Product Description

Track listing 1. Patience 2. Amazing 3. John And Elvis Are Dead 4. Cars And Trains 5. Round Here 6. Shoot The Dog 7. My Mother Had A Brother 8. Flawless (Go To The City) 9. American Angel 10. Precious Box 11. Please Send Me Someone (Anselmo's Song) 12. Freeek 13. Through 14. Patience (part 2)

Track Listing

1. Patience
2. Amazing
3. John and Elvis Are Dead
4. Cars and Trains
5. Round Here
6. Shoot The Dog
7. My Mother Had A brother
8. Flawless ( Go To The City)
9. American Angel
10. Precious Box
11. Please Send Me Someone
12. Freeek!
13. Through
14. Patience (reprise)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2168 in Music
• Released on: 2004-03-15
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics

Amazon.co.uk Review
It must be hard being a George Michael fan. Patience is only his fourth studio effort in the 18 years since Wham! split, so its release must be some cause for celebration. There always seems to have been something preventing him from releasing a new album--from arrests for lewd behaviour, protracted battles with record companies or prolonged periods of grieving for departed family and friends. Thankfully, Patience is pretty good.

Flitting between fraught ballads and up-tempo adult pop (the misguided sample-laden singles "Freeek!" and "Shoot the Dog" being the unnecessary exceptions), George here returns to the structure and mood of 1990s Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1. Patience is at its most delicate and moving with its title track, the intense, tabloid-attacking "Through" and the painful family memories of "My Mother Had a Brother". To balance this, hearts will be raised by "Amazing", with its echoes of the Bee Gees, "Round Here", in which George remembers his early days scampering around Bushey with Andrew Ridgley, and "Cars and Trains", which celebrates the kind of lifestyle that so riled the LAPD back in 1998. That's the thing about George Michael these days. Love him or loathe him, he is unapologetically himself. And fans should be very grateful for that. --Dominic Wills

CD Description
After various legal battles with Sony in the past, George Michael returns to the label with his fourth studio recording'Patience'. The album, written, arranged and produced by Michael himself, is a mix of up-tempo pop and ballads and features the singles 'Freeek', 'Shoot The Dog' and 'Amazing'.

Customer Reviews

"Celebrate the Love of the One You're With."
The title of George Michael's new solo album obviously refers to the patience with which we've waited for this CD, his first of original material since 1996's "Older." It's not as consistent as that record, but it does feature some of Michael's most personal and inspired work. There are some great tunes, a few good ones, and a couple boring ones, resulting in an overall worthwhile effort. The kickoff single, "Amazing," is an unpretentious, guitar flavored pop song that deserved its Top Ten status in Britain. "Flawless (Go to the City)" is a flamboyant, 6-minute disco stomper that has the word "hit" all over it, and "American Angel" is a touching love song about his Texas boyfriend. Every George Michael CD has at least one tearjerker of a ballad, and on this CD, that song is definitely "My Mother Had a Brother," which addresses the suicide of his uncle. If this track doesn't make you misty in the eyes, you better make sure you still have a pulse. But at 70 minutes, it seems a bit weighed down by only a couple filler tracks. More interesting, is that the American version of "Patience" doesn't have the anti-war "Shoot the Dog," a scathing diatribe against George Bush and Tony Blair. I guess that Sony reasoned that it would hurt George's American sales by including such a politically charged song in a time when 1) Iraq is currently in a state of turmoil and 2) during an election year. Still, this CD deserves to be as much a hit on these shores as the UK, where it already went to Number One. It's not perfect, but make no mistake: this "Patience" is a virtue.

Be patient with it...
I've been listening to 'Patience' for one week now. On first listening, I didn't quite get it...one week in, I love it.

The music is excellent, perfectly produced as usual, George Michael's voice has improved even more since 'Listen Without Prejudice'.

But it's the lyrics that take time to get into (does anyone listen to those these days?). If you take the time, it's well worth it.

For me, this is a confessional album about personal love that's been lost and found, lifestyle, family, home, and the questioning of faith in a god and politics.

And personally I welcome the inclusion of 'Shoot the Dog' and 'Freeek' as a brave attempt to deal with important issues of American imperialism and internet porn.

It's a confusing, but intriguing, mix of jazz, blues, ballads and funk.

It's honest...and I honestly like it.

Like No Other
This album is most definitely George Michael at his very best - and that is to say . . . it's all even better than the classic Ladies And Gentlemen compilation.
Around 70 minutes long, Patience combines Electro (check out Shoot The Dog's clever use of the Human League's Love Action); camp disco (Flawless); melancholic ballads (two-part title track and gorgeously confessional My Mother Had A Brother, seemingly one of Michael's most personal songs to date). There's also a touching lovesong written for his long-time boyfriend, and a revamped version of Freeek! that works far better in the context of the album than it did as a single a couple or so years back. Brilliant tunes and fine production aside, George Michael sings like an angel; in fact he sings like never before.
If you only buy one album a month, buy this one.
If you only buy twelve albums a year -- get thirteen and give the dozen to all those you care about.
Shortly speaking, this is timeless stuff.