Culture Club - Storming the charts in lipstick

Red, gold and green chameleons

The British music press dubbed it, with thinly veiled patriotism, the British Invasion: it was music, yes, but it looked more like a desperate ideological comeback against the inevitable crumbling of the colonial empire, which by that point was in its final throes. Here's how it went: around the mid-1960s, a sizeable squadron of British artists, led by the Beatles, launched an assault on the much-coveted American charts. The weapon of choice was simple but effective: a clever reinterpretation of the musical forms so dear to American audiences, like white rock'n'roll and Black soul, seasoned with an all-English flair and that "aristocratic" accent Americans find so appealing. The success was nothing short of stratospheric, eventually spilling over onto the rest of the planet; one after another, Kinks, Who, Rolling Stones, Animals, Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark and so on all had their moment of glory. England at the time established itself as the focal point for new popular music, and the repercussions of that success are still clearly felt today. So when a similar phenomenon repeated itself in the first half of the 1980s, the term simply needed updating: the Second British Invasion. This time the fuel came from punk and new wave, to which the new wave of invaders skillfully blended sounds (once again) borrowed from elsewhere, such as soul, reggae and R&B. With the further boost of a brand-new MTV, which did no small part in promoting the eclectic new British image, success was once again guaranteed.

Today's journalists tend to pinpoint the fateful starting gun as "Roxanne" by the Police, which in 1979 slipped quietly into the top 40, opening a gap just wide enough for Gary Numan, Elvis Costello, Squeeze and Pretenders to tiptoe through (the latter playing a bit unfairly, since with Chrissie Hynde on vocals they were half playing at home!). But the real explosion came later, in 1982, thanks to the cocktail waitress of the Human League, who, promising free drinks for everyone, left the door wide open, and the place really started to fill up: enter Depeche Mode, Simple Minds, A Flock Of Seagulls, Eurythmics, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet - plus a few old glories like Queen, David Bowie and an emboldened Paul McCartney - all lined up at the bar waiting their turn, thirsty for success and ready to win over American audiences with cutting-edge looks, videos in heavy rotation on MTV, and of course - plenty of excellent music.

And so we arrive at Culture Club, the gayest and most colorful contingent of the second British squadron. Their success was relatively short-lived, confined more or less to a couple of albums plus the usual surrounding drama, but in the frenetic mid-1980s, no one knew how to shine quite like this piratical version of the Fab Four. They topped the charts across half the world, had delirious crowds waiting for them at airports, and, thanks to the innate needling talent of their frontman Boy George, ruffled the feathers of the most outraged moral guardians. The music was certainly the hook - an irresistible mix of new wave, reggae, glossy disco touches and blue-eyed soul, as distinctive as it was firmly rooted in the new romantic movement - but so was the band's very image, proudly multiracial and drawn from wildly different social backgrounds: there was bassist Mickey Craig, a handsome second-generation Caribbean immigrant from Notting Hill (west London), guitarist/keyboardist Roy Hay, a very blond, pure Anglo-Saxon ex-hairdresser from Essex (east), drummer Jon Moss, a privileged pretty boy and adopted son of a wealthy Jewish family from Hampstead (north), and finally Boy George, son of working-class Irish immigrants from the working-class district of Streatham (south), the effeminate white boy who stole Black music and grew up with Aretha Franklin in his heart.

Going the extra mile

Let's take a brief step back: for many in England, the iron grip imposed by Margaret Thatcher's government during the 1980s was a genuine sentence - the start of the much darker flip side of so-called industrial liberalism begins here. On one side was the Westminster political class, which let itself be intoxicated by the litres of Krug Champagne that City bankers downed even at breakfast, granting them in return ever more brazen economic lobbying power aimed squarely at free-market laws. On the other side, hardship, privatizations and the grim stories of factory and mine closures in the North and in Wales brought the working class literally to its knees, widening the social divide and pouring fuel on an anger that would soon erupt into endless marches and violent riots.

Musically speaking, given the uproar of the previous decade, one might have expected a new, fiery wave of punk; yet while the spirit of protest never really died down, the music scene instead splintered into a thousand pieces, loosely grouped under the vast umbrella commonly known as new wave. One strand in particular stoked the fury of the harshest critics: it was called new romantic, and with its hedonistic aesthetic - the diametric opposite of punk's hard-edged manifesto - it gave voice not so much to anger over the failing economy and the corruption of the ruling class, but to a powerful desire to escape all of it, a flight from the selfishness of the market and its damaging consequences. Just as had happened in America with disco music after the infamous Demolition Night of 1979, the new romantics too were targeted for their apparent escapism, their artificial, baroque image, and their heavy reliance on hulking synthesizers. For those interested in the matter, the debate is still open, but it's worth remembering here that, beneath the pompous surface, the new romantics were not actually the clueless sellouts they were made out to be, and with their decadent poetics, several of them helped sow the seeds for a great deal of the music that would follow in the decades to come.

There's another factor worth considering: in Thatcherite England, the term multiracial was far from an everyday concept. Despite the economy being in deep recession, the working masses saw a further rise in immigration, much of it coming from countries that had once been part of the colonial empire. In the capital, clashes between cultures were common; communities from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh clustered in the East End, particularly around the deprived area of Brick Lane, and did their best to keep to themselves. But the Caribbean communities of Notting Hill and Brixton couldn't afford such a luxury, and often found themselves at odds with unemployed local youths. The Brixton district in particular was the scene of a historic uprising against the police in the summer of 1981 (immortalized by Eddy Grant in "Electric Avenue"), while already in 1980 an excellent film - "Babylon" - documented with rare rawness the living conditions of young Black immigrants in the capital, caught between unemployment, drugs and a desperate attachment to their own culture, through intense underground nights fuelled by marijuana, reggae and dub.

