FEATURE:
It’s a Miracle
Culture Club’s Colour by Numbers at Forty
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ONE of the best albums of the '80s…
PHOTO CREDIT: Ebet Roberts/Redferns
arrived on 10th October, 1983. Culture Club’s seconds studio album, Colour By Numbers, went to number one in the U.K. and two in the U.S. I want to mark the upcoming fortieth anniversary. In 2019, Classic Pop discussed the upbeat and colourful music and delivery at times bellied painful and serious lyrics. Maybe one reason why Colour By Numbers is so accessible is because the songs have this catchiness. There is quite a broad range of sounds through Colour By Numbers. One thing that is consistent is the quality of the songwriting. With Boy George captivating in every song, it is no wonder Colour By Numbers has endured and resonated with critics. I will come to a couple of reviews. In terms of features, there are a couple worth bringing in. I shall start with Classic Pop:
“As the nation reeled in shock when David Bowie draped his arm around Mick Ronson’s shoulder during his infamous Top Of The Pops performance of Starman in July 1972, a spark was ignited in 11-year-old viewer George O’Dowd, who recognised a kindred spirit in Bowie and made the decision to follow in the platform-soled footsteps of his idol.
Immersing himself in the glam rock, punk and New Romantic scenes, he reinvented himself as a flamboyant entity in his own right.
A decade later, George’s own appearance on the same show to perform Do You Really Want To Hurt Me elicited an equally controversial reaction to that of Bowie’s – and the charismatic singer of indeterminate gender was baptised pop’s hottest property.
Although the initial reaction to Boy George’s androgynous look had shifted between negative (he was crowned ‘Wally Of The Week’ by renowned TV critic Nina Myskow) and bewildered, his talent was undeniable and the soulful reggae of Do You Really Want To Hurt Me made Culture Club a global phenomenon.
As the band relentlessly promoted the song, getting back in the studio to work on new material was at the forefront of their minds. Do You Really Want To Hurt Me had proved third-time lucky for them, following the flop of their first two singles White Boy and I’m Afraid Of Me and, feeling that their debut album Kissing To Be Clever lacked anything else worthy of being a single, the band was concerned about the prospect of becoming a one-hit wonder.
One of the first new tracks they recorded, Time (Clock Of The Heart) was rush-released in November 1982 and alleviated those fears, giving them a second Top 10 hit.
A sublime slice of blue-eyed soul, the track served its purpose of keeping the band in the public eye – and the charts – while they crafted their second album amidst one of the most competitive times in music, with Wham!, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet all vying for the attentions of Britain’s teenagers.
“With so many great bands around, people can forget about you really quickly – especially when you’re a new band,” George said at the time. “So for us, it’s important to just keep pushing the records out so that we don’t lose our momentum.”
Describing themselves as “an Irish transvestite, a Jew, a black man and an Anglo-Saxon”, the band’s name was an allusion to their differing ethnicities and it was the fusion of those different backgrounds and influences that gave them their signature sound.
With producer Steve Levine on hand to mould the varying styles into a cohesive sound, and support from powerhouse backing vocalist Helen Terry and keys player Phil Pickett among others, the sessions for the second album showed a marked progression from Kissing To Be Clever, which had been more a collection of demos recorded as the band found its identity than a body of work.
“This next album is going to prove that we’re very musical,” George said in an interview with The Tube in early 1983. “It’s a lot more mature and sophisticated than Kissing To Be Clever. We work very closely with Steve Levine, who is almost the fifth member of Culture Club. We all have the same idea of what we want the end result to be, which is essentially a well-structured pop song, and we have developed our own sound now. A lot of bands are wanting to work with Steve to achieve the ‘Culture Club sound’ but it’s not possible, because it’s a collaboration – it’s not a situation like a lot of bands who don’t know what they want to sound like, so the producer ends up taking over.
“Roy and Mikey love the new machines – the Fairlights, and the computers – while Jon and I prefer an acoustic sound, really rough and soulful. So we mix both to get a fine balance.”
Achieving that result had proved anything but smooth. “We’re very adult in our approach to the studio, but we fight a lot in the rehearsals,” George said. “There’s a lot of throwing coffee over each other and guitars being thrown, that sort of thing.”
