s a certain sadness surrounding George “Yog” Michael’s first live album Symphonica. It’s not just that the material – a mix of classy covers n’ originals – is predominantly reflective or downbeat in tone as much as the circumstances in which it arrives. Back in 1998 George’s “Extra-curricular” shenanigans could be brilliantly shrugged off as mere afternoon delight merriment via “Outside”‘s amusing video of cops dancing in front of a discorama urinal, but “Mr. Michaels” life had taken a more sombre route of late. In 2007 he was found “Unfit for driving” and banned for two years. Three years later, under similar circumstances, he drove his car through a Snappy Snaps shop window (some wag later spraypainted “WHAM!” across a nearby wall) and was sentenced to eight weeks in prison. After being released from the aptly-titled ‘Highpoint Jail’ George wisely vowed to “Start again”. Sadly it wouldn’t prove so easy. In 2011 he suffered a bout of pneumonia which left him in a coma and then just last year there was a disturbing motorway incident where George was found in a heap on the motorway. The eyewitness chillingly recalled, “I looked back and there was a body lying in the road… there was blood everywhere”.

Thus Symphonica isn’t just “A live album”. There’s barely trace of the enormo-hits. Its heavy heart more burdened by melancholia and mea culpa with George mostly favouring a melodramatic narrative of desperation and redemption. The “You can’t sack me ‘cos I QUIT!” throwdown of “Through” makes for a spellbinding entrance. An operatic ensemble of “Cruel audiences”, “Cheap gilded cages” and “The truth” spin around cherubic harps and soothing violins toward a towering inferno crescendo. “These chains / I know they are of my making” Michael laments, eyes to heaven, before concluding, “Oh God / I’m think I’m through”. A passionate, Piaf-level entrance… yet bafflingly followed by the cabaret karaoke of “My Baby Just Cares For Me”. “Happy Saturday! Let’s see your hands!” demands our compère like it’s a Vegas supper club with Michael almost tap dancing his way to a jazz-hands “Boom-ba-boom…YEAH!” finale. A surreal sidestep and one jarring juxtaposition.

Symphonica certainly offers a heady, luxurious soirée, proving genuinely moving in parts, but it’s also quite exhausting and yes, occasionally bewildering. It’s been a decade since George’s last proper album Patience (!) and this release may prove frustratingly familiar for fans. All but three tracks (all covers) are available elsewhere in mostly ‘spot the difference’ versions with half of the ten covers jumping the fence from his similarly Phil Ramone produced album Songs from the Last Century. “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?”, a tale of friends reunited under foreign skies is again poignant despite the swanky “The Biz they call Show” outro. “Wild is the Wind” is hypnotic, stately and regal - “With your kiss my life begins” - whilst Billie Holiday’s tearsoaked “You’ve Changed” finds false promises of love haunting the smoky basements of the brokenhearted. George’s ‘Sinatra in the wee hours’ remodeling of “Roxanne” still fails to turn it on though despite his amusing insistence on retaining Sting’s faux Jamaican patois, “Since I knew ya / I wouldn’t talk down to ya”. You’ll still wanna holler “ROXANNNNNE” whilst jumping off a Marshall in slow-motion. Michael’s take on Ewan MacColl’s evergreen “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” remains a thing of beauty though. He knows how to play this song. Tenderly sheltering “The trembling heart of a captive bird” before lifting it up to the heavens and letting it fly. “Your face, your face, your faaaace”. Consider yourselves warned, grown men gonna weep.

The other covers are uniformly elegant if not always electrifying but all are elevated by Michael’s incredible voice. Nobody needs another version of “Feeling Good” but George tears it up with pomp and starpower, ripping the roof off before a charismatic quip, “It’s too much to expect a white man to do it… like Nina.” There are some less familiar choices. Elton John’s 1978 song “Idol” isn’t Reg’s crowning glory but works within Symphonica’s narrative. A rise and fall parable about a “Tight-assed” ‘50s idol and the cut-throat transience of fame, “They made him and they’ll waste him”. A word from the wise with a sting in its tale, “I liked the way his music sounded before”. Former challenger to the throne Terence Trent D’arby gets his “Let Her Down Easy” rescued from the ashes of time. Though no improvement over the charming original its sweet piano sway shines with “Strawberry eyes”, “Butterscotch glow” and a “Crayon world of paper clouds”. Rufus Wainwright’s 2007 single “Going to a Town” gives George something more to wrestle with. A condemnation of grim ‘Bush-era’ America it seethes with disillusionment and betrayal. “Do you really think you’ll go to hell for having loved?”. One of the album’s centrepoints its ‘blood on the flag’ despondency simmers in the dark.
 