In short, the social fabric is no longer what it used to be, and even if contact between communities is often awkward or at best stiff, the anger of white rock alone is no longer enough to express the growing plurality of voices – faced with the moves of the Thatcher government, the stories of these "other" people turn out to be not so different from the struggles of the English, and indeed carry all the weight of a shared, grim humanity. In this context, then, the unexpected arrival of a London new romantic band is not just a passing fad, but manages to synthesize and bring to national – and then worldwide – attention what is truly happening within British society.

The four oddball members of Culture Club, with nonchalance and an exquisitely pop attitude, blend white new-wave and post-punk with reggae and, above all, black lovers rock (a longtime obsession of Boy George's), stirring up curiosity and more than a few laughs, while also horrifying purists on both sides, since no one much appreciates the sight of a singer done up in women's make-up. For certain sections of the critical establishment, Culture Club are lightweight and derivative, mere "disco fodder", but in reality they prove to have something extra going for them. Unconsciously, and maybe in a somewhat rough-and-ready, boisterous way that is nevertheless not without irony, Boy George & Crew sweep the scene aside, tearing down every social barrier with well-placed riffs. After all, they chose the name Culture Club for a specific reason: they're a multicultural band in terms of both colour and religion, with each member coming from a different social background.

Boy George against the world

Needless to say, it's Boy George himself – the son of a housewife and a carpenter (and former boxing coach) who emigrated from Catholic Ireland – who acts as the lightning rod, dragging his band towards a level of mainstream success as vast as it was unexpected. By this point the music world had already produced a sizeable string of androgynous characters in all manner of (de)forms, but even those who thought they'd gotten used to David Bowie in a skirt (of whom Boy George is a fervent admirer), to a bald, naked Grace Jones, or to the unforgettable Queen Of Disco Sylvester, were still left stunned the moment Culture Club appeared on TV on 23 September 1982. On the stage of Top Of The Pops, in front of millions of viewers, a pale, blue-eyed kid with his face done up in perfect make-up sings in a smooth soul voice and sways to Caribbean rhythms with effeminate movements. Yet it's impossible to simply file him away as a drag queen or just gay, because his look is strikingly peculiar: he hides every inch of his body inside an asexual, XL-sized tunic (which looks as if it had been recycled from old curtains stolen from a Jamaican parish hall), wears casual trainers, and tops it all off with a Southern belle hat straight out of "Gone With The Wind", from under which peek out braids and strips of multicoloured fabric – this last detail sends his colleague and frenemy Pete Burns of Dead Or Alive into a rage, as he complains that it was his idea first.

It's not about who did it first, it's about who does it best!

a sharp-tongued George retorts immediately. Unfazed by the public's reaction, the Culture Club singer quickly wins over the LGBT movement – an icon of undeniable importance to this day. What is far less obvious, however, is the level of popularity George achieves outside those circles. At his peak, between '83 and '84, he's one of the most beloved and photographed pop stars of the era, adored equally by young music fans and housewives the world over (who will all root for him when his secret relationship with drummer Jon Moss comes to a bitter, very public end). It's a boundless popularity, one that extends to America as well. Looking at him, the Culture Club frontman seems like a character straight out of one of those deranged John Waters films, like "Pink Flamingos" or "Mondo Trasho", yet his indefinable peculiarity keeps him light years away from Divine's (however legendary) irreverent drag parody. Dressed like that, Boy George looks more like the shopping buddy of Cyndi Lauper, the other multicoloured loose cannon who, at that very same moment, is fending off the British Invasion with keyboards and funk-pop on her landmark "She's So Unusual".

But it's certainly not all sunshine and roses. One only has to read the biography "Take It Like A Man" (a British bestseller in 1995) to get a far more realistic picture of who Boy George really is. His way of dressing and putting on make-up isn't calculated for the cameras, but it isn't a wholly free choice either: beneath the mask lies a twenty-something as sharp-witted as he is terrified of his own difference, and far from free of complexes about his looks and his effeminate mannerisms. He likes to describe himself this way:

I've got the mind of a woman, and the body of a bricklayer!

But rather than hide, Boy George courageously throws himself to the lions, never passing up the chance to dish out a bit of healthy provocation. His outbursts are famous (and frankly very funny), but they also land him in plenty of trouble, as does his unpleasant habit of forcing an "outing" on people who would rather have stayed in the shadows a while longer: first it's his backing singer Helen Terry, and then a few old skeletons from the libertine post-punk scene – one of these, Kirk Brandon of Theatre Of Hate, will take him to court for defamation (and lose), with Boy George responding by dedicating the legendary "Unfinished Business" to him.

As a result, the brutal media pressure bearing down on him, combined with the whisper campaign of those jealous of his success, plus the fame, the money, the emotional turmoil with the conflicted Jon Moss, and a far-too-relaxed attitude towards drug use, will all lead to the rapid implosion of Culture Club – though it will do nothing to reduce the singer's presence in the tabloids, thanks to a string of scandals, including a couple of arrests resulting in community service sweeping the streets of New York, and more recently even a few months behind bars.

