Celebrating 40 years of WHAM! Britain’s best loved and most popular duo, this is what the fans have been waiting for... WHAM! The Singles: Echoes From The Edge Of Heaven. This multi format release includes a special edition 7” vinyl singles carry case containing all the hits, which spanned four dazzlingly successful years, kicking off with 1982’s Young Guns (Go For It) and culminating in 1986’s The Edge Of Heaven. Along the way, there was some of the most uplifting music of any era: WHAM! RAP! (Enjoy What You Do), Bad Boys, Club Tropicana, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Freedom, Last Christmas, Everything She Wants and I’m Your Man!

 

George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley formed WHAM! in 1981.The lifelong friends who met at secondary school in the small town of Bushey became one of the most globally successful pop acts of the 1980s, selling more than thirty million records worldwide. Several pop generations down the line, this treasure trove of musical gems continues to inspire legions of new fans!

 

George and Andrew released eleven singles as WHAM!, incredibly, five of them (Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Freedom, Last Christmas, I’m Your Man and The Edge Of Heaven) were British Number 1s. Meanwhile, in the United States, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Careless Whisper and Everything She Wants were chart toppers: remarkably, all three were from the same album, Make It Big, which sold six million copies in America alone. Elsewhere, the boys topped the charts in a host of countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Holland, Italy, Ireland, South Africa and Switzerland!

 

In 1985, WHAM! became the first western group to perform in China, where two rapturously received concerts broke countless cultural barriers!

 

WHAM! toured the world. The Big Tour of 1984 and ‘85, comprised thirty-nine shows in support of the multi-platinum British and American Number One album - Make It Big. It took in the UK, Ireland, Japan, Australia, United States, Hong Kong and China and in the summer of 1985, their WHAMAMERICA! stadium tour played to hundreds of thousands of WHAM! fans the length and breadth of the USA.

 

On June 28, 1986, WHAM! The Final saw the duo depart in a blaze of glory in front of seventy-two thousand people at Wembley Stadium. The concert included performances by their friend Elton John!

 

Best of all, George and Andrew’s friendship was as strong at the end as it was in the beginning. WHAM! never got old and they never lost their exclamation mark!

 

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7" Vinyl Single Box Set - £200 (!) - https://store.wham-official.com/products/th...t-d2c-exclusive

CD Singles Box Set - £55 - https://store.wham-official.com/products/th...t-d2c-exclusive

Green Vinyl - £32.99 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B6RM9GYP

Blue Vinyl - £31.99 - https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/wham-th...edge-of-heaven/

Zoetrope Picture Disc - £30 - https://store.wham-official.com/products/th...en-picture-disc

Black Vinyl - £25 - https://store.wham-official.com/products/th...ard-black-vinyl

CD - £12 - https://store.wham-official.com/products/th...ven-cd-digipack

Amazing- thankfully I have all their singles on 7" (except Club Fantastic megamix which is on 12")-

ouch at the prices! I have most of the singles on vinyl, the rest I have on vinyl hits double album. Ebay's quite good for 80's singles these days...

200 is crazy

​In 1982, the best of friends and still teenagers George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley as WHAM! set out to conquer the world.

 

On June 28, 1986, they performed together as WHAM! for the last time, at Wembley Stadium, having done exactly that. Now for the very first time, told in their own words, the amazing story of how in four years they dominated the charts around the world with timeless and classic pop songs.

 

WHAM! is a feature length documentary that captures this magical time, from director Chris Smith (FYRE) and producers John Battsek (Searching for Sugarman) and Simon Halfon (Supersonic). With unprecedented access to both George and Andrew’s personal archive including remarkable and never before seen footage, alongside rare, candid and previously unheard interviews, WHAM! charts their incredible journey from school friends to superstars. Coming to Netflix 5 July!

 

 

The Wham! documentary will be shown in select cinemas next Tuesday 27th June for one night only.

Did anyone watch the documentary? I saw it earlier today!

 

As someone who knew very little about Wham!, I did find it interesting, although I could tell that the documentary was keeping things quite light and surface level.

 

One thing I didn't know is that they were genuinely huge in the US. Doing a stadium tour there! :o As well as three #1 singles. It makes you think that they could have kept Wham! going for longer than they did, but clearly George's solo ambitions were too strong.

 

The narrative that Andrew was always just along for the ride and it was always George who was the star is certainly a perception that I had assumed, but the documentary does reframe that Andrew was actually vital in making the whole thing happen, that Wham! essentially was Andrew's vision/concept - and that his self-assured nature was needed to help George build up his own confidence in his own abilities.

 

 

In other news "The Singles: Echoes From The Edge Of Heaven" is out this week - I wonder how it'll do?

I watched and have also had an Andrew Ridgeley rethink!

I watched it too! Well put together, you certainly got a feel for their chemistry as a duo. Interesting but understandable to hear George's mixed feelings about Band Aid, also that Careless Whisper was one of the songs they used to try to get them signed, and when it was eventually released in the US it was as "Wham! featuring George Michael".

I absolutely loved the documentary! Forgot Bad Boys excisted and that it was a bigger hit than Club Tropicana