Culture Club new album and tour news

Their tour starts in Israel on Tuesday. Hope no one was planning to go see them in Iceland! It's cancelled. There are three things certain in life death, taxes and cancelled George and/or CC events!
I don't know who organizes their tours, but they need to be fired. Iceland seems like such a bizarre random place to book a concert. I don't know of many major artists that go there.

But too bad, I always wanted George to meet Bjork. I think they could do a great duet together!

 

Okay, that would be kind of interesting...

 

Yes, but probably won't happen. For some reason, he doesn't often work with people who already famous or successful. He always wants to work with Voice contestants or some unknown band he discovers. But one of the only ways I see him having a hit again when he craves is by doing a duet with someone with their own fans. I guess because he wants to be in total control and feels threatened by other people with their own ideas and their own success.
Bjork isn't the type of person who would just lie down and go along with whatever George tells her to do!

 

Apparently the Tribes album has been renamed and is now called Out, George says it will be out early next year.

 

If it's out (pun intended) by April of next year I will eat my socks.

 

There was an interview on Australian tv where the presenter said Out will be "out" in January! I find that hard to believe as they were still recording and writing last week!

I really don't like the name Out. Out is the name of a very popular LGBT news and entertainment magazine in the US. If I see the name Out on something I would think it would be connected to or endorsed by the magazine.

Tribes is much better. Tribes to me indicated different genres of music, which CC is. People talk about find your tribe. which is people who like the same type of music and dress similiarily. CC brings together different personalities and different genres of music so I thought that title was good.

No idea what Out stands for. Could it be an acronym for something? But what?

 

I really hope they do come out with the album. But I worry they'll have made it very bland.

BG's last solo album felt very bland to me......in an Adele/Sam Smith sort of way. I know they have to play somewhat to today's record buyers but still.....I loved the soulfulness and edges of their music. And it can be done in a contemporary way. The Mark Ronson track he sang on was fantastic. The genre isn't terribly important, as long as the music has an attitude and it plays against George's emotional singing.

 

I agree with you about George's last solo album being bland. I guess we are in the minority because most fans seem to love it. The songs that they played live were fun and funky such as Like I Used to and Different Man. There was also tracks called Hard Times and Solid Ground that were good. If George lets Jon and Mikey, who are great rhythm section do their thing it won't be bland. They are fun, high energy and not Adele/Sam Smith type of guys! I just hope in the revision of the album George doesn't throw out all the good funky songs they did with Youth.

The mature bland thing is not really something coming from Jon, Roy and Mikey, it's more something that is the product of George's solo band. I want to keep their influence out! They were heavily involved in Don't Mind If I Do which made it bland!

I have nothing against Adele and Sam Smith. Their kind of music works for them. But honestly George doesn't have technically as good a voice as they do anymore and he can't really carry off those kind of big ballads. When I saw them live the uptempo songs were the best, the weakness in his current voice was heard more in ballads like Victims.

 

My main hope for the album is not too many reggae songs. I hate the pseudo reggae thing that sounds like UB40. That was practically every track on G's last solo album!

 

Well, I know that they can't do some of the same material as in the 80s/90s. They have to write songs to George's voice now, which is obviously more limited than it was. That was the genius, to me, of a song like Somebody to Love Me. It sounded new and yet hearkened back to CC days, and George's voice, while a little more weathered, sounded great.

 

People say he sounds great, but I'm not a fan of George's current voice. I think it's George that's resists anything that harkens back to the 80's or the CC days. Mikey said something like George resisted anything that sounded nostalgiac but they couldn't help sounding like CC.
I thought Somebody to Love Me was an okay song, but I don't think it's as great as you are saying it was. It wasn't a huge chart hit, and didn't led to any kind of comeback for him.

 

Guess we disagree, then.

"Chart hit" is a relative term, though. It's unlike George, CC or ANY act of that era will ever have a chart hit again. If it sells at all it's considered a success.

