Apr 09, 2004  |  By: Cyd Zeigler, Jr.  | COMMENTS     

THE TERM I HEAR most about the relationship between George Michael fans and his music is “soundtrack.” From “Faith” to “Older,” the gay singer has had a way of connecting with listeners that helped shape and define periods in their lives.

I am no different. In high school, “Faith” gave me an entrée into sexuality. “Listen Without Prejudice, Volume One,” was released as I began my exit from high school and my trek across New England to look at colleges and became the seminal soundtrack to that period of my life — and to the next 14 years.

On the back of the album cover, Michael concludes his thanks by offering fans his appreciation. “I would like to thank the most patient audience in the history of pop music, for waiting. Again,” he says.

It might be a stretch, but not much of one. While “Older” offered the hits “Fast Love” and “Jesus To A Child,” and two other albums offered reflections of his past music and covers of other songs of the last century, not since 1990’s “Prejudice” has Michael so clearly had something to say.

It’s been a confusing 14 years for an artist (and, yes, pop star) who had to deal with being outed in such a humiliating way (arrested for soliciting in a public restroom) and a restlessness, at first with his label, Sony, then his new label, DreamWorks SKG.

Michael has clearly come out of all this stronger, older, with lessons learned as well as a new muse.

Like no album since the dynamic “Faith,” he spreads his wings on “Patience.” Five years in the making, and currently available only as an import from other countries, “Patience” offers one of Michael’s widest ranges yet of music, from instrumental to heartfelt love song to upbeat dance.

FANS OF “PREJUDICE” will recognize the lyrical mastery in the title track, which is revisited in the last track sans lyrics, similar to Michael’s 1990 release “Waiting For That Day.” The track and the album also delve deeply into his fascination with childhood. A theme long trod upon in Michael’s music, the album’s back cover even shows two boys of different races staring at one another.

Michael’s excursions into childhood in this album, as in the past, are also tied tightly to his themes of loss.

“My Mother Had a Brother” seems almost a sequel to his “Mother’s Pride,” though here he’s talking about being gay to a different generation and how it was too much to take for a man just like himself.

Perhaps most importantly, Michael is also openly and madly in love with a man these days. While love and sex have been the themes of many of his previous songs, never have they been so intimate as they are on “American Angel,” which he dedicates to “a tasty Texan geezer that you may have spotted a few pages back.” (There’s a picture of the handsome Texan in there, too.)

The song is, at its core, an ode to his lover, and Michael shares deep appreciation for the man who has “stopped to wipe away my tears and you stayed forever and more.”

The singer’s vulnerability comes through in a hint of social commentary, seemingly offering, at the same time, a hope (or memory) of American foreign policies: “My American Angel, he doesn’t want to fight (doesn’t need to fight); my U.S. of Angel, holds me in the dead of night.”

Michael also satisfies his fans on the dance floor. “Shoot The Dog,” with a sample from Human League’s “Love Action,” is a catchy anthem that will remind the listener of Robbie Williams’ “Rock DJ,” another hit from a British pop star.

“Flawless (Go To The City)” pays homage to the disco hits of the ’70s without relying too heavily on the sounds of the neo-disco tracks that have come from other pop stars in the last couple years. If he didn’t intend this to be played upon the entrance of every drag queen around the world, then I’m gayer than he is.

I don’t know if it was worth the wait — 14 years is a long time — for his fans. But it more than makes up for lost time.