Sunday Sessions: Andrew Ridgeley

Wham! were inescapable if you grew up in the 1980s. Those hit singles of theirs were everywhere. The band mainly consisted of two blokes: George Michael, and Andrew Ridgeley.

We've all heard of George Michael: he's had considerable success both in and out of the music biz, but what about the other guy?

Well, after Wham split in 1986, George was quick to get his solo career started with the million selling LP "Faith" in 1987. Andrew? Well he took his sweet time with his music career, and after Wham he tried his hand at Formula Three car racing in Monaco. When that failed, he tried as an actor in Hollywood and then moved back to the UK in 1990.

He then made a rock album by the name of "Son Of Albert", which was released in 1990. It didn't set the world alight - I think that was because he always took a back seat to George in Wham, thus making him less visible. He also left it too late to get his career going: upon it's release, a lot of people would have been thinking "Andrew who?"

He made aforementioned LP, which bombed in the UK, as did all the singles from the album. Although the lead single "Shake" made the top 20 in Australia in 1990 despite only making no.58 in the UK. After the album's failure in the UK, his record label CBS/Columbia opted not to commission a second LP from him...

I think "Shake" is still a brilliant song, even if the rest of "Son Of Albert" is quite insipid. It was designed to be a flat-out rock record, but someone decided to add all this precision-pop production to the songs and they diluted the music's power. Still, "Shake" has a massive drum sound that still sounds amazing today. But he has a tiny voice that really needs some serious beefing up with backing vocals to make it sound convincing. On this track, George Michael himself sings backing and the double tracked-lead vocals, and this gives the vocal line some more "oomph".

Enjoy!