Faith – Leather jacket, four US No. 1s, Album of the Year

First solo after Wham!, leather and No. 1s

Faith landed on 30 October 1987 as George Michael’s first solo studio album after Wham!. He produced the record himself. Sessions ran from August 1986 into September 1987 at Puk Studios in Gjerlev, Denmark, and Sarm West in London. Epic handled the UK; Columbia issued it in the United States. The brief was clear: leave the duo’s polished pop and prove he could write, arrange, and sell as a solo name.

The title track opens with an organ figure quoting Wham!’s Freedom, then snaps into dry Bo Diddley guitar and that famous leather-and-boots image. I Want Your Sex had already stirred radio bans months before the album. Inside the LP, Michael balances funk tracks, quiet storm ballads, and rougher rock. Father Figure started life with a dance arrangement; he stripped the drums and kept the hush. One More Try leans toward Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder territory without copying either.

It topped the UK Albums Chart and the Billboard 200, spent twelve weeks at No. 1 in the US, and later earned Diamond certification there. Four Hot 100 No. 1 singles came from one set: Faith, Father Figure, One More Try, and Monkey. Michael became the only British male solo artist to pull that off from a single album. The Faith Tour opened at Tokyo’s Budokan in February 1988 and ran through Australia, Europe, and North America.

Session players and programmers work in Michael’s control room. They do not rewrite the songs. Hugh Burns’s guitar parts, keyboard layers, and LinnDrum programming sit where Michael places them. The CD configuration stretches past the vinyl runtime, giving I Want Your Sex room to move through its Lust and Brass in Love sections without radio edits cutting the track short.