I Want Your Sex Explained

I Want Your Sex
Cover:Iwantyoursexcover.jpg
Type:single
Artist:George Michael
Album:Faith Beverly Hills Cop II (The Motion Picture Soundtrack Album)
B-Side:"I Want Your Sex" ("Rhythm Two: Brass in Love")
Released:
  • (US)
  • (UK)
Recorded:
  • August 1986 (part 1)
  • February 1987 (parts 2 and 3)[1]
Studio:
Genre:
Length:
  • 4:44 (part one)
  • 4:38 (part two)
  • 3:48 (part three)
  • 13:13 (Monogamy mix)
Label:Columbia
Producer:George Michael
Prev Title:I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)
Prev Year:1987
Next Title:Faith
Next Year:1987

"I Want Your Sex" is a song by English singer and songwriter George Michael. Released as a single on 18 May 1987 (US) and 1 June 1987 (UK), it was the third hit from the soundtrack to Beverly Hills Cop II and the first single from Michael's debut solo album Faith. It peaked at number two in the US and number three in the UK, and was a top five single in many other countries.

The single was certified platinum by the RIAA for shipments in excess a million copies in the United States. It was also the recipient for Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song. The song's radio airplay on the BBC was restricted to post-watershed hours due to concerns that it might promote promiscuity and could be counterproductive to contemporary campaigns about AIDS awareness.[3]

Composition

The song has three separate parts dubbed "Rhythms". The first one, titled "Rhythm One: Lust", is the version released as a single and banned by the BBC. It appears by itself on the Beverly Hills Cop II soundtrack, and mixed with the second version, titled "Rhythm Two: Brass in Love", on Faith. The second Rhythm also appears by itself as the B-side of the single. A third part, "Rhythm Three: A Last Request", appears as a B-side to the "Hard Day" 7" and "Kissing a Fool" 12" singles, and on the CD version of Faith as a bonus track. All three versions were mixed together into one 13-minute song, dubbed the "Monogamy Mix", for the 12" and CD single releases.

Writing and production

Part 1 of "I Want Your Sex" was recorded in August 1986 at Sarm West Studio 2, London, roughly 2 months after the Wham! split that June. It was written entirely in the studio, with Michael playing all the instruments: a LinnDrum, a Roland Juno-106 and a Yamaha DX7.[1] Michael explained why he wrote the track this way in International Musician and Recording World magazine:

Michael admitted that the track was "really easy to do", but it was difficult in the sense that he intended it to be a dance record, so he "had to do something new with it every 16 bars" for the song's arrangement to "hold up interest-wise".

The "squelching" bass sound heard in the song's introduction was caused entirely by accident, as engineer Chris Porter described:

Michael himself had a similar recollection:

Parts 2 and 3 were recorded the following year during sessions at Puk Studios in Gjerlev, Denmark, as extensions to part 1 (which had been selected for the first single), with part 2 being the one with a "more New York club sound" (having been recorded with a seven-piece brass section), while part 3 was the "romantic" and "altogether smoother" counterpart. For the crossover points, the 56-channel SSL console (with 28 channels on either side) at the Puk facility would be used to bounce from the original multitrack on one side of the SSL onto the new multitrack slave on the other, and George would rehearse the musicians on a particular part before dropping them in on the new track.[1]

Music video

The music video, directed by Andy Morahan,[4] featured Michael and his then-girlfriend Kathy Jeung to emphasize that he was in a monogamous relationship; at one point, he is shown using lipstick to write the words "explore" and "monogamy" on her back, which is photographed and retouched at the end of the video to reveal the phrase "explore monogamy". Spanish model Gloria Rodríguez Veiga was also used for naked scenes in a way that allowed the audience to assume they were the same woman; these shots are interspersed with intentionally blurred footage of George Michael dancing and singing the song.[5]

In a 2004 interview with Adam Mattera for UK magazine Attitude, Michael reflected: "It was totally real. Kathy was in love with me but she knew that I was in love with a guy at that point in time. I was still saying I was bisexual... She was the only female that I ever brought into my professional life. I put her in a video. Of course she looked like a beard. It was all such a mess, really. My own confusion and then on top of that what I was prepared to let the public think."[6]

The video generated controversy over its sexual themes. In 2002, MTV2's countdown of MTV's Most Controversial Videos Ever to Air on MTV included the video for "I Want Your Sex" at number 3. The original video cut appears on the Twenty Five compilation 2-DVD set.