What remains to Boy George's credit is total honesty about his own personal struggles. He appears on Jonathan Ross's talk show and speaks with no holds barred about his sentence and his home detention with an ankle tag (and about the porn mags the guards would slip him in prison during his "holiday"...). These are, of course, moves bordering on professional suicide, giving the public the image of an awkward, washed-up pop star, as if he belonged on the same blacklist as Gary Glitter and Jimmy Savile. It's a shame, because Boy George has ended up overshadowing the memory of the excellent music his band produced in the Eighties (not to mention the music conceived during his prolific and erratic solo career). We hope, then, to shine a light back on some of the best aspects of Culture Club and give proper credit to a band too often forgotten in the plastic-coated maze of the Eighties and unfairly dismissed as a sideshow act. But let's take things in order.

Let's steal some Culture!

Among the most aesthetically minded crowd of the post-punk scene in late-70s London, a certain George O'Dowd (stage name Boy George) stands out more than most; between parties and gigs held in the city's most decadent venues, regularly attended alongside his inseparable fellow fashion victims Marilyn and Martin Degville (future Sigue Sigue Sputnik), he manages to land an invitation from Malcolm McLaren to join Annabella Lwin's Bow Wow Wow as a second vocalist under the name Lieutenant Lush (yet another fashion-band put together by Vivienne Westwood as an ideal new romantic continuation of the Sex Pistols' punk-fashion success). The experiment, however, only works up to a point; the constant diva clashes between George and Annabella soon undermine relations within the band, and he leaves in search of a setting more suited to his personality. He then starts seeking collaborators within the scene and recruits Mickey Craig on bass, Jon Moss on drums (already known for having played with Adam Ant) and Jon Suede on guitar, and the quartet even gives itself a (dreadful) name: Sex Gang Children. After the swift replacement of Suede with the far more measured Roy Hay – a sensitive and crucial musician with a classical background (and once a member of Russian Bouquet) – the name is changed to the far more inspired and fitting Culture Club. The band's apprenticeship will be remarkably brief: after just a couple of demos rejected by EMI, the four are signed by Virgin and placed in the hands of producer Steve Levine.

The climb begins in April '82 with the lead single "White Boy (Dance Mix)", an upbeat new-wave track seasoned with funky guitar licks and jabs of synth, which nonetheless fails to reach the Top 100. Within the music scene, though, word starts to spread, fuelled also by the press, who spot in Boy George the perfect target to chase for newsstand sales. And no wonder: a sexually unidentified white kid who – right there in the lyrics of "White Boy" – confesses to wanting to steal Black music culture and make it his own because, essentially, it's better (before concluding that "white boys are babies")? That's enough to make ultra-nationalists spit out their tea, but the Afro-Caribbean community, too, is initially unimpressed by the cultural appropriation. Either way, the publicity blitz pays off: the follow-up, "I'm Afraid Of Me", a radio-friendly track with a swaying Caribbean rhythm and an effervescent cascade of steel drums, makes a shy appearance in the UK Top 100, stirring up further curiosity about the quartet.

The real breakthrough comes in September 1982 with Kissing To Be Clever, an album with an enigmatic title and decidedly kitsch cover art. The single "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" opens with a choral riff straight out of the best 60s surf tradition, before settling into a gentle reggae sway, seasoned with dub-style punctuation from the fretless bass, while the languid keyboards and Boy George's elegant soul vocal help create a genuine standard, poised between different styles yet superbly complete in itself. Accompanied by a video as ambiguous as it is entertaining, "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" reaches the Top 10 in 12 countries, officially launching the band towards worldwide stardom. The historic appearance on Top Of The Pops on 23 September of that same year sends the press into a frenzy of speculation: who is this guy done up in women's make-up, dressed in post-punk gear, singing reggae and bouncing around the stage as awkwardly as an ugly duckling? The buzz reaches America too, where Culture Club start winning over audiences, and their next move officially crowns them as pop stars across the Atlantic: it's "Time (Clock Of The Heart)" – unwisely released as a standalone single and included only on the American version of the album (in Europe it would only appear on later reissues) – a song that immediately makes one thing clear: Culture Club are no one-hit wonder. Surely one of their finest songs ever, "Time (Clock Of The Heart)" delivers a melody of timeless purity, carried by a sinuous old-school R&B rhythm and crowned with a nostalgic, sixties-flavoured string arrangement.

The next, thoroughly entertaining yet oddball dancehall rhythm of "I'll Tumble 4 Ya" is the third official single chosen: with its chart placement in the US, Culture Club put themselves on par with the Beatles, with 3 top 10 singles pulled from a debut album.

But it's not just a matter of singles. Kissing To Be Clever moves in many other unexpected directions, proving itself a rich and dynamic work. "You Know I'm Not Crazy" pits Roy's languid Spanish-tinged arpeggios against Jon and Mickey's taut rhythm section, while Boy George throws himself into a bleeding-heart portrayal of a frustrated lover (rumour has it the song was inspired by his flirtation with Kirk Brandon of punk outfit Theatre Of Hate). "Boy Boy (I'm The Boy)" returns to the restless suggestions halfway between disco music and new wave, propped up by Mickey's mighty bass, while the unprecedented mariachi-in-a-stormy-night atmosphere of "White Boys Can't Control It" even throws in a whimsical moment of distorted sax. Decidedly more provocative is "Take Control", with the band locking into a taut rhythmic weave while Boy George indulges, without a shred of shame, in the lascivious flirtations of a young man badly in need of receiving love. The most ambiguous moment, though, belongs to the excellent "Love Twist", a track caught halfway between an incongruous song-form and the skipping ragamuffin cameo of dub artist Captain Crucial.

