George Michael Album: “Freeek! [EP]”

In a sense, George really went off the deep end with this 2002 song "Freeek!"--it's an absolutely intense, overwhelmingly ominous, thumping dance track that can barely be classified as mid-tempo, plus it's loaded with expletives--not exactly the most radio-friendly track you ever came across. It's true that sometimes less is more, but "Freeek!" shows that sometimes over-the-top is the way to go. This track is absolutely explosive and gets under your skin big time, stuffed with insanely catchy hooks, and unhinged sexual lyrics which make "I Want Your Sex" seem like baby food in comparison. It's rather surprising to see this song coming from George at this point in his career, because what he's really doing here is turning back to clocks to the tongue-in-cheek days of early Wham!. George has been determinted to mature musically over the years, and he has done so to terrific effect, and yet "Freeek!" ranks with "Wham! Rap" & other tracks from Wham!'s debut album as the most over-the-top thing George has ever done. And being the incredible artist he is, George stunningly pulls it off. With the computer terminology of the track, "Freeek!" is obviously about cybersex, and it's done in a wonderfully intense way, and yet with George's tongue firmly in cheek. Some may indeed cry "sell out" and/ or find this to be a regression for Michael, because if you're looking for the rewarding sophistication that's in abundance on his "Older" album, forget it. But what the hell, this is an irresistible track--the way George pulls it off is characteristic of his enormous talent, yet it's still beyond all belief. One thing though that I can't forget to mention is that George is still in absolute peak form vocally here.

As for the remixes, they're all more uptempo than the original, & predictably they each have their flaws, yet surprisingly, they're all solidly enjoyable, though they all lack the fire of the original, giving them a background music quality, something I don't mean as an insult. Perhaps unintentionally, the three "Freeek!" remixes end up easing nicely into the closing track, a soothing live version of "The Long And Winding Road" which is very nice, not least due to the typically excellent vocal performance from Michael--did Paul McCartney ever sing this so well?

This 5 track version of the "Freeek!" single is clearly the ideal one to have, giving you everything that you'd get over the course of the other 2 versions combined--either way, no true George Michael fan should be without it/ them.