Boy George may as well have landed from Mars. \u201cThank you, America, you know a good drag queen when you see one,\u201d<\/i> Boy replied with a wink and a smile upon winning Best New Artist at the 1984 Grammy Awards. He was something new and quite different indeed, but in the wild and excessive 1980s, anything went. The fact of the matter is that he had the vocal chops and artistic credibility to back it all up. With his triple threat bandmates, Culture Club had arrived.<\/p>\n
The debut, Kissing To Be Clever<\/i>, did the job of establishing the group, though the real commercial breakthrough (Colour By Numbers<\/i>) would still have to wait a year. On this first platter, the singles served up were \u201cDo You Really Want To Hurt Me\u201d and \u201cI\u2019ll Tumble 4 Ya,\u201d though \u201cTime (Clock Of The Heart)\u201d was subsequently added to the US versions of the LP and also proved to be a high charting hit. Unfortunately, that song would not be included on the CD until the re-masters years later. From a production standpoint, all three songs are superb and are leagues better than the remainder of the album.<\/p>\n
For his part, Boy George\u2019s otherwise soulful voice struggles to reach beyond the monotone pocket he usually finds himself trapped in. One listen to the most grating tunes, \u201cYou Know I\u2019m Not Crazy\u201d or \u201cTake Control\u201d will give you a sense of what I\u2019m talking about. It\u2019s almost as if he is straining to hold or reach the high notes. Granted, such songs have their own limitations melodically, so it\u2019s not exactly a smooth listening experience from start to finish. On \u201cLove Twist,\u201d Boy manages to make up a lot of lost ground, even if the brilliant Captain Crucial completely steals the show. If you want to hear another Crucial cut, look for the ultra-rare dub version of \u201cDo You Really Want To Hurt Me.\u201d You won\u2019t be disappointed. It\u2019s reminiscent of the essential reggae rap in UB40\u2019s album version of \u201cRed Red Wine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thankfully, the three songs with \u201cBoy\u201d in the title (which should tell you how large Boy George\u2019s ego has always been) don\u2019t blur together. The album\u2019s opener \u201cWhite Boy\u201d is the best of the lot, showcasing the drumming talents of George\u2019s boy toy, Jon Moss. Also, \u201cWhite Boys Can\u2019t Control It,\u201d is an unexpected standout merely for the mariachi horns, not to mention saxophone and old western-style harmonica solos. Unfortunately, the utterly pointless \u201cBoy-Boy-I\u2019m The Boy\u201d doesn\u2019t work and is among the other aforementioned sad remnants.<\/p>\n
So yeah, it\u2019s a mixed bag. The hands down, best Culture Club song EVER, period award goes to \u201cDo You Really Want To Hurt Me.\u201d It\u2019s one of those timeless, atmospheric songs that magically glows. It totally saves this album from dismal obscurity and is what put Boy George and Culture Club on the map. They were never much of an album band, though, so I\u2019d recommend picking up their amazing Greatest Hits if you are merely a passing fan. It\u2019s there that you\u2019ll find all the gems worth hearing. Boy George is experiencing a renaissance of sorts in 2014, with a solo album and a new Culture Club album to promote. Touring is on the docket, so you may want to check \u2018em out. I saw them perform live 30 years ago. It was one of my very first concerts and all I remember is he had long pink hair. But hey, like I said, it was the \u201980s!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":32094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9479],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-43841","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-culture-club","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43841"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}