I've seen things like this before. There's some tiny nuance that the sax player is somehow not getting right. Although you and I can't hear what it is, it may be the very thing that will make the record a hit.
"Careless Whisper" received mainly positive reception upon its release. Music critic Alexis Petridis of The Guardian ranked the song number five of George Michael's 30 greatest songs, stating, "it’s a brilliant pop song regardless, and, in 'guilty feet have got no rhythm', it boasts one of the great once-heard-never-forgotten lyrics".
With 'Careless Whisper' I remember EXACTLY where it first came to me, where I came up with the sax line. I can remember very vaguely where I was when I wrote things after Wham! got off the ground, but with 'Careless Whisper' I remember exactly the time and place.
George Michael had just arrived at the studio and said 'that’s the one, that’s the sax solo I want'. This could be down to that whole 80s synth concept where sounds became increasingly 'manufactured', or just that George never recognized it was 'wrong'."
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He said in 1991 that it "was not an integral part of my emotional development...it disappoints me that you can write a lyric very flippantly—and not a particularly good lyric—and it can mean so much to so many people. That's disillusioning for a writer."
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The song was written before Wham even had a name, way back in '81. George took over the writing by the time the band were recording, so everything after that tends to only have his name attached to it.
The saxophone riff, played by Steve Gregory, became one of the most recognizable and beloved parts of the song, adding a haunting, melancholic feel to the track.
Jazz musician Dan Forshaw later revealed that saxophonist Steve Gregory had got a call to re-record the song's sax solo, and he was the 11th saxophone player to record the solo as George wanted to get the sound he hoped for.
[6] The song later achieved popularity on social media, mainly due to the saxophone riff being used in many movies and as a popular internet meme.[7] With sales of over 11 million copies worldwide it is one of the best selling songs of all time.
"Instead, after two hours, he was still there while everyone in the studio shuddered with embarrassment. He just couldn't play the opening riff the way George wanted it, the way it had been on the demo. But that had been made two years earlier by a friend of George's who lived round the corner and played sax for fun in the pub."[25]
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Although George Michael co-wrote the song with his Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley when they were just 17, it stands out as a much more mature and introspective piece than their earlier pop hits.