I Want Your Sex

Composition

"I Want Your Sex" 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-inch and "Kissing a Fool" 12-inch 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-inch 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. The song was originally produced for David Austin, but Michael eventually decided to keep it for himself. It was written entirely in the studio, with Michael playing all the instruments: a LinnDrum, a Roland Juno-106 a Yamaha DX7, and a Greengate DS3. Michael explained why he wrote the track this way in an issue of 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: We were working on a song, again we just had a Juno, LinnDrum and DX7, and we connected them all up so that we could run them off MIDI. After doing some programming, we returned to the studio the next afternoon, I pressed "play" on the tape machine, the MIDI obviously wasn't right and everything started making these weird noises. The drums were triggering random sounds on the Juno and DX7, starting to make what you now hear as the intro on "I Want Your Sex": a strange squelching, pulsing bass sound. I went, "Oh, damn, I'll reset it," and George said, "Hang on a second, hang on a second! That sounds really good, doesn't it?" I said, "It's a bit weird," and he said, "Yeah, but if we just take a bit out here and a bit out of there we might be able to use it..." We recorded a few bars of that odd squelching noise, and then it morphs into the song, at which point the bass become the bass part and just the Juno, LinnDrum and DX7 provide the overall landscape.}}

Michael himself had a similar recollection:

Parts 2 and 3 were recorded in early 1987 during sessions at Puk Recording 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 Michael would rehearse the musicians on a particular part before dropping them in on the new track.

Music video

The music video, directed by Andy Morahan, 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" on her thigh, 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.

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."

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 three. 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 the same day. The UK single debuted the first week of June.

"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 two on both the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and the US Cash Box Top 100. It also hit number two in Canada, where it ended up becoming the 13th most popular single of the year.

The song reached number three on 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 copies there.

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 Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael, 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. Rolling Stone editor David Fricke described "I Want Your Sex" as "a new bump-and-grind original that sounds more like Prince's stark, sexy 'Kiss' than anything in the Wham! catalog".

In 2016, after Michael's death, Andrew Unterberger of Billboard ranked the song number eight on his list of Michael's 15 greatest songs.

Track listings

Personnel

Personnel taken from Faith liner notes, and Sound on Sound.

Rhythm One: Lust

• George Michael – vocals, Roland Juno-106, Yamaha DX7, Greengate DS3, LinnDrum programming

Rhythm Two: Brass in Love

• George Michael – vocals, keyboards, guitar, LinnDrum programming
• Chris Cameron – keyboards
• Danny Schogger – additional keyboards
• Deon Estus – bass guitar
• Steve Sidwell, Paul Spong, Rick Taylor – horns

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

References

1. Buskin, Richard. (March 2013). "Classic Tracks: George Michael 'Faith'".
2. Breihan, Tom. (2 April 2021). "The Number Ones: George Michael's "Faith".
3. (17 December 2015). "30 songs banned by the BBC". The Daily Telegraph.
4. Tannenbaum, Rob. (June 21, 2022). "George Michael Preferred Music to Fame. The Doc He Made Does, Too.".
5. Horkins, Tony. (December 1987). "George Michael: A Question of Faith".
6. Garcia, Alex S. "mvdbase.com - George Michael - "I want your sex"". Music Video DataBase.
7. (27 December 2016). "The Asturian Gloria Rodríguez starred in the musician's most controversial video clip".
8. "George Michael's candid 2004 interview with Attitude". Attitude.
9. Kim Freeman. (1987-05-30). "Michael's 'Sex' Forces lyrics Issue: AIDS Epidemic Renews Debate".
10. (1987-05-30). "New Singles (Mon 1–Friday 5 June 1987)". Music Week.
11. (21 August 2008). "George Michael: a few words from George before he go-gos". The Daily Telegraph.
12. Whitburn, Joel. (2011). "Top Pop Singles 1955-2010". Record Research.
13. Whitburn, Joel. (2014). "Cash Box Pop Hits: 1952-1996". Record Research.
14. "RPM Top 100 Singles of 1987".
15. (11 January 2017). "George Michael on the charts". Intent Media.
16. [[Mark Goodier]], "In Conversation with George Michael", ''Faith: Remastered'' Special Edition book.
17. Fricke, David. (20 November 1986). "The Second Coming Of George Michael".
18. Unterberger, Andrew. (26 December 2016). "The 15 Greatest George Michael Songs: Critic's Take".
19. (1987). "I Want Your Sex". [[Epic Records]].
20. (1987). "I Want Your Sex". [[Epic Records]].
21. (1987). "[[Faith (George Michael album)".
22. "Australian ARIA Top 50 Singles Chart – Week Ending 9th August, 1987". [[Australian Recording Industry Association.
23. (5 September 1987). "Hits of the World".
24. [[Nanda Lwin. Lwin, Nanda]]. ''Top 40 Hits: The Essential Chart Guide'' (2000). Mississauga, Ont.: Music Data Canada
25. (July 11, 1987). "Top 3 in Europe".
26. (18 July 1987). "Hits of the World".
27. "Singlet 1987-06 kesäkuuA4kuu". [[Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland]].
28. (22 March 2016). "George Michael Chart History". [[RÚV]].
29. (20 June 1987). "European Playlist Reports: RAI - Italy".
30. Fernando Salaverri. (September 2005). "Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959–2002". Fundación Autor-SGAE.
31. Whitburn, Joel. (2014). "Cash Box Pop Hits: 1952-1996". Record Research.
32. "Australian Music Report No 701 – 28 December 1987 > National Top 100 Singles for 1987". [[Kent Music Report.
33. "Jahreshitparade 1987".
34. "Jaaroverzichten 1987". Ultratop.
35. "Top 100 Singles of '87".
36. (26 December 1987). "European Charts of the Year 1987: Singles". Music & Media.
37. "Top 100–Jaaroverzicht van 1987". [[Dutch Top 40]].
38. "Jaaroverzichten – Single 1987".
39. "END OF YEAR CHARTS 1987". [[Official New Zealand Music Chart]].
40. "Schweizer Jahreshitparade 1987: Singles".
41. (23 January 1988). "Gallup Year End Charts 1987: Singles".
42. (26 December 1987). "No. 1 Awards: Top Pop Singles".
43. (26 December 1987). "No. 1 Awards".
44. (26 December 1987). "No. 1 Awards: Top Hot Crossover Singles".
45. (26 December 1987). "Top 50 Pop Singles".
46. "Top 100 Single–Jahrescharts: 1987". GfK Entertainment charts.
47. (11 January 2017). "George Michael on the charts". Intent Media.