Show Notes

In the four short years Wham! was together, they sold 30 million records. Making them one of the best-selling duos of the ‘80s and launching the subsequent career of the late great George Michael. But before reaching the top of the pops, schoolmates and best friends Andrew Ridgeley and Georgios Panayiotou were laughed out of the room by dozens of record labels. Join us this week as we tell Wham!’s remarkable story. From being told they were ‘just another synthesizer band’ to really making it big.

Major sources for this episode include:

1. Wham! George Michael & Me by Andrew Ridgeley
2. Bare by George Michael, Tony Parsons
3. George Michael: The Biography by Ron Jovanovic
4. Billboard (Mara Reinstein): Sex, Insecurity and Careless Whispers: What Andrew Ridgeley’s Wham! Memoir Says About George Michael
5. Rolling Stone (Steve Pond): George Michael, Seriously

From the creators of Under the Influence:
Executive Producer & Host: Terry O’Reilly
Writer & Host: Sidney O’Reilly
Research: Allison Pinches
Director: Callie O’Reilly
Supervising Producer: Debbie O’Reilly
Engineer: Keith Ohman
Theme music: Ian Lefeuvre & Ari Posner

This show is brought to you by the Apostrophe Podcast Company and powered by Acast.