"The Edge of Heaven" by Wham!

Top 10 Alert!

Song#:  2790
Date:  07/05/1986
Debut:  47
Peak:  10
Weeks:  13
Genre:  Pop, Blue-Eyed Soul



Pop Bits:  As this duo was wrapping up their association together, they scheduled a final performance (June 28, 1986, at Wembley in London), released a final album (Music from the Edge of Heaven in North America and Japan, The Final in other territories), and issued out this one final single (or so it was in the UK). After a high debut, the song settled in and made the climb to the #10 spot making it their sixth and final Top 10 in the US. It also made it to #22 at AC. In the UK, this song would become a double a-sided single with "Where Did You're Heart Go?" and it would reach #1. For its US release, the single had a different b-side ("Blue," a live track from their China tour), which then allowed their US label to issue out "Where Did You're Heart Go?" as a separate single later in the fall.

ReduxReview:  Kind of like their previous single "I'm Your Man," this is just another exercise in Motown-ish pop. It's fine, but just forgettable. I can never remember how this song goes until I hear it. I think it made the Top 10 based on all the hype around the duo splitting and it being promoted as their last single. I find it less annoying than "I'm Your Man," but it still wouldn't rank among the duo's best songs. As a songwriter, George Michael had done better and would do far better than this.

ReduxRating:  5/10

Trivia:  Wham's tour of China in 1985 was documented in the film Wham! in China: Foreign Skies. The film was ready for release by the time the duo were set to perform their final concert at Wembley stadium in London. Prior to the concert, the hour-long documentary was shown to the crowd of over 70,000 people. Since this was the first public showing of the film, it was considered a world premiere and therefore set a record for the largest audience to ever have attended a film's premiere. It would later be released on home video and in the US it would sell over 50,000 copies, which was gold-level sales for a video (formats at the time were VHS, Betamax, and LaserDisc).

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