 

I just have always found Mark Ronson a bit overrated. He has always seemed more of a celebrity to me than an actual producer. Everyone raved about All You Need is Now he did with Duran Duran, but I thought Paper Gods was so much better. I didn't care for Perfect Illusion he did with Lady Gaga.
I did read that George and Mikey did meet Mark Ronson and tried to write with him, but it didn't work out for some reason.
With him working with Duran Duran, it would have looked like they were copying them and jumping on the bandwagon.
I think actually Youth was a great match for them. Coming from a punk background and with eclectic taste. He knew when to step back and let them be a band instead of trying to impose a sound on them. They all said Youth was amazing and really got them.

I know 80's bands don't have hits, but Mark Ronson does. You would think if George was working with someone current like him, that would be a chance for a hit, but the song just didn't catch on.

 

New interview with Roy!
Culture Club are the comeback kings

He says the new single will premiere on the Australian Voice in April!

He also says there are talking about doing another documentary! Get ready for Karma to Calamity, Part 2 everyone!

Not sure that is a good idea. They complain about the way the first one turned out and blame the director, but they fail to see they have underlying issues and until those are resolved the documentary will turn out the same! They seems like they want to shoot the messenger instead of looking at what actually went on in the documentary.

I think sometimes they think seeing them argue is entertaining or adds to their appeal, but I personally find it a bit annoying and it actually takes people attention away from the actually great music!

 

I can recall buying Colour by Numbers in 1983 and getting widely ridiculed for it by my more serious muso friends. Well I stand by what I said at the time "well-crafted popular music". Sad what's happened to him.

 

This was the only good review I ever saw of WUWTHOF. From Record Mirror in October 1984.

 

I remember at the time it getting quite good reviews. But at the time I was a young kid, I didn't have serious muso friends. All my friends in school listened to other fun pop music such as Madonna, Bananarama Duran Duran Cyndi Lauper etc. as well as Culture Club.
I think what made the 80's great was that pop music could be well crafted and fun at the same time. Current pop music tends to be for the most part kind of manufactured. I feel now there is more of a separation between pop music and "credible and artistic" music, whereas in the 80's pop music had more artistic value.

 

I actually feel Waking Up is a very underrated album even by the band itself. I think the negative reviews stemmed more from the overexposure of George as a personality than the actual music.
They do the War Song, but I wouldn't mind if they did another track from it like the Dive.
I wish they could do a few more obscure songs instead of the covers they do. Their covers of the Stones, Prince and Marc Bolan really do nothing for me. I think 3 covers in a relatively short list is excessive.

 

The reviews were really poor. I remember it was a real shock when hearing the album for the first time, a huge drop in quality from the majestic CBN.

 

so a new album by them is really coming out in 2018? i'll believe it when i see it

 

lot of culture club/boy george experts in this thread. i might have even asked this question in this thread but don't have time to check 48 pages. the 2002 boxset, is there a website or does someone here have track info like what album/single/etc the songs are from or who plays on them? just don't understand a great boxset have absolutely no information like this in the boolet especially with all of the demo's and remixes included.

 

I would suggest you check Lyrically Speaking:

Culture Club & Boy George - Lyrically Speaking

or you could also search all music.com for Culture Club and Boy George too.

If you have a question about a specific song on the box set and what album it's on, let me know.

 

That whole box set is a big controversy. George didn't see fit to put on track info, but he wrote all his bitchy comments and posted pictures of his friends who had nothing to do with the music!
Plus it has all his solo music and not some CC songs.
I think Steve Levine was involved and so they tended to ignore From Luxury to Heartache which is one of my favorite albums.
I didn't really care for the remixes on the last cd. Kind of pointless.
George refused to consult with the other guys about the setlist, but said when they complained, you guys are making money from it. Typical George!

 

I wasn't very happy with it- it should have been all Culture Club.

 

I agree! But that's the only way he could get his solo stuff out there because no one would ever finance a George solo box set!
But most of the solo stuff was already available on other releases so it wasn't really new.