2016, Annus Horribilis, the year that brought the first installment of Donald Trump, the year that completely upset the natural order with the death of David Bowie, later followed by Prince and Leonard Cohen, the year I would very much like to forget, or pretend never happened, contained one strange anomaly, a Christmas event I knew about but never attributed to the year in question. I’m talking about the death of George Michael.

How could I have missed it, or better, why did I block it from memory?

Most likely it all goes back to early 1980s, to the days of Wham!, of Young Guns, Careless Whisper, Club Tropicana, Freedom and, god forbid, Wake me up before you go-go (…Don’t leave me hanging on like a yo-yo) and Last Christmas. In the polarised world of the late 70s and early 80s (yes my dear friends, the world was also polarised back then, albeit on friendlier and less explosive topics like music, art, literature) Wham! represented the polar opposite of what I loved and believed in. It represented cheap commerial music, made to sell, more than to enlighten or educate.

Little did I know, little did I investigate. Wham! sold a massive number of records, dominated the charts in the first haf of the 1980s and at some point almost had 4 number 1 hits in one year (the year was 1984, another (in)famous year, and Wham! only missed their fourth number 1 hit, “Last Christmas” because of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”), but…they were also self-made, a real pop group, two lifelong friends creating their own music, writing their own songs and pretty much creating their own history.

That’s what I got wrong!

This was not a created boy band. These were not two gorgeous boys dropped into the bedroom of countless girls. This was not a product. This was effort, desire and talent turned into dollars and fame. Elton John knew and recognised it, I completely missed it in my alternative, gloomy and self-obsessed world (how wonderful and self-obessesed the world of a teenager is…)

2016, Annus Horribilis, the year that brought the first installment of Donald Trump, the year that completely upset the natural order with the death of David Bowie, later followed by Prince, Leonard Cohen and George Michael. Four Saints of modern popular music.