page_title: Faith (George Michael album)
section_title: Release
hierarchical_section_title: Faith (George Michael album) / Release
caption_attribution_description: English: George Michael performing on The Summit stage in Houston (Texas, USA) during the Faith World Tour in 1988. Français&#160;: George Michael en concert au Summit de Houston (Texas, États-Unis) pendant le Faith World Tour en 1988.
context_page_description: Faith is the debut studio album by the English singer George Michael, released on 30 October 1987 by Columbia Records and Epic Records. In addition to playing various instruments on the album, Michael wrote and produced every track on the recording except for one, "Look at Your Hands", which he co-wrote with David Austin. A "black" inspired pop-R&B album, Faith's songs include introspective lyrics, which generated controversies about Michael's personal relationships at that time.
  By 1986, Michael had spent five years as the lead singer of the popular duo Wham! and had grown tired of accusations that the group, which featured his best friend Andrew Ridgeley, was nothing more than a teenybopper group. After the success of Make It Big, Michael had grown weary of continuing the duo, and expressed to Ridgeley the desire that they should split up which eventually happened. Following the split, Michael began to work on songs that would make his first solo album, which would be titled Faith.
  Faith peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart and US Billboard 200. It stayed for 51 non-consecutive weeks inside the Billboard 200 top 10, including 12 weeks at number one.
context_section_description: 25 weeks after its release, Faith reached number one on the US Billboard 200. Its early, and successive, success on the chart was said to be partly sustained—with help from plenty of press appearances and promotions—by its strong single releases. After "I Want Your Sex" helped propel Faith to its debut atop the chart, the second single "Faith" aided the album's continuing sales dominance. It also reached number one on the UK Albums Chart, although it stayed at the top spot for only one week. Faith stayed for 51 non-consecutive weeks inside the Billboard 200 top 10, including 12 weeks at number one. It was also the first album by a white solo artist to hit number one on the Billboard Top Black Albums chart.
  In a 1988 interview with Jet magazine, Michael was quoted as saying: "I was much happier with [Faith] being the No. 1 Black [chart] album than I was when it became the No. 1 Pop album. There was much more of a sense of achievement. I knew this album would be a shock or a surprise to people in this country. The uptempo side of the new music is more overtly sexual, more black."
  During 1987 and 1988, Faith produced a string of hit singles for Michael, including six top-five Billboard Hot 100 hits, four of which ("Faith", "Father Figure", "One More Try", and "Monkey") reached number one, making him the only British male solo artist to have four number one hits from one album on the Billboard Hot 100. "Faith" was 1988's best-selling single in the United States; with "Careless Whisper" having been the best-selling single in 1985, Michael became the first musician to achieve two Billboard Year-End number one singles chart since the Beatles' "Hey Jude" topped the Year-End singles chart in 1968 after "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had done so in 1964. Michael also had both the year's number one album and the number one single, which hadn't happened since 1970, when Simon & Garfunkel grabbed both positions with Bridge over Troubled Water and its title track.
caption: Michael during a Faith Tour concert in 1988. The album propelled him to solo stardom and one of the most successful English acts of the 1980s.
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