Among the b-sides of the 2003 reissue are the sharp, funk-inflected new wave of "Love Is Cold (You Were Never No Good)" and another appearance by Captain Crucial's croaky voice (this time without Boy George) on "Murder Rap Trap", an alien, all-dub nocturnal stoner jam, with Middle Eastern arpeggios and metaphysical reverb.

Kissing To Be Clever snaps a sharp photograph of the London scene of those years, marking the excellent debut of a band capable of blending new wave suggestions with the most varied and hybrid stylistic forms, and coming out the other side remarkably alive and fresh — rightfully among the best and most original records of the era.

Connect the dots

But if an explosive debut like Kissing To Be Clever catapulted these four circus performers straight to the top, the following Colour By Numbers (1983) confirmed their talent, turning them into global popstars. Once again, let's skip over the cover art, which does the content no justice: cheap-looking graphics, Boy George decked out like a chandelier, while the other three wink from little side-panels like escort ads from the back page of some trashy magazine. But that's just a photo — for Colour By Numbers, the right phrase to use is "perfect crime". Having smoothed out the new-wave edges of the debut, Culture Club immediately hit the peak of their career, releasing a record of rare lightness, built on a perfect musical alchemy. This second effort has all the essential ingredients for flawless songwriting that glides elegantly along a razor-thin tightrope. It's the right blend of Mickey Craig's warm Caribbean grooves, the melodic flourishes of new romantic Roy Hay, Jon Moss's bouncing rhythms, and Boy George's performance, at the peak of his vocal powers and not yet marked by drugs. And let's add to the mix the inevitable presence of legendary backing vocalist Helen Terry, a very white lady with a powerful soul voice whose timbre recalls Aretha Franklin — beloved by the band's fans to the point of launching a brief solo career of her own — but who here serves as the perfect counter-vocal on every track on the record. But above all, let's give proper credit to the decisive help provided during production by Steve Levine, once again responsible for that touch of class that blends the four members' different sensibilities into a shimmering, varied sonic mix that is nonetheless restrained and elegant. Try it and see: the skilful, never-too-intrusive use of synthesizers, mixed with ample acoustic instrumentation and the occasional use of an orchestra, means that today Colour By Numbers has aged with an enviable grace, not just compared to many other contemporary works, but even to Culture Club's own later productions.

The new single "Church Of The Poison Mind" follows hot on the heels of the last single from the previous record ("I'll Tumble 4 Ya"), breezing its way into the top 10 simultaneously in England and the US. A cheeky soul number with a 60s flavour that never seems to age, "Church Of The Poison Mind" has its entire essence condensed in its title: a search for clarity on a thorny subject like the relationship between homosexuality and religion, thrown back at the listener (and at institutions) with biting words that are never trite or blasphemous. It's a triumph that — preceding the other important chapter on the subject represented by "It's A Sin" by fellow travellers Pet Shop Boys — combines intelligence, irony, protest and bitterness all in a single song. Commercial success, however, is still negligible compared to what hits the band a few months later, when "Karma Chameleon" enters the charts. Unanimously considered Culture Club's signature song, this track with its cheeky Caribbean rhythm and famous harmonica riff became the single of the year in 1984, reaching number one in no fewer than sixteen countries. Once again, it's a perfect triumph of pop artifice; in its unbearable melodic lightness, it can actually be read as the manifesto of self-expression of a twenty-two-year-old dressed in his sister's clothes and made up with his mother's pastel eyeshadow — a song that over the years has turned into a generational anthem about the importance of staying true to yourself, one of the great classics of the 80s.

Every track on Colour By Numbers, though, feels like a potential single. There's "It's A Miracle", with its rhythmic bassline evoking butterflies in the stomach during a summer flirtation with some tropical beauty. Or the full-on disco music swagger of the melodic "Miss Me Blind", streaked with an extremely elegant string arrangement and a synthetic guitar riff always ready to kick in the chorus and carve out space in the bridge. Or again "Changing Every Day", which should really be renamed "changing every minute", thanks to the Moss/Craig rhythm section, perfectly in sync yet shifting at every turn, acting as counterpoint to the continuous back-and-forth between Boy George and Helen Terry — technical elegance over a fabric oozing blue-eyed soul from every pore. Further on, Culture Club loosen their imagination even more and the atmospheres become as vivid as scenes from a film: there's the swaying "Stormkeeper", with its warm tropical pace, inlaid with a beautifully calibrated flute and saxophone arrangement, while with "Mister Man" we're on the set of a western relocated to the Caribbean, where — rather than in a dusty Alabama saloon — the outlaw wanders with trigger finger ready among coconut and banana plantations.

