Freedom! '90

Michael wrote, produced and performed it, and it was released in October 1990. The year was added to the title to avoid confusion with Wham!'s Freedom, and the backing beat is a sample of James Brown's Funky Drummer. The song looks back at his success with Wham! and shows a man more cynical about the music business. It runs to 6:30, with a shorter version for radio, and Ethan Hein of New York University has noted that the first chorus does not arrive until almost two minutes in. It reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified gold by the RIAA, but only number 28 in the UK.

Michael refused to appear in the video, directed by David Fincher. He asked Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz and Cindy Crawford to lip-sync in his place. In the chorus, the leather jacket, Wurlitzer jukebox and guitar from the Faith video are destroyed. Where the Faith video opened with a jukebox needle on vinyl, this one opens with a compact disc player reading a disc.

Rolling Stone ranked it 126 on its 2021 list of the 500 best songs. Pitchfork named it the 16th best song of the 1990s in 2022. Michael performed it, along with White Light, at the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, and Anna Kendrick covered it for Pitch Perfect 3 in 2017.