George Michael

By Joe Brown

Friday, June 20, 2008 | 2 a.m.

World-famous — and infamous — scandalicious British pop star George Michael has announced that his current arena tour, his first in 17 years, is also his last. In the grand tradition of “farewell tours” (David Bowie, Cher, George W. Bush), Michael is making a big deal of declaring that he won’t play the big rooms anymore. Cynics might surmise that Michael is once again taking a proactive approach to the attendant publicity, because the shows aren’t exactly selling out (though last year’s 80-show European leg of the tour did well). Michael, who will turn 45 on Wednesday, plays the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday.

One More Try

Michael hyped the forthcoming tour with a surprise appearance on the May 22 finale of “American Idol,” but he didn’t do himself any favors: He looked drawn and fatigued (he reportedly had a cold) and dragged out an anticlimactic version of his preachy “Praying for Time” for a worldwide audience impatient for the crowning of a new Idol. His 22-city “25 Live” tour kicked off Tuesday in San Diego (he played San Jose last night), and brought in mixed reviews (and filled less than two-thirds of the arena). Singing in shades and a charcoal suit (in photos he looks like an unholy hybrid of Bono and Morrissey), Michael’s set list included such must-dos as “Faith,” “Freedom,” “Fastlove” and “Flawless,” and some surprises, such as the Wham!-era “A Different Corner.” Pluses included such seemingly made-for-Vegas touches as a curvy, cascading video-screen backdrop and Dita Von Teese burlesquing it up during a new video that backdrops his performance of “Feeling Good,” which Michael performed on the finale of ABC’s “Eli Stone” show (Michael played a guardian angel). But in online forums, fans complained that Michael “chickened out on the high notes” and took long pauses between songs and a 20-minute intermission (which is not likely to occur here in Vegas).

Careless Whisper

After a decade of tantalizing tabloids — from his 1998 arrest for “lewd conduct” in a Beverly Hills park to marijuana possession and paparazzi snaps of him asleep at the wheel — Michael recently told a reporter he is sick of having his follies exploited in the media. Michael smartly got out in front of the stories, making fun of his own stupid, sloppy behavior in his videos “Outside” and “Freeek” and on the U.K. TV comedy “Extras.” But he recently told the Los Angeles Times he’s “mortified” at being part of a celebrity culture that distracts from the real news. “In England I’ve probably had about 20 or 30 front pages in the last 2 1/2 years,” he said. “What interests me is what else happened on those same days, and how much our government is getting away with day after day after day. It’s the perfect coverup to every major story they don’t want us to hear! What did Britney Spears do today? Where did George Michael fall asleep?” It’s not likely that Michael will ever have the last word, but this year he signed a “no-holds-barred” contract with HarperCollins to write his autobiography “entirely himself.”

Father Figure

The lingering images of Michael — blow-dried, hypertanned, short-shorted and stubbled, shaded and leather jacketed — don’t include social consciousness. But Michael has emerged as a motivator for charity, in particular famine relief and aid for terminally ill children. And though he came out only after being dragged out in 1998, he has become an outspoken champion of gay rights. “There are things that I think I see in society — the nature of being gay is that you are forced to challenge the general perception, otherwise you have to accept that something is wrong with you,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Maybe that gives gay men the perspective that many have turned into art. And maybe I can.” He lives in Dallas with his American partner of 12 years, art dealer Kenny Goss, and has said they have no plans to get hitched. “I saw a couple of ladies getting married on TV yesterday,” Michael noted Tuesday night from the San Diego stage, referring to the first day California granted legal marriages to gays and lesbians. “It’s about (bleeping) time.”

Older

After a contentious five-year absence from the pop fray, Michael pretty much put the kibosh on his career with what is paradoxically his most personal and beautiful album. Released in 1996, “Older” can be “read” as Michael’s audio autobiography, subtly mixing melody and melancholy, speaking softly but frankly of fame and fear, caution and abandon, loss and grief. Backdrop: Michael fell in love with Brazilian designer Anselmo Feleppa in 1991; diagnosed with AIDS a year and a half later, Feleppa died in 1993. Michael has said it’s still painful for him to listen to the samba music that influenced “Older” during this period and inspired perhaps his loveliest song, “Jesus to a Child.” Michael continued to explore his crooner side on 1999’s “Songs From the Last Century,” thoughtfully interpreting standards old (“Where or When”) and new (“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”). But hardly anyone cared, and the singer grudgingly faced a hard fact — the fickle pop market responds more to Michael’s up-tempo dance-driven stuff, and arena-sized audiences are particularly restless. That breed of fan may be disappointed that the perky “Wake Me Up (Before You Go Go)” and “I Want Your Sex” have been banished from his current set list. “I’m too old,” Michael told USA Today.

You Have Been Loved

Setting aside the record label disputes, fighting with Elton John, calling Rupert Murdoch the devil and a “media dictator” and other antics, one thing cannot be disputed: Michael is a bona fide pop genius, one of the few remaining. He was recently named the most-played artist on British radio in the past 20 years, and the enduring proof is all over his latest album, “Twenty Five,” a 29-track, double CD anthology with several new songs, including duets with Mary J. Blige and Paul McCartney. All those adolescent years spent with his ears pressed to an AM radio found their way into his unusually honest lyrics and irresistible ear candy. Though this may be the last time he will perform on this scale, Michael told a reporter this is not a farewell. And after he frees himself from market pressures, let’s hope he continues to do what he does better than just about anyone else. “I’d like,” he recently said, “to be the Tony Bennett of my generation.”