The ballads shine too: the first, found in third position, is the heartfelt soul prayer over organ, "Black Money", while a little further on there's the precious acoustic gospel of "That's The Way (I'm Only Trying To Help You)", sung as a duet with Terry, which shows how Boy George is also capable of setting aside the frills and taking on, with class, the minefield of the piano-and-voice ballad. But it's the closing track that ultimately steals the crown: it's "Victims", a ballad that, in five minutes of vibrant intensity, reaches new heights of lyricism. Culture Club blend Boy George's heartfelt performance, Roy's piano flourishes, Jon and Mickey's sudden tempo shifts, Terry's ecstatic vocalizing and a full-swing orchestra made up of strings, brass and the inlays of a pastoral oboe — a small masterpiece.

The 2003 reissue adds five more tracks for a complete listen of the period. Released as the B-side of "Church Of The Poison Mind", the raucous "Manshake", a number built on percussion and backing vocals alone, might have felt slightly out of place on the tracklist, but it's a very entertaining chapter, and indicative of the four members' knack for experimentation. For other markets, instead, the B-side of the same single would be "Mystery Boy (Suntori Hot Whiskey Song)", a sharper new-wave track with shimmering dance beats that harks directly back to the debut album. There's also a live recording of the sing-along "Melting Pot" (a cover of a Blue Mink song) whose lyrics celebrating multiracialism fit the band's image like a glove, and the tearful instrumental version of "Victims" (renamed "Romance Revisited") which, while not rivalling the original, helps highlight its remarkable melodic quality. The title track itself, however, would have deserved far more attention — inexplicably left off at the last minute and released only as a b-side to "Victims", which is a shame: "Colour By Numbers" is the hidden track worth tracking down at all costs, a textbook slow number with a delicately punctuated rhythm, featuring sublime keyboard work that underscores the nostalgic melody and Boy George's measured performance.

Fire in the house

Colour By Numbers would go on to sell over ten million copies, becoming one of the most popular records of the era. Culture Club's crowning moment is sealed with a world tour and dozens of TV appearances, usually focused on Boy George in an attempt to wring out a little more information about his sexuality and his multicoloured looks — famously, his appearance on Joan Rivers's talk show, where Boy George explained his outfit with: "I saw this bedsheet in a furniture shop in Barcelona and I had to buy it to wear it."

Predictably, faced with such success, Virgin pushed hard to get a sequel out as soon as possible. The timeline imposed was decidedly tight, and the four of them, still dazed by jet lag and a bank account that wouldn't stop fattening, had no real way of getting their heads straight. But that mattered little to the record label: exactly one year after the previous record, the new work hit shelves, curiously titled Waking Up With The House On Fire (1984). At first glance, the title seems to allude to the teased, fire-red mass of hair Boy George sports on the deeply kitsch cover art. In the band's intentions, however, the name is actually a shrewd metaphor referring to the total upheaval that had overtaken the lives of the Fab Four, who had gone in the blink of an eye from scraping by day to day in post-punk cliques to the role of millionaire popstars. Unfortunately, though, the title soon took on a much more sinister meaning too, announcing with irritating precision the onset of trouble within Culture Club. The inevitable friction caused by the still-secret but deeply tormented relationship between Jon Moss and Boy George began to undermine relations within the band, and, combined with the stress of having to churn out a new string of hits, pushed the band toward a collective drug use that grew heavier than usual.

With the success of "Karma Chameleon" still fresh in the public's heart, the new single "The War Song" comfortably entered the charts everywhere. However, it was clear to everyone that something had now changed; besides suffering from a noticeably more plastic-sounding production, the melody of "The War Song" sounds like little more than a children's nursery rhyme, leaving poor Helen Terry completely out of place, still wailing away in the bridge without receiving the support she needs. And not only that: the lyrics, with their bland pacifist tone chanting "war is stupid! war is stupid!", rattle off a string of predictable platitudes that could only please the most timid hearts of Victorian England. The video disappoints too, staging an improbable military-chic fashion show set in a bombed-out courtyard. "The War Song" is their weakest single ever, but Boy George still earns himself an invitation from Bob Geldof for the original 1984 version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?".

The second single released is "The Medal Song", a trite cha cha cha flirting with tropicalia in homage to actress Frances Farmer, which stalled at the UK top 30. The third single too, the obligatory rarefied and ultra-polished ballad "Mistake Number 3", failed to climb past No. 33, leaving behind a sense of total artificiality (in the unwatchable video, Boy George can be seen dressed as a meringue, towering atop a gigantic wedding cake...). Things would go better, if anything, with the single's B-side, "Love Is Love", a tender ballad that sounds graced with the melodic charm of the band's best days.

Maybe the times had already changed, and Culture Club suffered a backlash from the public after months of media overexposure, but the songwriting verve of old had grown somewhat watered down, and trusty Steve Levine at the production helm couldn't replicate the magic of the previous Colour By Numbers, opting instead - probably for lack of time - for a more prominent use of synthesizers. The fact remains that Waking Up With The House On Fire is unmistakably more a product of its time. "Dangerous Man" (with vocals that at times seem to imitate the omnipresent Michael Jackson), "The Dive", "Don't Talk About It" and "Unfortunate Thing" (whose verse vaguely recalls Men At Work's "Down Under") all play on the band's tried-and-tested Culture Club r&b formula, and in context they're pleasant and catchy, but betray a certain repetitiveness of ideas. More original, if still rather muted, is the late-period glam rock of "Hello Goodbye".

