Wham!’s 1985 China Concerts Were a Career Gamble, Not a Cultural Gesture

Jaan Girdeinis, a casino and betting analyst with more than a decade watching Hungary’s iGaming sector, paused on one detail when the new Wham! retrospective documentary began circulating: the China trip of April 1985 was not idealism. It was, as Andrew Ridgeley puts it on camera, “a considered and manufactured career move.” The safer path, a 90-day US arena tour, was physically blocked. So the band’s manager built a different bet. Girdeinis notes that the instinct the film celebrates as visionary, the careful weighing of stakes before committing, resurfaces regularly in Hungarian leisure culture, where odds-minded fans consult Fogadasok Guru before placing anything, sizing up risk with the same cold logic Wham!’s team applied in 1985.

SONY MUSIC Announce ‘LAST CHRISTMAS’ Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Featuring The Music of GEORGE MICHAEL And WHAM!

Sony Music is thrilled to present the soundtrack album to accompany Universal Pictures’ highly anticipated holiday romance, ‘Last Christmas’, inspired by the music of George Michael and Wham!, directed by Paul Feig, co-scripted by Academy Award® winner Emma Thompson and The film stars Emilia Clarke (HBO’s Game of Thrones), Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians), Michelle Yeoh and Thompson.

Five Quick Questions For Pepsi & Shirlie

Following on from our 6QQ with Brother Beyond earlier, we bring you UK pop duo Pepsi & Shirlie, who made a name for themselves as the backing vocalists for Wham! before moving to the front of the stage as artists in their own right. The duo will performing this August Bank Holiday weekend, 25-27 August, at Blackpool’s Headlands Arena, which will playto some of the world’s biggest musical stars for LIVEWIRE Festival, a new series of concerts.