W hen the 30 th an- niversary of this cult music video was celebrated at the end of last year, the world again recalled the song Freedom and the artist who left us four years ago. With striking lyrics that testified brilliantly to his struggle with identity, growth as an artistic and star status, it won over listeners instantly. However, George Michael, who was then at the peak of his dizzying fame, decided that he didn’t want to appear in the video for his new sin- gle or use his image to promote the 1990 album Listen Without Preju- dice Vol. 1. But his record label still wanted music videos for MTV. In- spired by a group portrait featuring Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford from the Jan- uary 1990 cover of British Vogue, George Michael asked the super- models to take his place, together with model John Pearson and pho- tographer Mario Sorrenti. And the rest is history! Although models appearing in a music video wasn’t a new phenom- enon, in the past women had usually been cast in a “girl- friend” role. Here, instead of being appendages, the models were the focus of the video, lip-syncing lyrics such as “All we have to see is that I don’t belong to you, and you don’t belong to me”. Whether bathing, danc- ing or gazing into the camera, the models all brought the star qualities they’d exhibited on the catwalk to Michael’s song, which helped the video become a hit. Of course, many people who’d never paid much attention to fashion be- came aware that another world ex- isted, one that was yet to reign in the time to come - the world of su- permodels. Fashion had, thus, made its mark on the video for Freedom, and in turn the song and accom- panying video would impact on the fashion industry. The show for Gi-
THIRTY YEARS ON...
Cindy, Linda, Tatjana, Christy and Naomi remember Freedom George Michael persuaded the five greatest supermodels of the ‘90s to appear in the video for his song Freedom. This song, the 30 th anniversary of which we celebrated recently, was proclaimed one of the most significant pieces of pop music of its time
Svi su supermodeli obavili sjajan posao / All the supermodels did a great job
anni Versace’s Autumn 1991 collec- tion ended with four of the models from the video — Campbell, Evan- gelista, Crawford, and Turlington — strutting down the catwalk, hand- in-hand, as they once more mouthed the words to Michael’s song... Setting the fashion aspect aside, the video for Freedom oblit- erated symbols of Michael’s earlier career, like a jukebox and leather jacket connected to the video for his song Faith (the jacket burned along to the lyrics “sometimes the clothes do not make the man”). Moreover, by entitling the song Freedom! ‘90, the author actually referenced one of his hit songs as part of the duo Wham! That was also called Free- dom (without ‘90). However, he seemed to be asking his audience to forget about the earlier tune and pay attention to the updated one for a new era. George was also no longer inter- ested in stardom. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times at that time, he said, “Everybody wants to be a star. I certainly did, and I worked hard to get it. But I was miserable, and I don’t want to feel that way again.” He’d used Freedom to stand up for himself and his needs as an artist. He also set an example for oth- ers in the music industry by doing so. Talking about Michael’s refusal to appear in the video, Elton John once said, “It changed the whole face of how videos were done: the vid- eo said everything. It was genius. And it was a revolutionary thing”.
Pop culture » Pop kultura | 43
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