Writing about the world’s biggest pop icons is often a double-edged sword. On the plus side, authors know the public is always hungry for more (just see the volume of unofficial Taylor Swift biographies released in recent years). But minus side, they need to find a new angle to avoid treading over old ground.
In Tonight the Music Seems So Loud: The meaning of George Michael – its title a lyric from Michael’s 1984 smash hit Careless Whisper – Sathnam Sanghera nails his colours to the mast in the first few pages. “George Michael does not get the acknowledgement he deserves,” he asserts. He notes that while there are “countless books out there which seriously analyse the music and lyrics of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Prince and Taylor Swift, when it comes to Michael, very few go "beyond the soap opera” of his life. And, that the “obsession with his biography continues to blind people to his talent today”.