It’s to his credit as a songwriter though that you’ll leave Symphonica remembering less the covers and more of Michael’s material. “Praying for Time” gets a noticeable adrenalin boost. The lush Lennon-esque melody marches with fresh bite and its ‘end of days’ sermon sounding beyond salvation, almost apocalyptic, “It’s hard to love / Jesus there’s so much to hate”. Patience‘s smartest song “John And Elvis Are Dead” similarly acts as a Marvin Gaye cry of “What’s Going On?”. An existential conundrum set to a graceful, lullaby waltz “If Jesus Christ is going to save us….how come peace, love and Elvis are dead?”. It’s sophisticated, strange pop though Michael raids his enviable “Bag o’ hits” sparingly. The gentle heartbeat of “A Different Corner” is an echo of simpler times… bouffant mullets and oversized woolly jumpers in soft focus. Poetic and romantic, its tender optimism flickering with crystalline sparkle. “One More Try” is better still. It hugs the soul like Elvis at Graceland singing gospel songs around the piano at 3 a.m. But it’s his achingly sad “You Have Been Loved” that truly reminds you why George is one of pop’s most treasured songwriters. A poetic, once heard, never forgotten prayer for lovers and loss. Dedicated to his late mother Lesley and Anselmo Feleppa it’s quietly devastating. When it serenely waves its last goodbye, “Don’t think that God is dead / Take care my love, he said / You have been loved” it’s breathtaking and heartbreaking. As it fades the crowd rattle their jewellery accordingly but George is silent.

Symphonica is, on many levels, somewhat unnecessary. A decade since George Michael’s last album of original material and following another greatest hits (2006’s Twenty Five) fans aren’t exactly clamouring for a live album padded with familiar covers. Yet Symphonica proves quite compelling. Though after a long and winding road of madness n’ sadness one now hopes Michael will again be inspired to create something new and original and see recent troubles fade into the rear view mirror. Time perhaps to recall that old WHAM! T-shirt slogan, “CHOOSE LIFE!”.... and find a reliable chauffeur, obviously.

Matt James, 30 April 2014
© 1999-2015 PopMatters.com



Symphonica is the sixth album and first live album by English singer-songwriter George Michael, released on 14 March 2014 through Aegean and Virgin EMI Records. Symphonica is Michael's first album of new recordings since Patience (2004). The album contains mostly live versions of songs from his 2011–12 Symphonica Tour, including six of his own compositions (the rest being covers). The album was the final work by American producer Phil Ramone, who died in March 2013.[11] The lead single, Let Her Down Easy, debuted at number 53 on the UK singles chart in spite of little promotion. The album debuted at #1 on UK Charts and sold 49,989 in its first week there.[12] Patience, a further song from the tour which does not appear on the final album track listing, was available as a free download for one week only from Amazon.com in the UK to coincide with the album release.

Wikipedia.org



George Michael zählt mit über 100 Millionen verkauften Tonträgern zu den erfolgreichsten britischen Solokünstlern und begeistert seit über drei Jahrzehnten mit seinen Veröffentlichungen. Seine Karriere ist zweifellos einzigartig. Bereits seit den 80er Jahren fasziniert George Michael das Publikum rund um den Globus. Er begann seine Karriere mit dem Pop-Duo Wham., das mit dem Song "Last Christmas" den Weihnachtsklassiker schlechthin geschaffen hat. Als Solokünstler feierte George Michael mit dem Album Faith 1987 seinen Durchbruch. Später lieferte er mit dem Video zu "Freedom" einen Meilenstein des Musikfernsehens ab. In seiner über drei Jahrzehnte währenden Karriere hat George Michael über 100 Millionen Tonträger verkauft und u.a. mit Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Whitney Houston und Mary J. Blige gearbeitet. Sein brandneues Album Symphonica wurde zusammen produziert mit dem legendären Phil Ramone.

Die Aufnahmen entstanden während George Michaels Live-Tournee 2011-2012, bei der er sein Können gemeinsam mit einem kompletten Orchester an exklusiven Veranstaltungsorten präsentierte. Er war der erste Pop-Künstler überhaupt, der im Palais Garnier Opera House in Paris auftreten durfte. Diese Live-Erfahrungen beeinflussten auch die Aufnahmen zu Symphonica. George Michael präsentiert darauf ausgewählte Songs aus seiner bisherigen Karriere und Titel seiner Lieblingskünstler; u.a. von Nina Simone, Terence Trent D'Arby und Elton John. Der 14-fache Grammy-Gewinner Phil Ramone (u.a. Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand) co-produzierte Symphonica mit George Michael. Der legendäre Produzent Ramone verstarb 2013. Symphonica ist sein letztes Werk.

George Michael präsentiert ein faszinierendes, persönliches und bewegendes Album und unterstreicht einmal mehr, dass seine Stimme zu den eindrucksvollsten des Kontinents gehört. Der Gentleman des Pop ist zurück.

Amazon.de
 

 L y r i c s


Currently no Lyrics available!

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


Currently no Samples available!