Boy George...

My sweet lord.

I'll stop talking to myself now.

*gets confused*

*covets his social services card*

Yup.

That drama that was on last night...

Past the point of "That's xxx, is that ??? oh no they just died of an overdose I don't know who that is, oh HE called me a diamond geezer once, He looks like him but he's just doing a daft impression of him, etc", we did wonder what the point of it all was, really.

Entertaining, I guess.

Whaddayamacallhim, James Corden's sidekick, looked weird as Jon Moss

thoughts from the man himself

"@theboygeorge Verdict, beautifully shot & styled but badly written, it lacks heart and soul!

the dig re martin degville made me laff out loud.

we did wonder what the point of it all was, really

Sums up BBC Drama these days

Kirk, famously, sued and won regarding BGeorge's 'alleged' relationship with him.

How does this square with this dramatic rep?

I thought he famously sued and lost? Obviously not that famously.

In 1995, Kirk Brandon sued for libel claiming that Boy George mentioned a non-existent love affair between them in his autobiography, Take It Like a Man. George won the case and Brandon was ordered to pay £200,000 to Virgin Records, EMI Virgin Music and the book publisher in costs. Brandon declared himself bankrupt, which resulted in Boy George paying over £60,000 in legal fees

He just wouldn't learn, that Brandon boy:

In January 2008 Brandon sued GlaxoSmithKline UK over personal injuries, i.e. addiction, as a result of taking their anti-depressant drug Seroxat.

he won that one though

Nice one, Kirk!

In 1995, Kirk Brandon sued for libel etc

Ah, good old memory.... Where would I be without it?

george in the drama was not bitchy enough.
you just know he would have been killing folks with his verbal barbs.
twas all too clean.
would have loved it to be a 2 parter though.
lots of unanswered areas of the story.
i mean, who was the squat heroin death meant to be ?
just a sideline to get the darker side of drugs into the story, or was there an actual incident that the character was based upon ?

I did wonder, 15 mins to go and JMoss' relationship had only just started, and this had been 'sold' as the story of Moss and O'Dowd...

It did feel like whole chunks of the story had been lopped off to keep it to one episode.

Would have been cooler if James Corden had played Boy George

Then there wouldn't have been room in the phone box for the other guy.

It did feel like whole chunks of the story had been lopped off to keep it to one episode.

For a 90 minute drama it did feel that a lot was missing. It also didn't help that the script jumped backwards and forwards all the time like Velvet Goldmine. I feel that the "George holed up in his house while the press wait outside" story could have been removed and other bits elaborated on some more. Although I did like Steve Strange's "my grandmother fucking loved you" speech.

New interview with Simon Price

http://thequietus.com/articles/13422-boy-george-interview

Now, Boy George has jumped into the debate to defend Emma Watson. The Culture Club singer took to social media to write:

“Who cares what JK Boring thinks about anything. She is the dullest of the dull.
My real life pisses on her fiction. I stand with Emma Watson. She is a ‘fire horse’. Rowling is a ‘wood snake’.”

I actually played some Culture Club the other day. Just a homemade compilation that I hadn't touched in a while - I'm not the biggest fan, but an 80-minute "best of" covering Boy George's first ten years is perfection. (Basically the usual Culture Club hits & favorites plus the few solo hits he had within that frame, up to and including "The Crying Game.")

Is "Generations of Love" on it? Shit's fire.

If you are into his acid house era, Why Go? with Faithless and the Holy Ghost! remix of Someone To Love would make good codas imo

xp YES!

"Oakenfold Mix" FWIW...I think that was originally known as the "Land of Oz Mix" and one of two different versions that charted.

Also had its own 18-rated VHS single release, possibly inspired by how well the Justify My Love one was selling.

"Move Away" is the CC song I can listen to any time. Not burned out by overplay either.

think i'm right in saying that Boy George is very pro-Israel and a vocal opponent of the BDS movement, so he can do one imo

i do love Time (The Clock Of The Heart) though

"JK Boring" is Morrissey level, nice work.

> think i'm right in saying that Boy George is very pro-Israel and a vocal opponent of the BDS movement

Also worth noting that he served a jail sentence for assault and false imprisonment, so all told, I think Watson can do without his support.

