The 15 Greatest George Michael Songs: Critic's Take

The 15 Greatest George Michael Songs: Critic's Take

George Michael, who died on Sunday (Dec. 25) at the far-too-young age of 53, was almost certainly the most under-appreciated pop star of MTV's first decade. Not at the time, of course -- with ten Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles in nine years between his solo career and his work with early co-conspirator Andrew Ridgeley in Wham!, along with one diamond-selling album in 1987's Faith, at least we can say that the singer/songwriter/sex symbol was as contemporaneously beloved as a man of his peerless pop talents deserved.

But due to a relatively abrupt fade from Top 40's center, a close association with some of the more overblown visual and sonic signifiers of the 1980s, and some less-than-progressive attitudes about his homosexuality -- and the way it manifested in both his music and public life -- have kept George Michael from maintaining the mononymic-level status afforded to peers like Madonna, Prince, Janet and Michael. Consequently, when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees are announced every year, not only is the artist born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou never included, but the Internet scarcely feigns outrage at his snubbing, as if he barely deserves accounting for in the rock canon -- despite the fact that he was responsible for the best Bo Diddley rip of the past 40 years, and did more for the leather jacket than anyone since The King.