My wife is a huge George Michael fan and has been awaiting this re-release since it was first announced over a year ago.
She is also still mourning his untimely passing last Christmas.
She likes Listen Without Prejudice more than Faith and likes to make the argument that the album did exactly what George Michael wanted it to do - make him into a serious artist moving away from the bubble gum days of Wham!
I like Faith better and find Listen Without Prejudice a little "heavy-handed," as the All Music review put it years ago. It just feels like he's trying way too hard to be a "serious" artist and it takes away some of the great fun that Michael gave us with Faith.
In listening to the 3CD/1DVD release that arrived this week at our house, nothing has changed in how we view the album. The wife still loves it, thinks it's Michael's best album and wishes he had gotten around to make Volume 2 (as Listen Without Prejudice is named "Volume 1") while I think it's a bit overblown and not as fun as Faith.
They added an MTV Unplugged concert to the package which comes six years after the original album as well as a disc of B-sides and Mixes. The wife prefers the B-sides and Mixes and says it was worth it to get the Heal the Pain version with Paul McCartney and Desafinado with Astrud Gilberto (the last two songs on the B-Sides and Mixes disc.)
Give Listen Without Prejudice a shot if you're a big George Michael fan like my wife and, if you're not, there's always Faith (which got a decent re-release in 2011.)
Listen Without Prejudice (3CD/1DVD)
Faith (2CD)
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