COLUMBIA: Maybe he isn’t just a three-day...

COLUMBIA: Maybe he isn’t just a three-day bearded wonder after all. George Michael overcame his pretty-boy pop-tart image to achieve mainstream success with an album which sold 6 million copies and generated an unprecedented six Top 5 singles. Terence Trent D’Arby overcame an equally high hurdle--a blizzard of rock-crit hype--to land a double-platinum album and a No. 1 single. But once you get past these high-profile stars, it was a surprisingly lean year at the industry giant (Michael and D’Arby accounted for all of the label’s five No. 1 singles). Its only other platinum albums were Midnight Oil’s “Diesel and Dust” and Barbra Streisand’s 1987 “One Voice” album. Two big summer releases fizzled--Boz Scaggs’ first album in eight years, “Other Roads” and Julio Iglesias’ big-budget project, “Non Stop.”