1993 George Michael And Queen (With Lisa Stansfield): Five Live EP

A curious artefact, this 'Five Live EP' contains, as you may have guessed, five live tracks in a sort of mini-album. What might be slightly less obvious though is that, despite the logo and the 'and Queen' blazing proudly on the sleeve and all proceeds going to The Mercury Phoenix Trust, only two of the songs are actually by Queen songs ('Somebody To Love' and 'These Are The Days Of Our Lives') and feature the remainder of the band. What's left are covers of 'Papa Was A Rolling Stone', 'Killer' (the Adamski song) and 'Calling You' from the Bagdad Cafe soundtrack.

George gets the ball gets rolling strongly enough with a bullish run through of 'Somebody To Love' where he sounds like he's auditioning for Mercury's replacement and singing for his supper at the same time. It carries more than a germ of the hysterical/eccentric swagger associated with Queen (helped by Queen's own hysterical/eccentric backing) but the best isn't saved for last and from then on each track overplays its hand to bog itself down in a welter of professional stodge and fussiness that suggests everyone involved thought a slick band and sense of occasion would be enough to make it all worthwhile.

But it isn't I'm afraid and as a 'live album' it's a failure; nothing here flows with any spontaneity and everything on offer sounds like its been rehearsed a hundred times prior to the recording, with each performance sounding exactly the same. The mix and match nature and presentation of the songs too has the effect of giving the EP the disjointed feel of a mix tape where the loving compiler can see the link that threads the songs together but the rest of us are left in bemusement. And because of that, you almost need two separate sets of ears to listen to it - the Queen songs can be enjoyed as a tribute to the departed Mercury while the remainder can be enjoyed as George Michael flexing his soul muscles on stage, though to that I'd add the caveat that you need to be a diehard Queen fan or a diehard George Michael fan to get any enjoyment at all out of this. If you're both then I guess you're laughing. But I'm not. On both counts.