Culture Club are an English pop band formed in London in 1981. The band comprises Boy George (lead vocals), Roy Hay (guitar and keyboards), and Mikey Craig (bass guitar), and formerly included Jon Moss (drums and percussion). Emerging in the New Romantic scene, they are considered one of the most representative and influential groups of the 1980s.
Led by singer and frontman Boy George, whose androgynous style of dressing caught the attention of the public and the media in the early 1980s, the band have sold more than 50 million records, including over six million BPI certified records sold in the UK and over seven million RIAA certified records sold in the US. In the UK they amassed twelve top 40 hit singles between 1982 and 1999, including the number ones "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me"" and "Karma Chameleon", the latter being the biggest-selling single of 1983 in the UK and a number one hit in the US. The Culture Club song "Time (Clock of the Heart)" is included on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of 500 songs that shaped rock and roll. Other hits were "Church of the Poison Mind" and "The War Song".
Their second album, Colour by Numbers, sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. It appeared on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Best Albums of the 1980s and is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Ten of their singles reached the US top 40, where they are associated with the Second British Invasion of British "new music" groups that became popular in the US due to the cable music channel MTV. Culture Club's music has been described as combining new wave and American soul and pop. It also includes some elements of Jamaican reggae and other styles such as calypso, salsa, and, with "Karma Chameleon", elements of country music.
In 1984, Culture Club won Brit Awards for Best British Group, Best British Single ("Karma Chameleon"), and the Grammy Award for Best New Artist."Culture Club: BRITs Profile" . Brit Awards. Retrieved 30 October 2012. They were nominated the same year for the Grammy Award for Pop Vocal by Group or Duo. The band were also nominated for a Canadian Juno Award for International Album of the Year. In January 1985, Culture Club were nominated for an American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group Video Artist, and in September 1985, they were nominated for two MTV Video Music Awards for Best Special Effects and Best Art Direction for their video "It's a Miracle". In 1987, they received another nomination for an American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group Video Artist."Grammy Awards: Best New Artist". Rock on the Net. Retrieved 30 October 2012 The name of the band Culture Club is a reference to the fact that its members all have unique cultural backgrounds, including Jamaican, Irish, and Jewish heritage.
History 1981–1983: Formation and Kissing to Be Clever In 1981, Blitz Club regular Boy George occasionally sang with the group Bow Wow Wow, performing under the stage name Lieutenant Lush, with manager Malcolm McLaren going so far as to envision him as a second vocalist alongside lead singer Annabella Lwin. George would leave the group after alleged clashes between them.
After his tenure with Bow Wow Wow ended, George formed his own group with bassist Mikey Craig and guitarist Jon Suede. Initially called In Praise of Lemmings, the group soon renamed themselves as The Sex Gang Children. In 1981, drummer Jon Moss (formerly of the Damned and Adam and the Ants) was recruited and Jon Suede was replaced by guitarist Roy Hay and the band change their name again to Culture Club. The band's name was chosen when they realized that they had a gay frontman of Irish ethnicity (George), a black Briton (Craig) on bass, a blond Englishman (Hay) on guitar and keyboards, and a Jewish drummer (Moss). The abandoned name The Sex Gang Children was adopted by another group.Strong, Martin C. (2003) "Sex Gang Children", in The Great Indie Discography, Canongate,
Culture Club recorded demos, which were paid for by EMI Records, but the label was unimpressed and decided not to sign the group. Virgin Publishing heard the demos and signed the group to a songwriting contract. Virgin Records then offered the group a recording deal, releasing the albums in Europe, while Epic Records released their albums in North America and much of the rest of the world.
The band released two singles in May and June 1982, "White Boy" and "I'm Afraid of Me", though both failed to chart. In September of that year, Virgin released their third single, "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me", a reggae-influenced number, which became one of their biggest hits. The song went to No. 1 in the UK in late 1982 and became an international smash, topping the charts in twenty-three countries (No. 2 in the US), and the top ten in several more countries.
The band's 1982 debut on Top of the Pops created tabloid headlines, which focused on George's androgynous style of dress and sexual ambiguity. Magazines began to feature George prominently on their covers. Pete Burns, lead singer of the pop band Dead or Alive, would later claim he was the first to wear braids, big hats, and colorful costumes, but George would cut back with a sharp-tongued remark, "It's not who did it first, it's who did it better."
The band's debut album Kissing to Be Clever (UK No. 5, US No. 14) was released in October 1982, and the follow-up single, "Time (Clock of the Heart)", became another Top 10 hit in the US (Number 2) and UK (Number 3). "I'll Tumble 4 Ya" also became a Top Ten hit in the US (Number 9) and in Canada. This gave Culture Club the distinction of being the first group since The Beatles to have three Top Ten hits in America from a debut album. Kissing to Be Clever was certified platinum in US for 1 million shipped copies.
