Album Art Flashback: George Michael

On August 27, 1988, George Michael’s single Monkey made it to number one on the Billboard chart. Monkey was the fourth consecutive #1 hit from Michael’s Faith album. Perhaps Michael’s label, Epic, had simply run out of ideas. Monkey has one of the least creative covers of any #1 hit single in recent momory. When it hit the stores, many people where surprised that the cover was simply the word “monkey” on a plain white background. The word is followed by a period and a gray line appears above the letter “e” — for no apparent reason. Was it supposed to be pronounced “monkeeeeee”? No one knew.