Wham! “Make It Big” 1984. I’m declaring it George Michael Day. On this day in 1985 the single “Careless Whisper” began its three week run at #1 on the US charts and then in 2002 thieves stole over $170,000 in valuables from George Michael’s home and then drove off in his Aston Martin DB7. So February 16th has some mixed karma for George.

Wham! were perfect for the mid-1980s MTV generation: catchy, fabulously good-looking, British, danceable yet able to invoke tears of desperation and heartbreak. “Careless Whispers” was the #1 song when we had an 8th grade dance and I was just suffering the pain of my first dashed boy crush.  I had to watch him dance to this song with one of my best friends while I sat, devastated, at the cafeteria table in the school lunchroom and pretend that it just. didn’t. bother. me. But then “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” came on and we danced with abandon, wishing in the dead of a midwestern February winter that we, too, could wear short-shorts and have a mop of sun-kissed feathered hair.