Release

In the US, the song was first featured on the Beverly Hills Cop II soundtrack album, which was released to radio stations in early May 1987. The commercial release of the soundtrack followed on 18 May. An immediate surge in airplay of "I Want Your Sex" as an album cut prompted CBS to release the single in the US later that same month, ahead of schedule.[7] The UK single debuted the first week of June.[8]

"I Want Your Sex" was the second single Michael released in 1987, following "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)", his duet with Aretha Franklin. On the song's daytime radio ban, Michael commented during an interview with Jonathan Ross:

Despite censorship and airplay issues, an edited version of the song's music video received ample airplay on North American music channels, fueling its popularity there. The single eventually reached number 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, the week of 8 August 1987, behind "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2. Moreover, the single remained in the top 10 for six weeks and the top 40 for a total of 14 weeks, becoming one of the most popular dance-pop singles of the summer of 1987. It also climbed to number 2 in Canada, where it ended up becoming the 13th most popular single of the year.[9]

The song reached number 3 in the UK Singles Chart, where the song's reprise maintained an audience for many years thanks to BBC Radio 1 breakfast show host Simon Mayo using a looped version as backing music for his daily feature On This Day in History. It also sold 327,160 there.[10]

Legacy

Although it was one of Michael's biggest hits, the singer ignored the song following its release; he never performed it after the Faith Tour and although the Rhythm Two version appears on , it does not appear on the 2006 retrospective Twenty Five; furthermore, the "Monogamy" mix does not appear on the 2011 remastered release of Faith. In an interview with Mark Goodier, included in the large-format book released with the 2011 remaster, Michael said that he still likes the second "Rhythm" but not the first, and that he distanced himself from the song because its production sounded too much like Prince; indeed, "Rhythm 1", as well as a few other tracks on the Faith album (such as "Hard Day"), features Michael simulating female vocals by artificially pitching up and altering his own voice, much the same way as Prince was doing at the time with his pseudo-female alter ego Camille. In the interview, Michael admits that he was "deeply enamoured" with Prince, and adds that he thought it was very bad for him to be infatuated with a colleague of his.[11] Rolling Stone editor David Fricke described this song as "a new bump-and-grind original that sounds more like Prince's stark, sexy 'Kiss' than anything in the Wham! catalog".[12] In 2016, after Michael's death, Andrew Unterberger of Billboard ranked the song number eight on his list of Michael's 15 greatest songs.[13]

Track listing

7"

12" / CD / cassette

    • "Rhythm One: Lust"
    • "Rhythm Two: Brass in Love"
    • "Rhythm Three: A Last Request"

CD – 654 601-3 (UK) [1989]

  1. "I Want Your Sex" (parts one and two) – 9:13
  2. "A Different Corner" – 3:59
  3. "Careless Whisper" (extended mix) – 6:30

Official versions

Charts

Weekly charts

Chart (1987)! scope="col"
Peak
position
Australia (Australian Music Report)[14] 2
Canada (The Records Retail Singles Chart)[15] [16] 2
Denmark (IFPI)[17] 3
Europe (European Hot 100 Singles)[18] 3
Finland (Suomen virallinen lista)[19] 2
Iceland (RÚV)[20] 7
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[21] 4

Year-end charts

Chart (1987)! scope="col"
Position
Australia (Australian Music Report)[22] 32
Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[23] 24
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[24] 15
Canada (RPM Singles Chart)[25] 13
European Top 100 Singles (Music & Media)[26] 9
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[27] 17
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[28] 7
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[29] 16
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[30] 23
UK Singles (OCC)[31] 64
US Top Pop Singles (Billboard)[32] 24
US Crossover Singles (Billboard)[33] 9
West Germany (Official German Charts)[34] 18