Years later, an insight into the machinations of Culture Club at this time was revealed when a recording taken during the making of Victims, in which the band tore into each other, was leaked onto the internet. Finding it hilarious in retrospect, the argument was entitled Shirley Temple Moment and released as a track on the band’s 2002 career-retrospective boxset.
While Culture Club’s music was a collaborative effort, the song’s lyrics were strictly George’s domain. “I write all the lyrics,” he said. “I never sing anyone else’s lyrics – they all come from a very personal basis and are about what’s going on in my life, in my relationships at the time – they’re deeply personal.”
Although George and drummer Jon Moss’ relationship wasn’t public knowledge by this point, their tempestuous union was the basis for much of Culture Club’s material.
As millions of fans unwittingly sang along, their biggest hit, Karma Chameleon was a visceral depiction of a volatile relationship with lyrics such as: “I heard you say that my love was an addiction/ When we cling, our love is strong/When you go, you’re gone forever, you string along” and “Everyday is like survival, you’re my lover, not my rival”, a theme prevalent throughout the rest of the record.
On the surface, Colour By Numbers is a poppy, upbeat record fizzing with catchy melodies and sing-along choruses. Scrubbed free of its make-up of glossy production and soulful vocal stylings, it’s a tortured depiction of a dysfunctional relationship.
Following in the footsteps of Fleetwood Mac and ABBA, Culture Club turned their misery and melancholia into musical magic. Writing in his autobiography Take It Like A Man, George described the band’s output as: “Simple pop songs with blatant messages to the boy I loved – my pain was seeping into the songwriting.”
Preceded by No.2 hit Church Of The Poison Mind, and Karma Chameleon, which spent six weeks at No.1, Colour By Numbers was released in October 1983.
Critics praised the album’s mix of blue-eyed soul with pop, gospel, reggae and jazz, citing it as a huge musical progression from Culture Club’s debut, particularly on the epic ballad Victims (released as the third single in November 1983)”.
Before coming to some of the critical reviews for Colour By Numbers, there is a great feature from Albumism that discusses the impact and legacy of Colour By Numbers. They also discuss how Culture Club developed after their 1983 success. An undoubted classic, it has been certified triple platinum in the U.K. and quadruple platinum in the U.S. It was ranked number ninety-six on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Best Albums of the 1980s:
“Kissing to Be Clever was a critical and commercial triumph producing five charters overall. Out of those five singles, three of them—“Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?,” “Time (Clock of the Heart)” and “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya”—went on to become sizable singles on both sides of the Atlantic by the summer of 1983. At that junction, Culture Club had already begun work on their sophomore set, Colour By Numbers.
The group weren’t keen on their legacy resting on just one platinum record; their vision for Culture Club was much bigger than that. Particularly for O’Dowd, better known by his stage moniker Boy George, the quartet’s second outing was central to extending their longevity. O’Dowd had taken great care to incorporate a striking visual presence for himself and his bandmates; now, it was time to ensure the music continued to get that same attention to detail.
Culture Club once again enlisted the services of producer Steve Levine. Levine had worked closely with the band on Kissing to Be Clever and had a solid grasp of the outfit’s work ethic and creative autonomy. This element is core to Culture Club and Levine getting on the same page in relation to them flipping the heavier, funkier sonics of Kissing to Be Clever into something lighter and more melodically focused for Colour By Numbers.
This aural switch is immediately noticeable on the record’s opening piece—and second single—“Karma Chameleon.” The sprightly gem laden with catchy harmonica riffs (courtesy of Judd Lander) is beautifully understated on the whole, but still insistent with its irrepressible hook.
With exceptions issued to the sides “Miss Me Blind,” “Mister Man” and “Man-Shake”—the latter composition cast as a B-side to one of the LP’s eventual singles—much of the overt dance and reggae vibes were largely absent on the band’s sophomore collection. The awareness and intent in Culture Club’s usage or heightening of other music tones on Colour By Numbers is both striking and refreshing. Some of those tones include jazz-fusion (“Changing Every Day,” “Stormkeeper”), torch songs (“Black Money”) and classic soul (“Church of the Poison Mind”). All of them are expressively communicated by the superb playing of Craig, Hay and Moss with the additional augmentation of studio session musicians as needed.
