George Michael “Monkey” 1988. 12″ single. The sixth single released from Faith, “Monkey” went to no. 1 in the US (on both the singles and dance charts) and to no. 13 in the UK. It’s an infectiously funky song about addiction.

I’m not sure I appreciated how great it was in ’88 (or how amazing George Michael was, for that matter) while deep in my punk-only phase. This 12″ has the extended version on Side A which is much longer than the single, with lots of extra synth effects and George Michael asking for more bass and guitars, etc. Side B has an “a’cappella” version of the song (a bit misleading: there are lots of drum machine beats and synth chords accenting the processed vocals) plus an “extra beats” variant (not misleading: lots of extra and crazy-ass funk’d out beats). The radio/video single version is not on the 12″ but it was remixed from the album version by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and Paula Abdul choreographed the video. SO 80’s.