Michael attacks UK music industry

George Michael: People are not buying British music

Singer George Michael has blamed the music industry's obsession with "pretty young things" for the poor quality of British music and the downturn in sales.

Writing in the Sunday Times, he said talented musicians were ignored by music bosses in favour of bands who were plucked out of stage school and pushed around.

In the process of ignoring real talent... you are depriving the country of one of its greatest assets

George Michael

The singer wrote that in 1986 British music accounted for 32% of record sales in the United States, but the percentage had now dropped to 0.2%.

He said that he "sympathised" with Americans who did not want to buy the "rubbish" many UK record companies were producing.

"Even we aren't buying it in any great numbers," he wrote.

"The corporate guys have spent the past 15 years doing their best to relieve artists of their art, and by now they have pretty much succeeded.

'Conviction'

"In the process of ignoring real talent... in favour of malleable, pretty young things, you are depriving the country of one of its greatest assets."

The singer this week paid £1.45m for the piano on which John Lennon composed Imagine.

He wrote in the newspaper that he bought the piano because it symbolised a peak in popular culture.

George Michael hit the big time with Wham

"It was a time when people expressed a naive but genuine belief that they could change the world with music and conviction," he wrote.

"These people wrote their own songs, sang them with a variety of untrained voices, drank, took drugs, drowned, marched, looked ridiculous and made amazing, beautiful music."

The singer, who started his career with pop group Wham, expressed regret that he had been born too late to be a part of an era when the best music in the world was British.

"But... I know when my fingers touch the keys of (Lennon's) Steinway, I will feel truly blessed," he added.

Mr Michael has said he will hand over the piano to the Beatles' Story museum in Liverpool after he has used it to record his next album.