What did stay unchanged were the lyrical thrusts of each song, with O’Dowd joined by his colleagues in the scripting of each track present on the long player. However, O’Dowd led as the primary songwriter in relation to setting the emotional mood for the compositions.
Much of O’Dowd’s tumultuous relationship with Jon Moss—then hidden from public view—supercharged nearly every cut on Colour By Numbers. Specifically, “Karma Chameleon,” “Black Money,” “Victims” and the title song (another alternate side to one of the project’s singles) possess a weighty romantic pathos partially masked by their impressive pop song structuring. Bringing the gravitas of the material home is O’Dowd’s soulful vocal delivery. On occasion, O’Dowd got some powerful support from the inimitable backing singer Helen Terry that yielded even more emotional energy to these already riveting pieces.
Released in early October of 1983, Colour By Numbers was a textbook critical, commercial and creative success. The LP in its entirety (as well as it singles) made Culture Club global ambassadors for the New Romantic guard overnight. Follow-ups were issued hastily in 1984 (Waking Up with the House on Fire) and 1986 (From Luxury to Heartache) before Culture Club disbanded acrimoniously to pursue separate career paths as has been well documented.
In the slipstream of their parting, Culture Club later embarked upon several (mostly) friendly reunions between 1998 and 2018. Don’t Mind If I Do (1999), their excellent fifth studio effort, was their first formal recording to result from their initial reunification. It preceded the 2003 reissue of Colour By Numbers that notably restored all of the B-sides from its corresponding singles onto the album proper for collectors.
And though the roots for their forthcoming sixth affair Life stretch back to their 2014 reformation, longtime fans eagerly anticipate yet another solid batch of pop-soul numbers from the group due for release in October this year. It’s a standard Culture Club set for themselves early on in their canon with Colour By Numbers. The album holds fast to a musical and lyrical timelessness that continues to thrive well past the era of its origin, something every recording artist often aspires to but doesn’t always achieve”.
I will finish off with a couple of reviews. I am going to start with AllMusic’s opinion on a New Wave classic. Produced by the legendary Steve Levine, key cuts like Karma Chameleon and Church of the Poison Mind are played regularly to this day. Colour By Numbers remains Culture Club’s defining statement. Boy George, Roy Hay, Mike Craig and Jon Moss created a masterpiece:
“Colour by Numbers was Culture Club's most successful album, and, undoubtedly, one of the most popular albums from the 1980s. Scoring no less than four U.S. hit singles (and five overseas), this set dominated the charts for a full year, both in the United States and in Europe. The songs were infectious, the videos were all over MTV, and the band was a media magnet. Boy George sounded as warm and soulful as ever, but one of the real stars on this set was backing vocalist Helen Terry, who really brought the house down on the album's unforgettable first single, "Church of the Poison Mind." This album also featured the band's biggest (and only number one) hit, the irresistibly catchy "Karma Chameleon," its more rock & roll Top Five follow-up "Miss Me Blind," and the fourth single (and big club hit), "It's a Miracle" (which also featured Helen Terry's unmistakable belting). Also here are "Victims," a big, dark, deep, and bombastic power ballad that was a huge hit overseas but never released in the U.S., and other soulful favorites such as "Black Money" and "That's the Way (I'm Only Trying to Help You)," where Boy George truly flexed his vocal muscles. In the 1980s music was, in many cases, flamboyant, fun, sexy, soulful, colorful, androgynous, and carefree, and this album captured that spirit perfectly. A must for any collector of 1980s music, and the artistic and commercial pinnacle of a band that still attracted new fans years later”.
I am going to end with a review from Rolling Stone. They reviewed Colour By Numbers in 2003 on its twentieth anniversary. Twenty years after that review, there is no doubt Culture Club’s second studio have survived the test of time:
“Culture Club's Colour by Numbers secures lead singer Boy George's place as a blue-eyed soul balladeer of the first rank. If he has yet to match the heights of the soul elite – the delicate refinement of Smokey Robinson or the rich gospel fervor of Gladys Knight, both of whom he sometimes resembles–Boy George is still artistically the real thing, a singer who continually and instinctively communicates passion in an era awash with cynical pseudosoul poseurs.
