‘The greatest album never made’: the untold story of George Michael’s secret, star-packed duets project

In 1992, George Michael secretly recorded an album of songs intended for stars including Aretha Franklin, Janet Jackson, Sade Adu and Bryan Ferry, working under the alias the Trojan Souls. The project, born out of frustration with a bitter legal dispute with Sony Records and his exhaustion with being marketed as a sex symbol, was abandoned after his boyfriend Anselmo Feleppa died of Aids in March 1993, and Michael never returned to the material. Now, nearly a decade after the singer's death, previously unseen footage of the sessions is being made public, offering a rare glimpse of him at the height of his creative powers.

The footage, some 90 minutes of unedited video, was filmed by Michael's childhood friend and adviser Andros Georgiou, who has spent years trying to remove unauthorised leaked clips from YouTube and TikTok before deciding to release the material himself. Georgiou, whose family emigrated from Cyprus alongside Michael's, had a long creative partnership with the singer, including their 1987 hit as Boogie Box High, before a falling-out in 1998. He says the Trojan Souls sessions began almost impulsively during a 1992 trip to Los Angeles, growing into a full album project recruiting Michael's musical heroes, with David Bowie reportedly the only one to decline involvement.