Retro Spins: Culture Club - Kissing To Be Clever

I'll be honest, I didn't really expect Culture Club's Kissing To Be Clever to be any better than their 1983 Colour By Numbers. I really more so listened to it because I wanted to determine if I was going to bother tracking down their 1984 Waking Up With The House On Fire.

I know Culture Club has it's hits, and I'll be fair and say those hits are amazing. However, what I was hoping to find out was if the non-hit tracks were strong enough to justify digging further into the band. Let's be honest, critically wise, their 1984 album didn't blow anyone away.

I digress though. Let me jump into Kissing To Be Clever.

Right off the bat, it wasn't really hitting a high note. White Boy wasn't a truly fantastic song. However, You Know I'm Not Crazy had something about it which was intriguing in sound. It wasn't the cabana style sound, but more so the notes Boy George was hitting. I decided to add it to my shuffle list for a later hearing. A second scoop if you will.

While I wish I could say things only got better from there, I kind of lost interest in the album completely in lieu of something else I was working on. I let it play out, but I honestly can't say anything pulled my attention back to it.

Because of this, I won't be making their 1984 album a priority. I just don't think it's going to be worth grabbing immediately. Eventually, I'll probably get around to it. For now, there's other things on my list.

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Retro Spins: Culture Club - Colour By Numbers

Culture Club's impact in 80's pop culture was massive. Their first two albums, Kissing To Be Clever (1982) and Colour By Numbers (1983) featured multiple chart toppers, a handful of which went to number one. As such, it's a shame it was so brief.

For a band which had so much going for them, it was disappointing to see them fall apart between 1984 and 1986. Their third album, Waking Up With The House On Fire (1984) was poorly received, and failed to provide much commercial success. It didn't help that Boy George had been struggling with an addiction to heroin. From there, album sales continued to plummet with their last entry in the 80's, From Luxury To Heartache (1986). This album did even worse than the prior.

So let's forget about those last two albums, for now anyway. Instead, I want to focus on what I think is probably their most successful album of all time, 1983's Colour By Numbers. It features hits such as; Karma Chameleon, It's A Miracle, Church Of The Poison Mind and Miss Me Blind.

Unfortunately, with the exception of Stormkeeper, I didn't personally find much more here. The rest of the album is a little boring. Further, the remaining tracks simply can't hold a candle to the powerhouse of the singles. It makes them almost feel like throw away songs.

As a whole, it was okay, but it didn't wow me. I was actually really surprised by that. I honestly expected to be blown away.

I'm still very interested in hearing more from the band. Mostly the latter 80's albums, which I don't think I've ever heard before. More so because of Freddie Mercury praising Boy George as a singer to watch. In that regard, I want to really believe there is much more to the band than just the hits.

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Boy George (LJN)

Boy George
LJN
1984

Culture Club blasted onto the synth pop scene in 1982 with their debut album Kissing to Be Clever. The record (or cassette) featured two notable hits; Do You Really Want To Hurt Me, and I'll Tumble 4 Ya which put the band on track for success and fame. Later pressings of the album would also include a third hit, Time (Clock of the Heart).

What came next was a rocket straight into the stratosphere for the band - 1983's Colour By Numbers. It's leading track, Karma Chameleon became the band's most popular song, and made Boy George a household name among teens across the globe. Other tracks followed Karma straight up the charts; It's A Miracle, Church of the Poison Mind and Miss Me Blind. Since its release, the album has sold sixteen million copies.

Unfortunately lightning typically doesn't strike twice, and the highly anticipated third album from the band, Waking Up with the House on Fire (1984) didn't reach the level of success expected. It's real only hit was The War Song. That's not to say it was a bad album. It just didn't seem to have many more radio worthy tracks to help push it up the charts.

Things only got worse from there. George became increasingly dependent on drugs, with heroin being one of his most often abused / used. This lead to delayed recordings of the band's fourth album, From Luxury to Heartache in 1986. Though it too had a couple hits, the album did the worst out of all the band's releases to this point.

The band broke up shortly afterwards, and George proceeded with a solo career which found him mild success as compared to his early days of Culture Club. The band would later reunite for the 1999 album Don't Mind If I Do, but the record was unfortunately a commercial failure.

Let's rewind a bit here back to 1984. Despite the lackluster reception of their third album, Boy George was still a hot commodity in the world of 80's pop. As such, LJN jumped at the opportunity to produce a doll based on him.

Colour By Numbers was hot, hot, hot, and so was the iconic outfit that the singer wore to promote the album. This is what LJN based the look of the doll on. If you think you've seen the microphone accessory from the doll before, you probably have. It's the same (though painted a different color) use in the LJN Michael Jackson line produced and released that same year.

Much like the Jackson doll, the George doll is fairly spot on in terms of likeness. Especially considering that this comes from the 80's where exact likeness sculpting wasn't necessarily a common practice.

LJN followed up the twelve inch doll with a more cuddly, and may we also say, frightening version of Boy George. Just saying - We would not cuddle with this thing.

Boy George; The Huggable Cute Cuddly Doll! (Brown Hair Version)

This particular version was released with both brown and red hair - The latter being the more rarer of the two these days.

Both boxes were decked out in yellow, and showcased a nice close up photo of Boy George on the back, as well as four smaller ones somewhat in each of the corners of the larger one. The front of the box isn't shy of photos either, but they are the same ones as displayed on the back.

The use of bright neon borders screams 80's club scene, and only helps to scream out to you from toy shelves in conjunction with the massive amounts of yellow that make up the majority of the package. This is definitely a toy of the 80's.

Though we're honestly not big fans of the "cuddly" Boy George dolls, the twelve inch version definitely belongs in the collection of any 80's music fan. With how great LJN's line of music related dolls were, we would have loved to have seen tons more from the era. Just think of how awesome it would have been to have a lineup of other dolls like; Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Duran Duran - Heck, even Weird Al!

To get the twelve inch Boy George these days you're going to spend anywhere from $50.00 to $100.00 for it - Depending on condition (with the box). The cuddly George will set you back even more - About $120.00 for the brown hair version, and $150.00 for the red hair one.

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