Two tracks remain worth saving and handing down to posterity: "Mannequin" and "Crime Time". Put them both rightfully on your homemade Best Of - the former a delightful choral number with sixties overtones, the latter a carefree Delta blues drenched in harmless but heavily perfumed rosewater. Two songs that, on their own, can't rescue the fortunes of an album born under a waning moon, but which nonetheless remind us that Culture Club could still write delightfully sharp songs.

The nearly two million copies sold by Waking Up With House On Fire wouldn't even be a bad result in record-industry terms, but they pale next to the numbers of the band's previous albums. As such, Culture Club's third chapter remains a cult object destined for a handful of diehard fans, and for those nostalgics who might remember a song or two drifting out of the radio in the winter between '84 and '85 (Carrie Bradshaw would display it in her collection of '80s vinyl in the first "Sex And The City" movie). It's fitting to say it: Culture Club wake up to find the house already engulfed in flames. The band would issue their formal apologies, blaming exhaustion and record-label pressure for the album's critical and commercial flop. But the real trouble was only just beginning.

A farewell on the dancefloor

Virgin once again tries to put the band through the wringer, and to make up for the previous album's flop, replaces Steve Levine with Arif Mardin, a producer with a pedigree that's nothing short of impressive (ranging from oldies divas like Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin, all the way to the Bee Gees, Phil Collins, Queen and David Bowie, just to name the most famous). For Culture Club, Mardin attempts an even more fashion-conscious approach, swapping the old Caribbean rhythms for far more in-the-moment dance pulses, and turning the rhythm section from acoustic to synthetic, perfectly in tune with the budding Jacksonmania of the time. However, while he does manage to slightly refresh the band's image, the album turns out to be a total flop, accelerating a decline that not even the henchmen of boss Richard Branson can hold back any longer. Now it's Boy George causing the biggest headaches. Crippled by a severe heroin addiction, he proves to be the worst colleague to work with, and his already shaky love/hate relationship with Moss finally comes to an end, throwing the band's internal balance into chaos.

Frustrated beyond measure, Mardin is forced to abandon the sessions halfway through, leaving sound engineer Lew Hahn to finish the job. Partly because of this, From Luxury To Heartache (another sadly fitting title) wouldn't arrive until April 1986, much later than Virgin had hoped. Meanwhile, the papers start spreading rumors that Boy George is struggling with drug addiction, and despite early attempts to cover it up, the truth soon comes out in the worst possible way: in the summer of that same year, keyboardist Michael Rudetsky, one of the session men who had taken part in the album's recording, is found dead of an overdose in George's apartment. It's a scandal on every front: Boy George is arrested, and while the moralists savor their revenge, Culture Club reach their definitive breaking point.

What's left today of all that drama? An album that stands as a metaphor for the proverbial skeleton in the closet for anyone whose childhood or early teens were touched by late-'80s pop. From Luxury To Heartache is like that old jacket of your aunt's with the padded shoulders that you keep at the back of the closet and only wear once a year when invited to an '80s-themed party, sporting it with irony, nostalgia and a touch of embarrassment. From Luxury To Heartache is, in short, far from a memorable record, and it has remained fossilized in time just like all its contemporaries over-produced by technology that's now thoroughly outdated. The difference is that here, at least, a few scraps of melody survive from the good old days, while Boy George's delivery remains as smooth, refined and never too tacky as ever. The cover tries to project a completely new image: gone are the multicolored patchwork outfits of the past, and gone is the frontman's dominant presence - Culture Club now all sport the same look, dressed mostly in a more classic black. Boy George wears a sober jet-black bob, leaving room for Jon Moss to flaunt his famous roguish stare, and for Roy Hay, who with that huge cascade of blond curls looks like a softened version of Michael Bolton.

The single "Move Away" is easily the standout track of the bunch: buoyed by a crackling rhythm and framed by synthetic brushstrokes, it remains one of their most radio-friendly songs ever, thanks also to its irresistible, foot-tapping chorus - a well-earned spot on any Best Of. "Work On Me Baby" also does its job well, its trotting pace propped up by a (very fake-sounding) electric guitar and another decidedly sticky chorus. The soul moment, meanwhile, goes to the populist and admittedly somewhat coarse "God Thank You Woman", helped on backing vocals by an increasingly sidelined Helen Terry. The rest, as already mentioned, slips by harmless and plastic. "Too Bad", "Sexuality" and "Heaven's Children" leave little to no impression, as do the hard-rock tones of "I Pray", while "Reasons" holds on to a lone reggae groove. The blaring "Gusto Blusto" (or, as Boy George howls it, gastow blastow!) is a dance-rock-funk pastiche truly reserved for a very select few strong-stomached nostalgics. Absolutely to be avoided is the pseudo-Christmas ballad "Come Clean".

From Luxury To Heartache fails to reach the million-copies mark, and the singles achieve little on the charts. With legal troubles barring him from setting foot in America, Boy George costs Culture Club any chance of promoting the record there (in the United States, the album still hasn't been reissued). In short, Culture Club make do with very little and bow out with a decidedly mediocre album, one that only speeds up their decline. It will now fall to Mick Hucknall and his Simply Red to carry the banner of "made in UK" blue-eyed soul.

