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A CD of the original Wham! demo recorded in 1982 by producer Paul Mex. The four-track master demo was recorded on a TEAC 144 4-track recorder in the lounge of Andrew Ridgeley's family home. It was the very first recording the pop duo ever made as Wham!, and it helped them secure a record contract with Innervision Records. Parts of the demo can be heard in Chris Smith's Netflix documentary Wham!.

Mex discovered the multi-track master demo cassette in his collection and gave it to George Michael in 1998, but not before archiving it digitally on a hard drive, which he kept private for many years, before transferring it to this one-off CD for safe-keeping. The demo has never been fully released to the public.

The CD includes the tracks "Careless Whisper" and "Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)", and Mex added acapella versions of both songs for his own enjoyment. The lyrics in these early versions differ slightly from the released versions. The lot comes in a white card sleeve, with details of the recording printed on the front, and the tracklist and credits on the back. Dimensions: 12.5 cm x 12.5 cm x 0.5 cm (5" x 5" x 1/4")

Sold without copyright; see notice in the Buyer's Guide.

Additional Information:



George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley sent around 25 cassette copies of the demo to record companies at the beginning of 1982, hoping to secure a deal. This initially yielded no results until Mark Dean at Innervision Records finally took them on. None of those cassettes are known to have survived. Production company Ventureland searched extensively for a copy of the demo for the Netflix documentary, spending months scouring George's homes for the four-track master that Mex gave him in 1998, but to no avail. Ridgeley provided the solution when he suggested that Mex may have kept a copy.

Estimate: £1,000 - 2,000 M