The “important” 1960s band George Michael called the best in pop: “I wish I could say that I grew up with them”
An article for Far Out Magazine revisits comments from George Michael in which he named The Beatles as the most important band in pop history, despite being too young to have grown up listening to them. The piece argues that Michael's own songwriting, from Wham! through to his solo career, was shaped by a broad range of influences including Motown, Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Queen, but that The Beatles held a special place as the band he felt set the template for everyone who followed.
Michael explained that his family only owned the Beatles' Let It Be album, meaning he discovered the rest of their catalogue for himself later in life, from "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to "Yesterday". He described them as "the strongest force in popular music simply because they were the first and – more important – the best." The article also links this admiration to his more mature 1990 album Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1, suggesting tracks such as "Praying for Time" echo the sharp wit of John Lennon's songwriting.
- George Michael called The Beatles pop's most important band.
- He discovered their music later, owning only Let It Be as a child.
- Their influence is traced to his song "Praying for Time".
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George Michael, best known for Wham! and his solo career, was one of the biggest-selling British pop stars from the 1980s onwards, with hits including "Careless Whisper" and "Faith". Long after his early success, he spoke about the artists who shaped his songwriting, and singled out The Beatles, the Liverpool band from the 1960s made up of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, as the group he considered the most important in pop music history.
The Beatles are widely regarded as one of the most influential acts in popular music, credited with changing how songs were written and recorded during the 1960s. Michael was born in 1963, so he was a child when the band split up in 1970, meaning his knowledge of their music came later in life rather than through growing up with it at the time.
This background matters because it explains why a younger star from a different era would look back to a much earlier band when discussing his own musical influences, and how those influences fed into albums such as his 1990 solo record Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1.