Culture Club

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Culture Club
Culture Club, circa 1983. Clockwise from bottom right, Boy George, Jon Moss, Mikey Craig, Roy Hay.
Background information
Origin	England
Genre(s)	New Wave, Pop, Blue-Eyed Soul
Years active	1982-1986 1998-2002 2006-Present
Website	http://www.culture-club.co.uk/
Members
Sam Butcher Jon Moss Mikey Craig
Former members
Boy George Roy Hay

Culture Club are an English pop group, who achieved considerable global success in the 1980s. The band were fronted by gender-bending vocalist Boy George, the other band members being Mikey Craig on bass, Roy Hay on guitar and keyboard, and Jon Moss (formerly of The Damned, The Clash, London and Adam and the Ants) on drums.

[edit] Early History

Before the formation of Culture Club, George occasionally sang with the British group Bow Wow Wow with the stage name "Lieutenant Lush". His popularity in this role caused friction with the group's lead singer Annabella Lwin. After his tenure with the group, George decided to start his own band and enlisted Craig. Next came Moss, and finally Hay. The group recorded demos, which were paid for by EMI Records, but the label was unimpressed and decided not to sign the group. Upstart company Virgin Records heard the demos and signed the group in the UK, and Epic Records signed them in the US as Virgin did not have a US presence at the time.

Their first album, 1982's "Kissing to Be Clever", saw the release of their first single "White Boy". Although a clever dance song, it failed to reach the UK or U.S. Top 100 but George was still happy because "5000 people bought my song and didn't even know me". Next single "I'm Afraid of Me" also failed at radio. The release of the third single "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?", a reggae-influenced number, went to #1 in the UK in late 1982 and became a smash international hit, peaking at #1 in over a dozen countries (#2 in the US).

The debut of the band on the UK's flagship chart show Top Of The Pops prompted outlandish headlines in the tabloid newspapers the next day in reaction to George's androgynous look, eccentric dress sense and camp performance. GENDER BENDER!, WALLY OF THE WEEK and MR (OR IS IT MISS) WEIRD were typical of such headlines and made George a huge national celebrity in an instant, which he largely took in his stride, and a target of the papers for some years to come.

Culture Club's follow up single "Time (Clock of the Heart)", featuring George's soulful vocals over an R&B groove, became another hit in the UK and US, and "I'll Tumble 4 Ya" also became a Top 10 hit in America. This gave Culture Club the distinction of becoming the first band since The Beatles to garner three Top Ten hits in the US from a debut album. The album sold over two million copies in the U.S. and another three million worldwide at its time of release. George would go on to became a worldwide celebrity and favorite of new music network MTV.

Their second album, 1983's "Colour by Numbers" was a huge seller, with first single "Church of the Poison Mind", featuring backing vocalist Helen Terry, reaching the UK and US Top 10. Second single "Karma Chameleon" gave the band its second #1 hit in the UK where it sold over one million copies and became the best-selling single of 1983. It also made #1 in the US, topping the Hot 100 for three weeks, and would eventually hit #1 in sixteen countries and become one of the most played songs of the decade.

The album would go on to have additional hits including "Miss Me Blind" (#5 US), "It's a Miracle" (#4 UK, #13 US), and "Victims" (#3 UK), and sell four million copies in the US and another four million worldwide at its time of release.

Despite all this success, trouble was brewing within the Culture Club camp. Unknown to the public, George was romantically involved with the band's drummer Jon Moss. Even band members Craig and Hay were unaware. The relationship lasted over four years and was often turbulent, with physical and verbal abuse. The pressure to hide the relationship from the press and the public started to take its toll on the band.

George and Roy Hay had already written "Love Lies Lost" for backing singer Helen Terry and "Passing Friend" for the upcoming Beach Boys album when Culture Club was asked to write two songs for the movie soundtrack Electric Dreams. Both "The Dream" and "Love is Love", released as a single in Canada and Japan, was again written by George and Roy Hay but royalties split four ways as with the rest of group's songs at the time. George also collaborated on "Electric Dreams", sung by P. P. Arnold. The song was written with Phil Pickett who had also helped him write "Karma Chameleon" and had frequently played keyboards for the band.

Their next album, 1984's "Waking Up With the House on Fire", was a commercial and critical disappointment compared to "Colour by Numbers", (selling one and a half million copies worldwide upon its release, with 500,000 of those in the US), The album had one US and UK hit single with "The War Song", and moderate hits in "The Medal Song" (UK #32) and "Mistake No. 3" (US #33). George would later state that he felt the album experienced a lukewarm reception because it was rushed, due to pressure from Virgin and Epic to quickly release a followup album. At the end of 1984, the band were recruited by Bob Geldof to attend the Band Aid recording. George was in New York when Geldof called him, but managed to catch the final Concorde of the day and was the last singer to record a vocal track for the song "Do They Know It's Christmas". Eventually his interpretation of the second line was used in the final cut, plus some harmony vocals. He is not seen in the publicity photograph or the all-in crescendo on the video because these were done before he arrived at the studio.