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Classic Tracks: George Michael 'Faith'. Richard. Buskin. March 2013. 22 December 2020. 29 November 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201129173005/https://www.soundonsound.com/people/classic-tracks-george-michael-faith.
  2. Web site: Tom . Breihan . The Number Ones: George Michael's "Faith. . 2 April 2021. ['I Want Your Sex' is] a frisky, silly pop-funk track with a pronounced Prince influence.... 8 November 2023.
  3. News: 30 songs banned by the BBC . The Daily Telegraph . 17 December 2015.
  4. Web site: mvdbase.com - George Michael - "I want your sex". Music Video DataBase. Garcia. Alex S. 31 October 2015.
  5. Web site: The Asturian Gloria Rodríguez starred in the musician's most controversial video clip . . 27 December 2016 . May 6, 2024.
  6. Web site: George Michael's candid 2004 interview with Attitude . Attitude . 26 June 2012.
  7. Michael's 'Sex' Forces lyrics Issue: AIDS Epidemic Renews Debate . 10 . Billboard. 2021-04-08. 1987-05-30. Kim Freeman.
  8. News: Music Week. New Singles (Mon 1–Friday 5 June 1987). 31. 1987-05-30. 2021-04-08.
  9. Web site: RPM Top 100 Singles of 1987 . 9 July 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160305162514/http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/rpm/028020-119.01-e.php?brws_s=1&file_num=nlc008388.0920&volume=47&issue=12&issue_dt=December%2026%201987&type=1&interval=24&PHPSESSID=2brc3e5p2efs1u9u1nro47cs44 . 5 March 2016 .
  10. Web site: George Michael on the charts. 11 January 2017. Music Week. Intent Media. 12 January 2017.
  11. [Mark Goodier]
  12. The Second Coming Of George Michael. David. Fricke. Rolling Stone. 20 November 1986. 28 December 2020.
  13. The 15 Greatest George Michael Songs: Critic's Take. Andrew. Unterberger. Billboard. 26 December 2016. 14 February 2022.
  14. Web site: Australian ARIA Top 50 Singles Chart – Week Ending 9th August, 1987. ARIA, via Imgur.com. 12 December 2019. N.B. ARIA licensed the Australian Music Report chart between mid-1983 and 12 June 1988.
  15. Hits of the World. Billboard. 62. 5 September 1987. 23 November 2017.
  16. [Nanda Lwin|Lwin, Nanda]
  17. Danish Singles Chart 26 June 1987
  18. Hits of the World. Billboard. 72. 18 July 1987. 23 November 2017.
  19. Web site: Singlet 1987-06 kesäkuuA4kuu. https://web.archive.org/web/20160407191632/http://wiki.pomus.net/wiki/Singlet_1987-06_kes%C3%A4kuu. usurped. 7 April 2016. fi. Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. 23 November 2017.
  20. Web site: George Michael Chart History. RÚV. 22 March 2016. 7 November 2018.
  21. Book: Fernando Salaverri. Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959–2002. 1st. September 2005. Fundación Autor-SGAE. Spain. 84-8048-639-2.
  22. Web site: Australian Music Report No 701 – 28 December 1987 > National Top 100 Singles for 1987. Australian Music Report, via Imgur.com. 12 December 2019.
  23. Web site: Jahreshitparade 1987. de. Austrian Charts Portal. 8 April 2022.
  24. Web site: Jaaroverzichten 1987 . Ultratop. Hung Medien . 8 April 2022 . nl.
  25. Web site: Top 100 Singles of 1987 in Canada. RPM. 5 December 1987. 19 June 2018.
  26. Web site: European Charts of the Year 1987: Singles. 34. Music & Media. 26 December 1987. 8 April 2022. 5. 11.
  27. Web site: Top 100-Jaaroverzicht van 1987 . . 8 April 2022 . nl.
  28. Web site: Jaaroverzichten – Single 1987. nl. Dutch Charts Portal. 8 April 2022.
  29. Web site: END OF YEAR CHARTS 1987. Official New Zealand Music Chart. 22 April 2021.
  30. Web site: Schweizer Jahreshitparade 1987: Singles. de. Swiss Chart Portal. 8 April 2022.
  31. Gallup Year End Charts 1987: Singles. Record Mirror. 36. 23 January 1988. 7 April 2022.
  32. 26 December 1987 . 1987 The Year in Music & Video: Top Pop Singles . Billboard . 99 . 52 .
  33. 1987 The Year in Music & Video: Top Hot Crossover Singles . 26 December 1987 . Billboard . 99 . 52 . Y-27. 8 April 2022.
  34. Web site: Top 100 Single-Jahrescharts: 1987 . Offiziellecharts.de . GfK Entertainment charts . 9 May 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150509001159/https://www.offiziellecharts.de/charts/single-jahr/for-date-1987 . de. 8 April 2022.