Culture Club 'The War Song'

Chart Peak: 2

YouTube

Well, if the end of the first side was getting too ballady, this might be good news at the start of Side 2. But, er don't quote me on that. Whilst no act features on all the first four Now albums, the double helping of Culture Club on the first volume means they can claim four appearances out of four; it was almost fifteen years before they added to that total, though.

I have a theory that it's usually a bad sign when a group start using a lot of descriptive song titles; I don't think I've ever heard the unsuccessful follow-up single 'The Medal Song' but I fondly imagine Boy George telling us "Medals are stupid!". It certainly is the case that the band were privately in disarray, rushing out an album while blighted by interpersonal strife and George's increasing drug problems. For all the short-term success it had, posterity has been less than fond of this track, and even the band themselves seem to have titled their 1998 compilation Greatest Moments precisely in order to avoid including it. Presumably the simplistic presentation is intentional, even if it hasn't dated well; in between the insults to Frankie Goes To Hollywood Jon Moss says that this is how The Beano would have tackled the subject, which is a fair shout. It actually sounded rather catchy when I was six, although I didn't understand what "some strange quarters" meant. The trouble is, of course, that most children already know war is stupid. It's the adults you have to worry about.

Also appearing on: Now 1, 2, 41, 43
Available on: Waking Up With the House On Fire

Culture Club 'It's A Miracle'

Chart Peak: 4

YouTube

And speaking of Culture Club...

Actually, this is the third consecutive Culture Club single to show up on a Now album, after their two contributions to the first volume. Like the previous two it's from their biggest album Colour By Numbers. Unlike a lot of Now 2, 'It's A Miracle' is a track I can definitely remember hearing a lot at the time. I don't remember hearing it all that much afterwards.

As is often the case, I'm not really all that sure what this song is about: for obvious reasons, their lyrics tend towards the coded. The opening lyric "Guns that cross the street/ You never know who you might meet" sets a slightly fearful tone that isn't really followed up (and is in any case totally disguised by Steve Levine's polished-stone production) and the rest seems, at least on the face of it, to trot out slightly hackneyed images of Hollywood; "Dance with the counterfeit/ The plastic smiles and micro heat", "Monroe was there/ But do you really care?" although of course it'd be risky to assume that Boy George thought being counterfeit was entirely a bad thing. The music is perky but has a slightly flailing quality about the chorus, as if there may have been some struggle to come up with it.

Meanwhile, the video's depiction of the band's career as a board game has an ironic air of swansong about it, and although they kept going for quite a while the peak of their success had already passed by now. They're not really my bag, but I can appreciate this is one of their more solid singles.

Also appearing on: Now 1, 4, 41, 43
Available on: The Best of Culture Club

Culture Club 'Victims'

Chart Peak: 3

YouTube

And so we end, slightly randomly, with the follow-up to 'Karma Chameleon'. It's another song I didn't think I remembered, but found vaguely familiar by the time I actually got round to listening. I suppose it's one of those songs that I heard at the time but wasn't among the four hits or so that most big acts are allowed by posterity.

'Victims' finds the Club in power-ballad mode. It's certainly less potentially irritating than their bigger hit, and is possibly even the sort of thing I'd think was OK if it was by somebody I already thought I liked. Unfortunately, it begins to lose its way in the middle, once the drums and other instruments arrive. Perhaps it was different a quarter of a century ago, but it does seem to get a bit predictable, and it comes over as overproduced. It sounds - and I hope fans will forgive me for saying this - a bit like the sort of record an X-Factor winner might release. I should probably also confess that I've never been especially fond of Boy George's voice, although I know some are.

It's not unpleasant though, and you can tell why it was a hit in Britain - strangely, it wasn't released as a single in the USA. Apparently, there were rumours in 2007 that Kylie Minogue was going to release this as her comeback single, and even that makes a bit of sense.

Edit 13th January 2010: I've found the track 'Shirley Temple Moment' which depicts George storming off in a huff while recording this very track.

Also appearing on: Now 2, 4, 41 and 43
Available on: Colour By Numbers

Culture Club 'Karma Chameleon'

Chart peak: 1 (6 weeks)

YouTube

When I was five, I didn't know what karma was. I probably didn't know what a chameleon was. I had no idea what was so important about red, gold and green, apart from the fact that they were pretty colours. I certainly had no inkling of what this song was really about. Even then, though, I could tell there was something a bit unusual about Boy George.
With hindsight in particular, it's very obvious just how much their career seemed to be based around the persona of Boy George ("He's called Boy because he dresses like a girl," I'm sure someone explained to me the time), which is presumably why he's still in his usual regalia in the video, despite that not really fitting the period setting. And this is one song that's difficult to think of without the video, because I don't really recall hearing it without the video, at least until much later - I was slightly surprised to discover that there even was a Top Of The Pops performance of it, since they wouldn't show a video if they could help it. The two are almost indivisible in my mind, particularly that chanted section at the end which accompanies the card shark being made to walk the plank. But if I do watch TotP's version, what do I notice, other than somebody dropping a camera at about 1:40? Well, there really isn't a lot to this song, but Steve Levine did his best to make an interesting record out of it, with a promising intro and that infectious harmonica hook (played by Judd Lander, says Wikipedia). Levine's commercial instincts were well-placed since this became the UK's biggest-selling single of 1983, and topped charts in a huge number of other countries. Nonetheless, it's hard to imagine this being as big a hit as it was without George's presence. And harder still to imagine how they ever thought it would be a good idea to reform without him.

Obvious joke alert: "I'm a man without convictions". Not any more you're not, George.

Also appearing on: Now 2, 4, 41 and 43
Available on: The Best of Culture Club