Collect – 12" Mixes Plus

Culture Club Collect – 12" Mixes Plus/Culture Club Remix Collection
Greatest hits album by Culture Club
Released 1991 (re-released in 1994, 1997, 2006)
Recorded 1982–1987
Genre New wave, pop, rock, reggae
Length 63:42
Label Virgin Vip/Pickwick,
EMI Gold Series
Caroline Records (US)
Producer Steve Levine, Arif Mardin,
Lew Hahn, Tony Swain
Culture Club chronology

The Best of Culture Club (1989) Culture Club Collect – 12" Mixes Plus/Remix Collection
(1991)		 Spin Dazzle – The Best of Boy George and Culture Club
(1992)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Amazon.com [1]

Culture Club Collect – 12" Mixes Plus is the name of a remix collection, first released in 1991 by Virgin for the VIP Series, compiling 14 among remixed tracks by British band Culture Club, the original versions of which were recorded for their first four albums (1982–1986) plus a couple of their stand-out tracks, some B-sides as well as the P. W. Botha 12" Remix of lead singer Boy George’s solo British and European Number One "Everything I Own" (and that's what the plus in the title of the compilation actually refers to). Many tracks in fact remix and extend the edit versions of the songs from the various original albums.

Tracklisting

  1. "Move Away" (12" Mix) – 7:28 (Culture Club, Pickett)
  2. "It's A Miracle/Miss Me Blind" (US 12" Mix) – 9:10 (Culture Club, Pickett)
  3. "God Thank You Woman" (Extended Version) – 7:04 (Culture Club, Pickett)
  4. "I'll Tumble 4 Ya (US 12" Remix)" – 4:38 (Culture Club)
  5. "Love Is Cold (You Were Never No Good)" – 4:22 (Culture Club)
  6. "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" (Dub Version, featuring Pappa Weasel) – 3:38 (Culture Club)
  7. "Everything I Own" (Extended P.W. Botha Mix) – 7:13 (Gates)
  8. "Colour by Numbers" – 3:57 (Culture Club)
  9. "From Luxury to Heartache" – 4:23 (Culture Club, Pickett)
  10. "Time (Clock of the Heart)" (Instrumental Mix) – 3:46 (Culture Club)
  11. "Black Money" – 5:19 (Culture Club)
  12. "Love Is Love" – 3:51 (O’Dowd, Hay)
  13. "Man Shake" – 2:35 (Culture Club)
  14. "The War Song" (Ultimate Dance Mix) – 6:18 (Culture Club)

Musicians/Personnel/Staff/Production

Release details

Country Date Label Format Catalogue
France 1991 Virgin/VIP-Pickwick CD VVIPD 114
UK, Argentina 1997 VVIPD 116

The release details only refer to the very first release of the compilation in 1991 (the second, that is the first re-release, in 1994, remaining unaltered), and to the third release (second re-release) in 1997, when the Catalogue Number underwent a small change. No details are instead given of subsequent releases, which happened with considerable formal changes in the code and in the title (Culture Club Remix Collection), though the 14 tracks were kept the same and in the same order as previously. Anyway, go to External Links below to also watch the cover art, read reviews and other product details of the latter.

Suggested interpretation of the original cover art

A real hot curiosity concerns the original cover of the 1991 edition, and following versions sharing the same front image (latest one, with same sleeve, in 1997, with a slightly higher Catalogue Number, that is VVIPD 116), of the compilation called Culture Club Collect – 12" Mixes Plus only – not other versions, as, for example, Culture Club Remix Collection, with updated title and a brand new cover, or the Caroline label alternative release with 15 tracks. On that very first sleeve picture, featuring the same promotion photograph of the band, taken in 1986, during recording sessions of fourth album From Luxury to Heartache, George and former lover Jon Moss are standing in the middle, close to each other, Jon being slightly more in the front than George (and also than the two other members of the band, Roy and Mikey, respectively on the left and on the right of the people observing the photo), even though it seems that the pictures of each of the four guys were taken separately, because it was becoming very difficult to catch all four of them together in the same place at the same time (the band would split up soon in the middle of a live tour, shortly after the release of the third single, which did not even get any promo videoclip). If you look close enough, carefully and with sufficient interest, you will have no trouble discovering that the two central characters, falling apart as a couple in reality, though together in the image only due to perspective magic and the photographer's ability and stubbornness to realise a decent picture, Jon and George are there ultimately still united, if not at least by a graphical trick, that is the word «sex» crossing their bodies, and being perfectly readable in reverse, from right to left (if we also consider the plain «i» after «sex», we shall have the phonetic rendition of the adjective, correctly written as «sexy», though exactly pronounced that way as /sexi/). That word sequence «sex/i» is in fact the end of the word «Mixes» as in «12" Mixes Plus». By the way, the number «12"» falls on Roy's stomach, whereas the adverb and mathematical symbol «Plus» happens to find itself lying most on Mikey Craig, ironically the least known of the members from the band. Also the sex-in-reverse allusion must have been ironic enough at the time, since Jon really did all that he could do to do hide his relationship with Boy George, who desperately tried to be loved by him instead,[2] which might lead us to think that O'Dowd himself was the string puller of the strange graphic coincidence – which is actually a double coincidence, since not only the word «sex» is readable in reverse, but also the fact that reading itself has to be performed «in reverse» ultimately brings those people who catch the hidden trick not to separate the two items, but to jointly interpret the issue as a matter of «sex in reverse».

Go to link to see original cover and suggested reverse reading

References

  1. ↑ link to editorial and customer reviews
  2. ↑ Hear George's live intro to "I Just Wanna Be Loved" on the Live VH1 Storytellers CD

External links