Colour by Numbers is by no means a weighty album. Like Kissing to Be Clever, Culture Club's second LP comes from the same school of trendy British pop that's produced ABC, Wham! U.K., Haircut One. Hundred and a dozen other brands of musical candy whose recipes blend synth-pop, Motown and third-world flavors. But unlike other albums of similar ilk, Colour by Numbers has gobs of emotion plastered as thickly as Boy George's makeup, and ten tunes that stick. And the band – drummer Jon Moss, keyboardist-guitarist Roy Hay and bassist Mikey Craig–cooks up a percolating brand of synth-pop that is more than just a quick, superficial ripoff.
Musically, "Karma Chameleon" recalls James Taylor's version of "Handy Man," though it's accelerated, synthed-up and frothed into a creamy sundae sprinkled with bluesy harmonica licks. The breezy pop-soul calypso "It's a Miracle" is one of several cuts in which Boy George faces off against backup singer Helen Terry. Theirs is a provocative match, rather like Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin, in which Terry's scat-singing tough mama responds to Boy George's imploring vulnerability with maternal strength. In the hauntingly lovely "Black Money," the relationship between the two is at its deepest and most mysterious. Boy George's repeated question, "Do you deal in black money?" provokes a gospel-style interchange that implies at least two different dialogues–one between a boy and a woman (possibly a prostitute), the other between whites and blacks.
Other songs gloss Latin dance music ("Changing Every Day"), Latin-inflected light funk ("Church of the Poison Mind," in which Terry growls like Patti LaBelle in a huff) and calypso-flavored pop-funk ("Stormkeeper," "Miss Me Blind"). In "Victims," a sprawling, churchy ballad, light symphonic orchestration replaces the silky, synthesized textures of the rest of the album. "Feel like a child on a dark night/Wishing there was some kind of heaven," Boy George muses. Both the vocals and the arrangement suggest that he is probing a deeper spiritual realm than the usual masochistic romantic delirium of dreams, love and emotions–words that course obsessively through the songs.
The rollicking calypso "Mister Man" politicizes the dark night of the soul that Boy George begins to approach in "Victims." The unpredictable, potentially murderous "man" of the title is a generalized enough symbol of fear and desire to be taken as a white oppressor, a street hustler or any macho bully. But while Culture Club's "we are all races, all sexes, all musics" pose is honorable, it's ultimately quite shallow. Smatterings of soul, calypso and funk in synth-pop packaging do not add up to a very significant musical cross-fertilization. Happily, Colour by Numbers makes less of this pose than did Kissing to Be Clever.
When Culture Club first appeared on these shores last year, it was difficult to imagine that Boy George would quickly become a bona-fide pop star and fashion plate with a legion of female admirers. With his lipstick, dreadlocks and hieroglyphic shmattes, he looked like an overweight, teenage sissy desperately trying to grab people's attention. And when he pleaded, "Do you really want to hurt me?" one could imagine that plenty of guys would be sufficiently provoked by his coy androgyny to do exactly that. For unlike David Bowie in his transvestite period, Boy George was no icy alien parading at a safe emotional distance. Instead of concealing his "girlish" feelings, he flaunted them, putting his heart on the line along with his fantasies.
But with all its dripping sweetness, Boy George's singing also contains a rich undercurrent of humor. While his sob is genuine, he is also wise enough to recognize the silliness of such teenage languishing. And it's that sense of humor–Boy George's knowingly excessive romanticism, his graceful acceptance of his own klutziness, his irrepressible pleasure at the foolishness and fun of pop – that redeems Culture Club from any pretentiousness.
Whether you like the band or not, Culture Club is one pop group that matters”.
With album tracks as strong as the singles, the colourful, flamboyant and mesmeric Colour By Numbers is going to find new fans for decades to come. One of the all-time great albums, Colour By Numbers turns forty on 10th October. If you have not heard the album for a while, then go and make sure that you…
SPEND some time with it.