Boy George, a musical and cultural icon of the eighties. A fascinating character with an intense and troubled life.
Culture Club will start a tour this summer, exactly in June, and will continue through all the summer. That’s the biggest tour that Boy George and Culture Club have undertaken in so many years, touching Australia, Japan, Philippines, Mexico and USA .
A BIT OF HISTORY
George Alan O’Dowd, known as Boy George, was born in London on June 14th, in 1961. When he was very young he joined the group Bow Wow Wow as a singer. The adventure is short-lived, but he decides that this is the way he wants to undertake. Already known for photo shoots and covers, he decides to form a band with bassist Mike Craig, met in a club. The group will change its name a few times, before taking the one that will make them famous all over the world: born the Culture Club.
His extravagant look and his intense voice make Boy George the leader of the group. After two albums released without much success and interest from the audience, arrives Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, which brings the band at the top of the charts all around the world. The second album, Colour by Numbers, released in 1983, contains the single Karma Chameleon: the most successful song of the Culture Club, considered a classic of the eighties. The album also contains the single Victims, considered the masterpiece of the group.
In the mid-eighties something breaks. The relation that Boy George had with the drummer of the group come to an end and he begins using drugs. His dependence through the years becomes more and more serious. The death cause by an overdose of Michael Rudetsky, found dead in his house, brings Boy George to abandon his addiction to drugs. In 1987, Culture Club break up and Boy George signs a contract with Virgin. His first album, Sold, is a great success especially in Italy, becoming his best selling album ever
His career proceeds but without reaching the peaks achieved in theprevious years. He creates a new band, Jesus Loves You, in which he participates using the pseudonym Angela Dust. With them he records only an album, with modest success. We have to wait until 1992 to see Boy George back on top of the charts with a cover of The Crying Game, used in the film “The soldier’s wife”. In the twenty-first century he starred in a musical based on his life, for which he also wrote the soundtrack, titled Taboo. The show has been on stage in London for two years.
Karma Chameleon
Do You Really Want To Hurt Me
