If anyone was going to pull off the middle-aged black turtleneck…
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[4.33]
Brad Shoup: Well, I suppose he wasn’t ever really “fun,” was he?
[2]
Edward Okulicz: Michael’s interminably long important serious artist phase has given us some fine songs, but ever since he abandoned his own voice’s warm character he hasn’t been able to pull off unsophisticated dance pop like “White Light,” even if it throbs and pulses with competence, if not charm. If you were in a coma between Wham! and this, you’d be shocked to hear him singing this low, but even if you weren’t, you’d be hoping for something whose key doesn’t completely torpedo the idea that he’s alive, as he keeps telling us in the lyrics. The music and voice are a mismatch, pure and simple.
[4]
Alfred Soto: This case study mastered dance rhythms once: in the house-inflected early nineties singles “Freedom ’90” and the forgotten “Too Funky.” The neo-disco “Fastlove” and a slew of good intentions later, he grits his teeth, submits to Auto-Tune, studies Norman Vincent Peale, and writes his best groove in years. The key: harmonies nyah-nyahing “white light” in his face and a respect for the “subtle” sonics in which aging club rats thrive (somone hook George up with Diplo). Of couse it’s a survivalist anthem — what else has Michael written since 1990? But for a white Englishman in his fifties who was always serious about being taken seriously, he’s done better than the Pet Shop Boys. This time.
[6]
Anthony Easton: Well, the disco vamp as musical hall tramp stage of Michael’s career entered about a decade later than I anticipated. I am going to go back to the Pet Shop Boys, if that works out for everyone?
[1]
Pete Baran: Ah, this is George’s back from the death song, and has the heart monitor beeping through it. As someone who lives on the road where George was arrested for driving on weed, I am pleased that the song suggests that he may look after himself a touch more, if only for road safety sake. This works rather well, in time-honoured George Michael fashion, with a snakey beat and a competent song as the springboard for GM’s always assured and much more interesting vocal. Its just a pity he didn’t sing it in his West Country accent.
[5]
Jonathan Bradley: George Michael’s voice isn’t one to get swept away in: it softly prods, or twists playfully, and it’s therefore rather ill-suited to synth smears and Auto-Tune squeals. “White Light” could have been recorded posthumously. It’s bloodless and humorless, and the exact opposite of his best songs.
[4]
Jonathan Bogart: Twelve years too late to be riding the Ray of Light coattails would be one thing; but the video suggests he’s actually riding the River of Dreams coattails. There’s still enough voice left to reject that particular canard; but where’d the writing go?
[6]
Iain Mew: “Was it music that saved me?” is never going to be anything other than a powerful line. For the most part, though, “White Light” places way too much weight on the listener drawing their own connections with George’s biography to work, and way too little on getting this particular piece of music to be something which could do any kind of saving.
[3]
Michaela Drapes: The only person who can pull off a darkly sultry song in a minor key better than George Michael is Tracey Thorn (hey, they should do a duet!) — or maybe Cher. And there is a big dose of flashy house divaishness in the vein of those formidable ladies here — while still delivering oh-so-very dirty, sweaty dancefloor androphilia without a trace of camp or vamp. I want to be at this party, yes please.
[8]