George Michael’s ‘Freedom! ’90’ has had a huge cultural impact since its release 30 years ago. It marked a departure from WHAM! and the Faith era, symbolically burning the leather jacket that had become his defining look. He did not appear in the music video himself, and instead recruited five of the world’s biggest supermodels – Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Tatjana Patitz – to lip sync the song in his place, at a time when supermodels usually only depicted love interests in music videos. Although he was not to come out for another eight years, the song has become an LGBTQ+ anthem, for the lyrics: ‘I think there’s something you should know/ I think it’s time I told you so/ There’s something deep inside of me/ There’s someone else I’ve got to be […] I just hope you understand/Sometimes the clothes do not make the man’. It is a song about embracing your true self, whoever that may be, and still sounds brilliant to this day.
Watch the video below:
