George Michael — Careless Whisper

The 1984 saxophone ballad that launched George Michael's solo profile is broadly charting today, tracked across 65 country and platform charts after a five-week dip. Written with Wham! bandmate Andrew Ridgeley and released on the duo's Make It Big, the song is a study in guilt — its narrator confessing an infidelity over a hook that ranks among the most recognizable brass lines in pop, per Genius. Its afterlife has been steady: the track soundtracked a comically earnest slow-dance in A Night at the Roxbury (1998), a placement that helped cement its reputation as a shorthand for seduction played straight. That comedic framing has kept the saxophone motif alive across generations of covers and short-form edits. Michael died in December 2016; his catalog has never fully left rotation.