![]() It begins with just the beat, then the bass and keyboards, and the first appearance of a chant that will recur over and over: "I will not let you down/I will not give you up." It's a song of independence, but its first declaration is of mutuality: a promise and a vow, a sort of "I offer" and "I want" rhythm. ![]() But whatever "Freedom '90"'s authorial intent was, what's sometimes lost in the legend of the fabulous "Freedom '90" video is that the song, in and of itself, is great. (I commend to you Ira Madison III's very fine piece at MTV News about George Michael's impact on his thinking about sexuality.) It's not an either/or analysis, of course, given that asking artists to keep in shadow entire parts of their humanity affects both their art and their ability to derive satisfaction from it, so pressure to hide your sexuality and pressure to be a particular variety of pop musician can be braided tightly together. People talked in the aftermath of George Michael's death on Sunday about the overt message of "Freedom '90," which chronicles his efforts to shift the direction of his solo career to the kind of music he really wanted to make, and the covert message, which it seems fair to assume was at least in part about remaining publicly closeted, which he did to some degree until an interview in 1998. The song is about a couple of kinds of freedom the video – directed by David Fincher – existentially represents them. "Freedom '90" is famous for being the rare video of the time that didn't show its telegenic artist on screen, instead using a series of supermodels (including Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Tatjana Patitz) and some less-famous men to lip sync the words. The original "Freedom," though, rejects what the singer calls "freedom" in favor of monogamy: "I don't want your freedom/I don't want to play around." And that, of course, begins with the song title, which borrows and bends the name of one of Wham!'s most '80s-flavored danceable confections. So by the time George Michael blew up the "Faith" video's jukebox and burned its leather jacket when the chorus swelled in "Freedom '90," he was exploding not only his history but his past nods to it as well. "Faith," which had been a hit three years earlier, was already self-referential: the song begins with a pipe organ playing Wham!'s original "Freedom" before the percussive guitar busts it up, and the video starts with a snippet of "I Want Your Sex" even before that.
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