From here on, Jon Moss, Roy Hay and Mickey Craig would dutifully show up for every Culture Club reunion, but their respective solo careers would prove disappointing. Jon Moss carves out a few scattered gigs as a producer and session man (including with Boy George), and in 1991, together with Nick Feldman, releases "Promised Land", the self-titled album of their little-known neo-soul/chill-out project. Roy Hay finds success in production, but has far less luck with his band This Way Up - in 1987 they release a couple of singles and an LP titled "Feeling Good About It", which remains a cult favorite among certain sophisti-pop enthusiasts. Striking a tough-guy pose, Mickey Craig steps up to the mic (where he doesn't do half badly) and releases a single in '89, "I'm A Believer" (backed with the b-side "Love's A Demon"), but it passes completely unnoticed.

Far longer and more eventful, by contrast, will be Boy George's solo career, a chapter that deserves a dedicated feature of its own. His mainstream success would never again reach its former heights (with the exception of 1987's Sold), and his presence would be largely confined to cult circles, but compared to his former bandmates he would manage to pull some genuinely respectable work out of the hat, especially considering the broad stylistic range he would explore: worth mentioning here, for now, is the Jesus Loves You project, through which he released the excellent The Martyr Mantras in 1991, a true cornerstone of '90s dance music.

Under his own name, meanwhile, at least two releases deserve mention: the glam rock turn of Cheapness And Beauty (1995) and his reinvention as a singer-songwriter with U Can Never B2 Straight (2002), an acoustic collection of original songs, b-sides, rarities and old tunes that reveals a Boy George never heard quite like this before.

The eternal lure of reunions: part 1

Did you really think Culture Club would be spared the proverbial trip down memory lane? After the band's split, Virgin puts out the first dutiful greatest hits, This Time - The First Four Years, as early as 1987, a chapter certainly useful for summing up the lightning-fast arc of a band that had just imploded. The first reunion, meanwhile, is attempted in 1989, and yields a handful of new songs that would never see release - it's Boy George who turns down the offer, feeling more at home at the time with the dance project Jesus Loves You. Hence the less orthodox At Worst... The Best Of Boy George And Culture Club (1993), which once again rounds up the band's glory days while simultaneously taking stock of Boy George's solo career up to that point, including his (excellent) cover of "The Crying Game" produced by the Pet Shop Boys - a messier compilation, if you like, but highly recommended to anyone wanting to sample the singer's far-from-predictable path. In 1998, meanwhile, Greatest Moments - VHS Storytellers Live is released, yet another collection of their hits, this time paired with a second disc featuring a live set recorded during that year's reunion tour. In England, nostalgia wins out: the album goes platinum, while the new track recorded for its launch, "I Just Wanna Be Loved", surprisingly reaches number 4 on the charts.

In short, the time is clearly ripe for a new album; Culture Club have had plenty of rest, and Boy George and Jon Moss have finally buried the hatchet. So in 1999, a full 13 years after their last album of new material, comes Don't Mind If I Do.

The record is certainly not surprising, but it remains a rather curious chapter of sonic reinvention without losing its original DNA; the mood is relaxed, as always, but the inevitable self-celebratory moments thankfully stay to a minimum. Musically, Don’t Mind If I Do gathers all the band's now-familiar trademarks – catchy melodies, a troupe of soul backing singers, tasteful guitars and plenty of reggae rhythms – and produces them with a modern, understated, elegant touch that flirts with neo-soul and the soul-pop typical of that era (the acoustic “Truth Behind Her Smile” could easily be a Gabrielle or Des'ree song). All in all, it's the safest possible move for a historic 80s band trying its luck again in the 90s (something Mick Hucknall and the Eurythmics know all too well).

Boy George, noticeably weighed down by the years and with a rougher, more worn voice, still cuts a fine figure, singing gently with his nasal vibrato without overdoing it. Once again included is

“I Just Wanna Be Loved”, which is actually a rather anonymous, by-the-numbers song, while the other single “Your Kisses Are Charity” at least dusts off one of those super-sticky hooks that Culture Club had accustomed us to in years past (the alternate version of the song, recorded with Dolly Parton for the TV series “Queer As Folk”, shows in its video – categorically gay friendly – a cowboy dance routine that Madonna would revisit on “Don't Tell Me” the following year). When Culture Club then put a cover on the setlist for the first time in their career, they aim straight for the stars, digging up none other than “Starman” by his majesty David Bowie: needless to say, the project starts out with no great ambitions, but Culture Club still turn in a dignified job.

The rest of the album flows evenly without any great shocks, and perhaps 15 tracks on the setlist is too many, but on the plus side the production is decidedly solid and, unlike the previous record, there isn't a single episode that could be called poor. The most disco moment of all is “Black Comedy”, which sounds like a drag queen cabaret night in some underground club in Puerto Rico, but the more electric “See Thru” and the glittering chill out swagger of “Strange Voodoo” also hold their own. “Confidence Trick” is decidedly successful, with an almost trip-hop pace, electric crackles and nocturnal reverbs that coil in on themselves until the rhythmic explosion of guitar and drums, as is the lovely “Fat Cat”, though it's decidedly more charming in the acoustic version Boy George would record solo a few years later. Closing things out is the melodramatic big ballad “Less Than Perfect”. All in all, Don’t Mind If I Do is here to remind us that Culture Club still exist, but if you feel like moving on from the 80s (and nostalgia isn't really your thing), it's probably better to go digging through Boy George's solo career, where there are some notable hidden gems to be found.

