I’M ENJOYING George Michael being back in the charts, particularly after hearing his typically bonkers announcement this week that his new album is to be his last. Unfortunately, it isn’t for his music, although the current hit, Amazing, is OK, and Patience, his new offering, will probably please his old Eighties fans. My enjoyment doesn’t come from his political rants either — Michael has it in for Bush and Blair, but doesn’t everyone these days? It’s not even the stuff about his sex life.

Actually, I can think of more reasons for the 40-year-old Michael to stay in the pop wilderness than to let him back into the limelight, for however short a time.

There’s his ego — “I’ve always believed I would outlast everyone, with the possible exception of Madonna,” he said recently. How a former boy-band member who had a huge album 16 years ago, the seven million-selling Faith, can put himself on a par with Rod Stewart and Sting makes you wonder just how much spliff he’s smoking. There’s the camp Michael walk — how did he ever get away with pretending to be straight? The hissy fit when fans didn’t like the pompously titled Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 and he sued his record label (and lost) and his friendship with Geri Halliwell. So why cheer his return? For a start, it means lots of clips of Club Tropicana, the only pop video to make package holidays look worse than they are. Best of all, and this is rare for a rich, famous person, Michael has a great sense of humour, in a crazy kind of way.

As for the music, if you can find your copy of Faith, you may as well enjoy it. Which isn’t to say it’s a return to form. None of the songs are as strong as the ex-Wham! man’s early solo singles, nor the best of his boyband days. It does borrow from old hits, however, and it sounds as if it was made at least a decade ago.

The album opens with the title track, a piano number with gentle vocals that reminds you that Michael never was a great singer. For the next 70 minutes the songs switch between slick, slightly funky, midtempo tunes that borrow from his 1990 single Freedom and soul-searching slowies. Amazing is punchy pop with a breezy chorus and uplifting lyrics, primed for remixing. The handclap-backed Round Here is the sort of song models dance to at parties with a glass of champagne in each hand, and the techno-tinged Precious Box treads Faithless territory.

The so-called political song and former flop single Shoot the Dog lays mumbled lyrics and a Maurice Gibb impression over Human League’s Love Action; Flawless is Michael singing over the naff electro hit of that name by the Ones.

Lyrically, the slowies are more interesting. John and Elvis are Dead is a post-purple-era Prince-type tune about dead idols; My Mother Had a Brother is an odd, moving family tale; and Through is a moody, strings-accompanied song about his past problems.

As on his mid-1990s album Older, Michael does some growing up, but it’s where you least expect it that he comes up with the goods. Cars & Trains is a fantastic track about suicide that will get your toes tapping, and Please Send Me Something is a summery groove with a Latin-lite rhythm. What’s more, the old single Freeek!, with its dragging bassline and naughty lyrics, sounds much better now than it did when it came out (George is back with his old label Sony).

Patience isn’t a great album, but it’s a step back in the right direction. You try doing that after a couple of spliffs.