In late 1985, George became addicted to cocaine. The addiction evolved to a heroin addiction and the band started to lose its place musically. Recording of their 1986 album "From Luxury to Heartache" dragged on for so long that producer Arif Mardin had to disband the sessions and leave it up to engineer Lew Hahn to record the final vocals. Songs like "Gusto Blusto" and "Reasons" took days for the addicted singer to finish. Nevertheless, the album consisted of decent musical output (and the hit single "Move Away", #7 UK, #12 US) but George and Jon's fights plus George's addiction created too much tension for the band to continue and a forthcoming American tour was cancelled. "From Luxury to Heartache" reached the Top 10 in the UK and the Top 40 in the US but sold only under a million worldwide.

Following the release of the album, rumours of George's addiction began to circulate, and by the summer of 1986, he announced that he was indeed addicted to drugs. In July, he was arrested by the British police for possession of cannabis. Several days later, keyboard player Michael Rudetski, who played on From Luxury to Heartache and had co-written “Sexuality” with George, was found dead of a heroin overdose in George's home.

Still battling his heroin addiction and subsequent dependence on prescription narcotics, George started recording his first solo album. In 1987, Sold was released and George enjoyed several hit singles including "Everything I Own" (UK #1), "Keep Me In Mind" (UK#29), "To be Reborn" (UK#13) as well as the title song (UK#24). He returned to the UK Top 40 in 1991 under the moniker "Jesus Loves You" with the minor hits "Bow Down Mister" (#27) and "Generations Of Love" (#35), both from the critically acclaimed album The Martyr Mantras which was released through his own record label "More Protein". George had written "Bow Down Mister" during a trip to India and with its reminiscence of "Karma Chameleon" it was intended for the Culture Club reunion, which never came about. His first Top 40 US single without Culture Club was "Live My Life", peaking at US#40. It was taken from the Hiding Out movie soundtrack. In 1992, he hit the U.S. Top 20 with the title song from another movie soundtrack, "The Crying Game" (US #15, UK #22).

[edit] Reunion

In 1998, the band put their issues aside and decided to do a reunion tour. Kicked off with a performance on VH1 Storytellers, the tour was a major success. A new compilation was released based around the Storytellers performance including new songs such as "I Just Wanna Be Loved", which hit UK #4. "I Just Wanna Be Loved" had been written during the Peter Asher reunion sessions in the early 1990s. Other songs from those sessions include "Bow Down Mister", "After the Love", "Life Has Rules" and "Mogul Tomb".

Despite heavy promotion their 1999 studio album Don't Mind If I Do was a commercial failure peaking at no. 64 in the UK album chart. The album included another UK top 30 hit single "Your Kisses Are Charity" (UK#25) and "Cold Shoulder" (UK#43).

The band went on to tour for a few more years, then reunited for a 20th anniversary concert in 2002 at the Royal Albert Hall, which was released on DVD the following year. Culture Club then became inactive again, largely due to Boy George's concentration on his successful career as a DJ.

Two original members of Culture Club (Craig and Moss), will possibly launch a new tour with another lead singer. (George and Roy Hay have declined to tour). Earlier in 2006, the band's record company placed an ad for a lead singer to "...take part in a 2007 World Tour and TV Series." The new singer, Sam Butcher was selected because of his own personality, "not a Boy George lookalike." George expressed his displeasure in the press with his replacement, even though Culture Club's MySpace page says otherwise. [1]. A tour was announced for December 2006 in the UK, but was postponed to give the new line-up time to finish recording their album.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

[edit] Singles

[edit] Awards

• Grammy Awards 1983 - Best New Artist
• BRIT Awards 1984 - Best British Group
• BRIT Awards 1984 - Best Selling Single (for Karma Chameleon)

[edit] References

• David, Maria (1984). Boy George and Culture Club. Southampton: Crescent. ISBN 0-517-45474-2
• De Graaf, Kasper and Garrett, Malcolm (1983). Culture Club: When Cameras Go Crazy. London & New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-17879-4
• Rimmer, David (1986). Like Punk Never Happened: Culture Club and the New Pop. London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 0-571-13739-3
• Robins, Wayne (1984). Culture Club. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-32216-9

[edit] External links

• Official Culture Club website
• Culture Club on MySpace
• Culture Club on Yahoo!
• Rock on the Net:Culture Club
• MTV.com Culture Club
• VH1.com Culture Club
• [2] Meet the New Boy George
• [3] Culture Club Finds Boy George Replacement