Rounding out the discography is the Box Set (2003), with a whopping four CDs and 88 tracks that trace the band's career far and wide, plus a thoroughly indulgent photographic and historiographic booklet. Be warned, though: rather than complete, the tracklist is a mess; all the usual Culture Club classics are there, along with some notable B-sides and several rarities, but also plenty of less memorable songs and far too many remixes, demo versions and alternate takes, not always of great quality. Not only that, the Box also includes a number of Boy George's solo tracks, some of them in further remix versions that add to the overall confusion – Virgin's commercial intent to cash in on these too, slyly riding on the image of the band with the bigger audience, is plain to see. As such, the Box Set remains a valuable item, but one recommended more to the proverbial die-hard fans than to listeners looking for discoveries.

2003 also saw the release of the DVD Live At The Royal Albert Hall, a fine concert celebrating the band's twentieth anniversary. More highly recommended, however, are the remastered reissues of the first four albums (also from 2003). Waking Up With The House On Fire and From Luxury To Heartache remain the preserve of a select few, and the selection of bonus tracks doesn't add anything truly essential, but the remastered versions of Kissing To Be Clever and Colour By Numbers are definitely recommended. Then, in 2005, came Greatest Hits, which neatly takes stock of the situation to include the singles from Don’t Mind If I Do, along with a further Singles And Remixes.

Meanwhile, amid one misadventure and another, Boy George still manages to move us with the splendid duet “You're My Sister”, alongside one of his greatest heirs, at least in terms of sexual ambiguity, Antony Hegarty (on the 2005 album “I'm A Bird Now”).

There was talk of a new reunion for 2012, but Boy George has already postponed everything (perhaps) to 2013. We'll see. Culture Club's star has had its day, but the band knew how to entertain, move and horrify us in equal measure, leaving behind a handful of excellent songs and, at the very least, two albums of real worth, among them Colour By Numbers, which, more than thirty years after its release, still laughs in the face of time.

2018: Reunion Number Two

At least four years will have passed since the first announcement of this second reunion, but between cancelled tours, false starts and singles that never materialized, the genesis of Life was nerve-wracking to say the least. Along the way there was even the BBC documentary “Karma To Calamity”, which showed the inner workings of a band still emotionally volatile despite all four members now being well into their senior years. Perhaps the gist of it all is best summed up by a legendary old line uttered years ago by Roy, referring to Boy George and Jon Moss:

I joined a band because I was hoping to score as much pussy as possible, and instead I found myself in the middle of some fag drama

This makes one think that the disco-funk stride of “Bad Blood” and the aching ballad “Oil & Water” featured here carry more than one autobiographical echo – between recriminations, secret relationships, hard drugs and a death in the house, quite a lot of water has passed under the Culture Club bridge.

It must be said, however, that Boy George has worked hard in recent years to cleanse his body of toxins and his image of past dramas; we've recently seen him back on TV as a judge on “The Voice”, both in the UK and in Australia – usually a worrying sign from an artistic standpoint, but one that guarantees solid exposure to the broad talent-show audience. So it's a safe bet that including his stage name alongside the band's was indeed a frontman's move (though who knows how much squawking it must have caused behind the scenes).

It pains us, then, to admit that after all this time and all these anecdotes, an album like Life shows no particular surprises, at best calmly picking up the conversation where it was left off nineteen years earlier by the decent but unexciting Don’t Mind If I Do. Culture Club make music to soothe their own nerves; writing songs like these is evidently the only way the four of them can still stand being in the same room together.

So, still plenty of reggae, plus streaks of blues, flashes of soul and gospel choirs framing lulling radio-friendly melodies. The focal point of the record, now more than ever, is George's voice, bolstered by a smoky, rich timbre full of nuance, an instrument that lets him fill even the emptiest spaces with real effectiveness. Yes, because it still takes a certain amount of stomach to digest the deflating pacifist anthem “Let Somebody Love You”, the lead single, which arrives dressed up with a video that manages to string together every worst cliché of the internet-age queer/no-global crowd (wasn't that damp squib “The War Song” enough, thirty years ago?).

Even the closing title track, the strutting dive bar little tune of "Different Man", or a "Runaway Train" seasoned with horns à la Amy Winehouse, only confirm an adult oriented streak from seasoned professionals who know how to do their job but haven't quite recaptured the spark (the already-mentioned "Oil & Water", for instance, ends up echoing quite a bit the vibe of "She's The One" by Robbie Williams, but without the same lightness of touch).

Which obviously doesn't mean that "Life" doesn't have its moments; the opening of "God & Love", for instance, shows an interesting balance between trip-hop and electro-rock (a shame it wasn't explored further on the rest of the record). The lulling frequencies of "What Does Sorry Mean?" string together a melody of rare purity, with sweet lovers rock echoes. Thankfully "More Than Silence" also made it onto the tracklist, here rearranged in a vaguely more electronic guise compared to the early version leaked online years ago – but it remains a truly great song whatever shape they decide to give it.

It's nice to find a historic 80s band still standing, with the entire original line-up intact. The 2018 Culture Club don't betray their roots, but at the same time they don't try too hard to chase the unrepeatable alchemy of albums such as Kissing To Be Clever and Colour By Numbers either. And for many old fans, that might well be more than enough.

But to be honest, you'd only need to glance at Boy George's erratic yet compelling solo career – including his still very mature but far more inspired latest official studio album, This Is What I Do – to realize that Culture Club could do a lot more, if they really wanted to. The point is that, at this rate, a new record might not arrive until they're all well into their 80s.

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