Listen Without Prejudice was a stark departure from Michael's previous album, 1987's Faith, with largely acoustic instrumentation and a sombre intensity in many of the lyrics and melodies.

The recording sessions commenced in July 1989 at producer Chris Porter's house, near Guildford, before being moved to Metropolis Studios in Chiswick, London.

Owing to a borrowed lyric from the Rolling Stones' hit "You Can't Always Get What You Want", co-writer credits were given to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

[11] In the US, "Mother's Pride", the "Waiting for That Day" B-side, reached number 46;[11] given its subject matter, it received considerable airplay on American radio during the Gulf War.

'90", directed by David Fincher, featured several supermodels lip syncing its lyrics, and the destruction by fire and explosion of several icons from Michael's recent Faith period.

[30] Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Greg Kot found that Michael "makes a convincing case that he's more than just another pretty voice, another disposable pinup", particularly complimenting the album's spare sound, which he welcomed as a contrast to the more dance-leaning music dominating pop radio.

[25] James Hunter of Rolling Stone said that Listen Without Prejudice generally "succeeds in its effort to establish Michael's seriousness and deliver him from caricature.

"[8] Los Angeles Times critic Chris Willman wrote that, "some self-seriousness aside", the album "is an impressive piece of work in which Michael's rich feel for melodies and instinctively perfect production skills have finally met up with songs that have the ring of personal, not commercial, passion.

"[28] Entertainment Weekly's Greg Sandow was less enthusiastic, finding Listen Without Prejudice less "vital" and "fun" than Faith, "and, for all its noble sentiment, entirely unchallenging".

[26] In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau dismissed it as "cocktail music" and was unmoved by Michael's reflections on fame, saying that they merely indicate that "he doesn't know as much about stardom as he thinks".

[35] In 2003, Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani called the album "a starkly personal statement that effectively set the artist's professional downfall into motion", suggesting that its "overall heaviness" failed to resonate with listeners expecting uptempo material in the vein of Michael's past work; he concluded that "the fact that there was never a Vol.

"[2] AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine found the album flawed, noting that Michael downplays his gift for "effortless hooks and melodies" and that his "socially conscious lyrics tend to be heavy-handed", but concluded that its best songs "make a case for his talents as a pop craftsman.

"[24] Reviewing the album's 2017 reissue, Pitchfork writer Alfred Soto situated Listen Without Prejudice in the context of the then-burgeoning HIV/AIDS pandemic: "[George Michael] understood black music as the product of a familiarity with death leavened by the banalities of earth: love, sex, comfort.

"[29] According to Soto: "For those of us too young for the plague years—who can imagine, at least, a life lived instead of convulsing in agony on a hospital bed—chastising Michael for leaning on elegies and ballads in 1990 strikes me as glib.

1 was the follow-up that Faith demanded; in this new incarnation, it's a miscellany unruffled by notions of coherence, an attempt to make art out of George Michael's quarrels with himself.