"George Best" is the debut album by The Wedding Present, released in October 1987 by their own label, Reception Records. After self-releasing five singles, the band recorded their first album, continuing their collaboration with producer Chris Allison, who had worked on their previous single, "My Favourite Dress." David Gedge's songwriting often focuses on relationships that break up or never fully develop. A notable exception is the CD bonus track "All About Eve," which addresses apartheid, a topic Gedge encountered during his childhood in South Africa.
The band received permission to name the album after Northern Irish football legend George Best, who agreed to appear in promotional photos with them.
The original compact disc release from Reception Records included two bonus tracks from the B-side of the single "Anyone Can Make a Mistake." Subsequent CD re-releases, starting with the 1997 version by Canadian label Pearls from the Past, included tracks from the 1988 singles "Nobody's Twisting Your Arm" and "Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?", along with a cover of The Beatles' "Getting Better." By the time of the latter single's release, drummer Shaun Charman had been replaced by Simon Smith.
In 2007, the band celebrated the album's 20th anniversary with a tour, performing it in full. During the recording sessions for their 2008 album El Rey, they made a live-in-the-studio recording of George Best with Steve Albini, which was mixed by Andrew Scheps and released in September 2017 as George Best 30. The 30th anniversary tour in 2017 was accompanied by the release of a documentary titled The Wedding Present: Something Left Behind.
NME ranked George Best at number 489 in its 2014 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
