George Michael quits pop
2005-02-17 11:34
Berlin - George Michael says he's closing a chapter in his two-decade pop music career with his new autobiographical film, George Michael: A Different Story.
The reason?
"I think my own genre is dead," Michael said on Wednesday as he presented the movie at the Berlin International Film Festival. "I don't really think that there is anyone in the modern pop business who I feel I want to spar with."
Michael, 41, said he wants to "try to move my career into a different form - I don't know what that's going to be yet."
In the new film, directed by Southan Morris, Michael takes viewers through the highs and lows of his career, from his rise to fame as half of 1980s British pop duo Wham to his 1998 arrest for lewd conduct at a public restroom in Beverly Hills, California - an episode that forced his homosexuality into the public domain.
"Having been so private and not explained myself for the last 15 years or so, I thought that my fans deserved to know what those songs were about," Michael told reporters. "It's almost as much for me as for them, in terms of trying to make sense of the last 22 years and bring it to a close in a proper way."
"I'm much less worried about being intensely private," he added. "I'm sure a lot of that is to do with being outed - it changes everything."
Michael acknowledged embarrassment of a different kind over the early days of his career.
"I was the perpetrator of many fashion crimes in the 80s," he said.
The singer's last album, "Patience," topped the British charts last year. "I'm still going to be making music," he said.
Michael's film is showing outside the main competition at the Berlin festival, which ends Sunday. - Sapa-AP
- AP