Boy George and Culture Club: ‘Life’ Album Review

posted October 29, 2018 in CommRadio, Arts & Entertainment by Scott Perdue

The unforgettable Boy George and Culture Club are back with a brand new studio album.
Life, is their first record in nineteen years. Covering the theme of the changes and fights we all
go through moving through life, Culture Club’s latest release shines a guiding light towards an
optimistic future.

Named for their collective style and ethnic diversity of band mates, Culture Club, led by
the flamboyant Boy George, was one of the most prominent new wave pop bands of the 1980s.
Making a lasting first impression with their debut record, Kissing to be Clever, the beloved, “Do
You Really Want to Hurt Me,” thrust Culture Club into the pop mainstream in 1982. Their
second album, Color by Numbers, was a superior release to their debut and provided their
arguably best known hit, “Karma Chameleon,”which helped them to take the world by storm.
Having a massively successful career at such a young age, Boy George eventually had
succumbed to the dark underside of the pop industry, just as so many other young stars had.
Getting wrapped up in the abuse of drugs and alcohol, scandal after scandal had led the band to
dissolve, allowing Gorge to take off on his own solo career, resulting in his own fair share of
success. Now returning and successfully through 10 years of sobriety, George has reformed with
the original band and is ready to reveal his scars for the world to learn from.

Opening with the hopeful, “God & Love” George speaks to how one must keep moving
on through hardship since they will always have God’s love to comfort them. Speaking on God’s
love in such a definite way, George’s vocals seem to crackle, however, with uncertainty as he
sings about a topic that has seemingly always been a personal struggle for him. The album then
loses a bit of its traction with the song “Human Zoo,” which is hinged on the use of tropical
drums. An encouraging and somewhat cohesive track, which is potentially just misplaced on the
album, “Human Zoo” fails to keep the album’s momentum moving forward. The album, however,
recovers all of its lost energy with the bright and memorable, “Let Somebody Love You."
Fulfilling everything a fan would expect in a perfect Culture Club track, the song pulls in all of
their diverse influences, such as soul and reggae, in a unified way. “Let Somebody Love You”
encourages the listener to believe in love’s power and allows themselves to be open to love,
through its use of a catching hook and blended diverse styles of music.

The album is able to almost seamlessly move between reggae and deep soul, in some
cases meshing the two, in a way that is very unique to Culture Club’s innovative aesthetic. Songs
such as, “Runaway Train” and “What Does Sorry Mean,” really give the band and Boy George a
chance to show off their talents and their love of jazzy pop. The latter half of the album fails in
some ways to keep up the power of the album which was so heavily proven in the first section.
The album isn’t really able to regain its strength until the very strong and gripping, “More Than
Silence.”

Boy George’s emotion is evidently in abundance on this track, as he sings about the
need for support when we are at our lowest points in our lives, a subject George is all too familiar
with. The album then finishes with the title track, “Life,” which feels once again somehow
misplaced on the album. It closes in a way that just isn’t as strong as “More Than Silence” could
have been, yet it has its own relevance to the album as a whole. Throughout Life, it seems that there had been an issue with maintaining the flow of energy and the product feels noticeably inconsistent with itself.

Overall, Life is a very exciting addition into the Culture Club discography, which has
been waited on in anticipation for a number of years. While some tracks feel unneeded, one
needs to keep in mind that this album is held together with songs that were supposed to be on a
scrapped album that have now been reworked. The songs that are memorable and feel more
cohesive, really leave a lasting impression and allow Culture Club and Boy George to prove they
haven’t lost their touch. Seemingly departed from their dream pop approach of their original
albums, Culture Club and Boy George have very much matured and evolved over time. Their
newer aesthetic feels fresh and unique to them, hopefully on a future release they will be able to
make their songs feel just a bit more cohesive, allowing their music to really leave an even
stronger impact.

Rating: 7/10

 

 

Scott Perdue is a sophomore majoring in film/video. To contact him, email rsp5246@psu.edu.