Finally, after stalling at #2 twice, Culture Club gets their first - and only - US #1, and it was well-deserved. "Karma Chameleon" was an obvious single, and radio stations had already started playing it while "Church Of The Poison Mind" was still climbing the charts, possibly blunting that single's momentum (it stalled at #10). Having two hot singles on top of each other on the radio though caused album sales to explode - Colour By Numbers became by far their biggest LP in America, rising to #2 and going 4x Platinum back when that really meant something. The album is practically a greatest hits package all by itself, sporting 4 US Top 20 singles (3 top 10s), plus the lovely "Victims", which made it to #3 in the UK, and album cut "Black Money", which I actually prefer to several of their hits. Check the album out if you never have - it's a great slice of the '80s and maybe one of the best sophomore albums in pop history. Even in that crowd of great cuts though, "Karma Chameleon" really stands out, a smooth earworm with a fantastic arrangement and arguably Boy George's finest, most Dusty-fied vocal, all honey and warmth. At this point Culture Club easily rivaled acts like The Police and Duran Duran for the title of biggest band in the world. "Karma" was the best-selling single of the year in the UK for '83, and went to #1 in something like 20 countries. It's the band's biggest-selling single overall and remains one of the most successful singles of all time, moving almost 6 million copies, a staggering number for a single. I think I even had a copy. Ironically, after George wrote the song the band was hesitant to record it - they thought it sounded too country & western. The video cleverly picks up on this, being set on a Mississippi riverboat in the 1800's, providing the perfect context for the song's somewhat incongruous country touches. Oddly enough, this wouldn't be the only countrified hit from a red hot new pop act during this period - we'd be seeing another country-tinged #1 a little over a year after "Karma Chameleon" topped the charts, from an act who'd yet to hit #1 at this point. But that would be rectified before the end of 1984...
"Karma Chamelion" is one of the few '80s #1 hits that I liked even at the time. Of course, I was in 6th grade and it was absolutely verboten for boys to admit they liked Culture Club. So I kept my mouth shut about it. But I did like it.
The U.S. was a few months behind the UK in this becoming #1, as it was discussed in the Every UK #1 Single of The 1980's Discussion Thread. Notice how the UK label where 45's used a smaller spindle hole took up the entire "real estate" of the label, vs. US Epic/Virgin's accounting for the large spindle hole (and using the standard design as opposed to the UK custom one). As well, this was at the point US CBS labels began incorporating space for the dreaded barcode on the right side:
I remember hearing "Karma Chameleon" on CBC radio almost a month before top 40 picked it up. From the first listen, it sounded like a number 1 hit. It had an intro that grabbed the listener's attention and readied them for a well structured pop song where the verses, choruses, and bridge fit together perfectly. Also, it was nice to hear some Leslie guitar and bluesy harmonica on a number one record just as synths were becoming more prominent on pop radio.
"Karma Chameleon" Talk about a time capsule of 6th grade. For me, Culture Club was just kind of "there": I didn't love em, didn't hate em, but rarely changed the channel when they were on. A lot of the girls who were into Culture Club and Duran Duran in '84 would be into the Cure and REM in a few years.
A Canadian chart from that time period. You will notice that "Red Red Wine" by UB40 is at #4. This was the original 45 with the toasting edited out.
In early 1984, an ex-Beatle climbed the charts. I was always excited to hear the song when it came on the radio, it was a cracker. It was Nobody Told Me by... John Lennon? Strange days indeed! It kind of blew my mind that, more than three years after Lennon's death, along came a new album and single. At the time I'd never seen any of the clips in the video, so it was very cool when it would show up on MTV. The lyrics are typically Lennon, and among the references he makes is to a UFO over New York. In 1974, he maintained that he and his girlfriend May Pang actually saw a UFO floating near their apartment. Supposedly he even took photos of it, but they didn't come out. The song reached 6 in early 1984.
In January, 1984, the Pretenders had a minor hit with another of their great songs, Middle of the Road. The song peaked at 19 on the charts. I love the way Crissie Hynde spits the lyrics out in this one, particularly: Don't harass me, can't you tell I'm going home, I'm tired as hell I'm not the cat I used to be I got a kid, I'm thirty-three. Great harmonica solo, too; weren't getting that instrument much in hit songs by that point. This song always got my blood pumping when it showed up on the radio or MTV.
One of my favorite Lennon solo tracks. I’m not a big fan of Lennon’s post Beatle work, but I love this one.
Great single from a fabulous album - Learning to Crawl. That LP may be my favorite of 1984. I was a huge fan of The Pretenders - Chrissie Hynde has one of the sexiest voices in rock music.
Fine single. I never owned anything from Culture Club but I always liked hearing their singles on the radio. My wife is a huge fan - she and my sister saw Boy George In concert a few years ago & loved it.
Great song! From the Learning To Crawl album, just a fantastic album which I played to death back in the day.
