George Michael, the grand master of British camp, died on Christmas Day 2016, leaving indelible memories and an enormous musical legacy. An LGBTQ+ icon, he was also a tireless charity advocate, and was much beloved worldwide.
But before his death, he was trying out new music, with plans to release more in 2017—specifically a reissue of his 1990 album Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1— and had contacted Nile Rogers of the funk group Chic to work on an unreleased song, “Fantasy,” with him. Today, we’re hearing the finished version of “Fantasy” for the first time, and it’s also the first posthumous music to have been released from the musician. It’s a dance-y track in the vein of George’s 90’s material, and his voice sounds as great as it ever did.
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And yeah, while yet another posthumous release does raise questions about work being put out into the world after artists die (i.e. if the artist liked this work enough, they’d surely have released it during their lifetime), there’s also no arguing with the fact that it sounds damn good to hear George Michael sing again. Listen above.
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