Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael
Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael is a 1998 greatest-hits collection by George Michael. It was released on November 9, 1998, and features 29 songs (28 on the North American version) split across two CDs with different moods: the Heart is full of ballads, and the Feet focuses on dance tunes. A companion DVD with 23 of his music videos came out in 1999.
The album is notable for including a number of tracks and duets that hadn’t appeared on George Michael albums before. These include the Aretha Franklin duet “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me),” the Portuguese duet “Desafinado” with Astrud Gilberto, and Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”
Some tracks are presented in special or edited forms on this collection. For example, “Careless Whisper” is the single version, “A Different Corner” was remixed for the compilation, and “Fantasy” is the original 1990 version (not the later 1998 remix). “I Want Your Sex” appears as “Part II – Brass in Love,” and the track “Monkey” appears on the US and Japanese editions as a remixed single version.
The album came out after a difficult period with Sony, as Michael had left the label before the 1996 release Older. He later returned to Sony for the 2004 album Patience. The first single from the collection was “Outside.” The second single, “As” (a duet with Mary J. Blige), was released in many territories and reached the UK top 5, but it was not included on the North American version.
Critics generally praised the set. Reviewers highlighted how the double-disc format shows the range of Michael’s work, from pop-soul ballads to dance tracks. It performed very well on charts: in the UK it opened at No. 1 and stayed there for eight weeks, remaining on the chart for many weeks overall. In the United States, it peaked at No. 24 on the Billboard 200 and earned multi-platinum status over time.
After George Michael’s death in 2016, sales surged again in the UK and beyond. Proceeds from the British release were later reported to go to the Terrence Higgins Trust, according to friends who spoke publicly about the charity contributions.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:54 (CET).