Culture Club - Karma Chameleon There are a lot of hooks to this song, vocal and musical. The thing that always grabs me first is the rhythm. I remember a lot of 80's songs using that syncopated rhythm. Culture Club played it in a way that's not quite reggae, but influenced by reggae. It's just another music tool without resorting to making fun of it. It's just slight, which is exactly how the song should be. I love the harmonica in here too. We'll see it used more in a bit hit later in the year. That chorus is catchy as hell, though. You hear it once and it's in your head. My niece is 3 and she knows this song and will sing the chorus. It's a massive hook. The band sounds great here and Boy George sings wonderfully. All of his vocals are highly melodic, which I love. The verses aren't something to just bide time until the chorus, there's a lot of good stuff there. Great prechorus too. All around, it's a great song. the video: There's a lot of red, gold and green in the video. The amount and color makes it memorable, as do the costumes. I don't know how a riverboat in 1870 corresponds with the song, but it doesn't have to make any sense. It looks good and it's fun. I love how Boy George stands out in his usual attire. I mean, he always stood out, but I like that they made this full costumed video with him looking absolutely normal. That's great. Fun video
As far as i'm concerned, this song is the highlight of the whole album. I like "Show Me" too, but this one is one of their best songs, IMO.
I remember MTV played the "Nobody Told Me" video fairly often. They also played the Pretenders video a lot, but I'd forgotten all about that faux punk band at the beginning singing "You've got a hard life coming!"
Our local music video outfit Channel 61 was obsessed with the "Nobody Told Me" video. They played it constantly for a couple of months. Coming toward the end of my Beatles obsession I was happy to see that by then old footage of John. I also dutifully picked up a copy of Milk And Honey and played the heck out of it. Of course the lyrics in "Nobody Told Me" were largely placeholders, which John didn't live to complete, but hearing them I always felt privileged to have that little window into his creative process. And some of them were pretty inspired so who knows - they might have survived into the final song, had he lived long enough to complete it (although it was allegedly intended for Ringo's '81 album Stop And Smell The Roses). Really the only problem with Milk And Honey is that it was terribly dated by the time it finally made it to market. It's unfortunate it didn't come out by '82 - I think it would have been more successful if it had - but obviously Yoko was probably in no shape to complete it before then. I actually loved the other two singles from the record, the island-tinged "Borrowed Time" (another eerily prophetic cut Lennon recorded just before his assassination) and the lyrically clever "I'm Stepping Out", whose video also got some play on Channel 61 and which came quite a bit closer to the Top 40 than "Borrowed Time". But all three cuts were like a time capsule from 1980, and given how much the pop landscape had changed in just the previous 12 months, might as well have hailed from 1970.
My top 10: 38. Real Life, Send Me an Angel 30. Juluka, Scatterlings of Africa 5. Peter Schilling, Major Tom 13. Spandau Ballet, Gold 42. Eurythmics, Here Comes the Rain Again 1. Culture Club, Karma Chameleon 37. Billy Joel, Uptown Girl 36. Nena, 99 Red Balloons 9. Elton John, I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues 46. Shannon, Let the Music Play The top four are just about neck-and-neck. All ten are pretty good songs, but I don't think there's any one in the highest rank of my top echelon, that I would be crushed if I could never hear it again. Real Life's follow-up Catch Me I'm Falling is even a little better! The first LP (Heartland, if memory serves) and its follow-up Flame were both pretty good. I'm not much of a Spandau Ballet fan but Gold is a breezy little number that hits the spot. Funny how I absolutely loathe Sweet Dreams are Made of This, but they tweak it a little for Here Comes the Rain Again and it's a pretty decent track. As for our current Billboard #1, Karma Chameleon is the one Culture Club track that I thought stood head and shoulders above the rest (and I didn't dislike most of them).
Yeah, The Pretenders had a real sophomore slump but came roaring back with this album. "Back On The Chain Gang" is the highlight for me, but most of it is pretty good and a few additional cuts are excellent.
Karma Chameleon The moment I first heard this song, I knew it was going to be a hit. And yet, for whatever reason, I've never liked it all that much. In fact, it's probably my least favorite of their big songs from 1983-84. I can sense there are hooks to be had, but what bugs me is the overall blandness of the whole thing. It hits the ground at a certain level of drama and doesn't vary one iota for the rest of its running time. Boy George's voice does not help; he does "smooth" well, but what this song really cries out for is some variation. Even the chorus bangs this home: repeat the word Karma over and over, with the same level of excitement, until the listener enters a REM state. Even the harmonica is subdued as if they were afraid of injecting any undue excitement into the proceedings. The video is a snoozer, too. The film stock always seemed really cheap to me, like they were working with a low budget. The band takes about a minute to board a riverboat. The boat sails. They play cards. Boy George can't be bothered to go with the historic theme and dress appropriately. He sings the word 'Karma' 45 times. Guy walks the plank. Boat is revealed to be called The Chameleon as if that's significant. Song ends. So a meh from me on this one.