1983–1984: Colour by Numbers
The band's second album, Colour by Numbers (UK No. 1, US No. 2), was released in 1983. The first single, "Church of the Poison Mind", featuring backing vocalist Helen Terry, reached the UK and US Top 10. The second single, "Karma Chameleon", gave the band their biggest hit, hitting No. 1 in the UK (the band's second chart-topper there), where it became the best-selling single of 1983 and has sold 1.5 million copies there to date. It also peaked at No. 1 in the US for three consecutive weeks, and would ultimately hit No. 1 in 30 countries, thus becoming one of the top twenty best-selling singles of the 1980s and selling seven million copies worldwide, with one of the most iconic images of Boy George on the cover shot by photographer David Levine.
The album Colour by Numbers would spawn more hits including "Miss Me Blind" (#5 US), "It's a Miracle" (#4 UK, No. 13 US), and "Victims" (#3 UK), and sold four million copies in the US alone and another five million copies worldwide, at the time of its release. The album gave Culture Club the distinction of being the first group in music history to have an album certified diamond in Canada (for sales of one million copies in that country). The band also won the 1984 Brit Award for Best Group and the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, where George gave a speech via satellite stating, "Thank you, America. You've got taste, style, and you know a good drag queen when you see one."
The group's back-up singer, Helen Terry, began work on her solo album, for which George and Hay wrote the song "Love Lies Lost". The pair also wrote "Passing Friend" for the Beach Boys' album. Culture Club wrote two songs for the soundtrack to the movie Electric Dreams. George and Hay wrote "The Dream" and "Love Is Love", with the latter being released as a single in Canada, Japan and South America, where the E.P "Love is Love" became a major hit in Brazil. George also collaborated on the song "Electric Dreams", sung by P. P. Arnold. The song was written with Phil Pickett (former member of the 1970s band Sailor) who had also co-written "Karma Chameleon" and frequently played keyboards for the group.
Despite Culture Club's commercial success, there were significant pressures within the band and George was using drugs with money earned from his new-found fame. George and Moss were also romantically involved with each other, which was unknown to the public and the media at the time. Their relationship lasted for over four years and was often turbulent, with alleged physical and verbal abuse from both sides. Their constant arguments and the pressure to hide the relationship from the public started to take its toll on the band.
1984–1986: Waking Up with the House on Fire, From Luxury to Heartache and decline In 1984, the group released their third album Waking Up with the House on Fire (UK No. 2, US No. 26). Although certified platinum in both the UK and the US, it was a commercial and critical disappointment compared to their first two albums. The album contained the hit single "The War Song", which reached No. 2 in the UK, and Top 20 in the US. Other singles like "Mistake No. 3" (US No. 33) and "The Medal Song" (UK No. 32) would only become modest hits. George later stated he felt the album experienced a lukewarm reception because of half-hearted material he felt they released due to pressure from Virgin and Epic. Also, according to him, the band had just come off an exhausting world tour, in 1984. At the end of 1984, Boy George was recruited by Bob Geldof to join the Band Aid recording, consisting of mostly internationally known UK and Irish recording stars. George was in New York City for an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman when Geldof called him, but managed to catch the final Concorde of the day to London and was the last singer to record a lead vocal track for the song "Do They Know It's Christmas?". The song would become the biggest selling single of all time in the UK and a huge international hit, raising millions for famine victims in several African nations, particularly Ethiopia.
Due to the break-up of his relationship with Moss, and all the ensuing tension with the rest of the band, George turned to relief in drugs. Consequently, he soon developed a self-destructive drug addiction, which in merely four months escalated from marijuana to heroin. By 1986, George had become seriously addicted. The recording of their fourth studio album, 1986's From Luxury to Heartache (UK No. 10, US No. 32) dragged on for so long that producer Arif Mardin had to abandon the sessions due to prior commitments and leave it to engineer Lew Hahn to finish the sessions. Nevertheless, the first single "Move Away" became a hit, peaking at UK No. 7 and US No. 12 and made appear that the album would return the group back to its previous success. But by the time of the release of the second single "God Thank You Woman", news of George's drug addiction began to circulate in British and American tabloids, and the second single stalled on its way up the charts, failing to make a big impact.
George and Moss also no longer wanted to be around each other due to the constant relationship battles and with George's addiction. From Luxury to Heartache began to fade from the charts as well, and the album ultimately sold fewer than one million copies worldwide at the time of release. By the summer of 1986, George finally admitted that he was addicted to drugs. In July of that year, he was arrested by the British police for possession of heroin.
Culture Club disbanded in 1986.
Reunions 1989 The band first tried to reunite in 1989, after many requests from Tony Gordon, the group's former manager and George's manager at that time. George agreed to try some songs with the band again, resulting in recording sessions and producing more than a dozen songs that remain unreleased. George, however, was more excited about his future projects like his record label, More Protein, and his new acid house project Jesus Loves You. The proposed reunion ended up being cancelled.
1998–2000, 2002