Boy George has had a lot of problems. It doesn't excuse the behavior, which he's mostly atoned for via mea culpas and time served, but it's been bad enough that it's kind of a relief he has it together for the time being.

This particular documentary-as-such is my favorite because it absolutely confirms that when he's in a mood, whooboy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYWGBJ73heI

There is, apparently, a new new documentary en route:

https://www.thewrap.com/boy-george-and-culture-club-review-tribeca-documentary/

"Move Away" is the CC song I can listen to any time. Not burned out by overplay either.

Always had a soft spot for this one, and it garnered decent airplay over here at the time. They even made a Solid Gold appearance for it! Which I can't find so this will have to do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-zfAYH7sHM

Another one from the era:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hWVtUkg0po

Same here, good single and a fine example of the kind of warm, lush uptempo pop that was filling up the charts at the time, especially on the other side of the pond (George Michael, Eurythmics/Annie Lennox, even Elton John.)

That 2013 doc is one of my I'm-bored-on-a-Wed-night go-tos.

It's truly amazing.

Good to see mentions of Generations of Love. One of my absolute faves of a stacked era. Shoulda been a huge hit but maybe it was lyrically too downbeat lyrically for the club kids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoaOtFAMDzM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUULg9tlubQ

The message combined with the awful lyrics and the reggae no no no

So much for war being stupid

war war is stupid
and boy george is stupid
and love means nothing
in occupied gaza

All that and he then talked about how the song was made with AI help.

did he actually sing any of this or is the singing ai too

it's in that uncanny territory

Sounds like bog standard Suno to me, with a ridiculous vocal filter to boot.

maybe this actually psychological warfare

Bye George

(stolen from bluesky)

Give him time to realize his crime!

I know this song is a seven layer shitcake, but making a reggae song that glorifies genocidal oppressors is some serious cognitive dissonance. Israel didn’t invent heavy manners but it managed to perfect it.

think he's misunderstood all those songs about zion

lollll at the last two posts

(rather with not at)

I posted this to Bsky but it should go here too...

30y years later I still don’t like busting omertà on my time in above-ground music industry. It’s great when Chuck Berry wants to meet everyone in the office and Reba McEntire wants to buy everyone top shelf champagne. It's awkward and terrible when a great artist is better at being a complete jackass. The point is, do I ever have a Boy George story.

So in 1995 I’m making Spacemen 3 pages, working for Bomp, and also working at a Big Three music agency. One day an agent who knows I like a lot of music sticks his head in my office door and says “Hey Chris, listen to this. You know who it is, but you'll never figure it out" I go to his office to listen.

Opening track was an ultra-glammed cover of "Funtime" but not tossed-off, it's someone with a thorough Bowie/Iggy vocabulary fronting a squad of 1995 guitar fuzz and synth wibbling and fully committing. Sounded great. NFC who it was. The album gets better, wall of glam rock, drums in front. "you'll never guess who it is!"

Couple tracks remind me of Primal Scream with more speed, but finally I give up.
"It's Boy George!"
"What?"
“Seriously!”

So yeah, in 1995 Boy George made that full-on glam rock album Cheapness And Beauty. Listening to it now, it’s a pretty good rock album. From a 1995 p.o.v. it was a radical step - the sort of thing that’s an automatic “you’ll never guess who this is?” "no way!" And that’s what that agent did, cheerfully “hey, you’ll never guess who” with everyone in the department - even the snobby college kids and soon everyone (even his label, Virgin US) are all pretty much “fuck yeah great album, let’s go!”

So the US Music Industry got going. It wasn't the crazy 80s era, mostly just a lot of hard working people up and down the line praying their bosses, associates, and the talent weren’t malignant assholes. A tour was put together. Opening show at the Beacon Theater. MTV, etc. got interested. Tons of hours hassling with promoters, drawing up schedules, checking bookings, lawyers double-checking contracts, on and on - all that goes into a 1995 rock tour. Hundreds of people who as part of their job were all “fuck yeah, Boy George made a glam rock album!”

Until…

“They won’t sign the contracts. You’ll never, ever guess why.”
“Why is everything a guessing game?”

So it turned out that Mr. O'Dowd wouldn’t sign because he was advised by his personal numerologist to change all of the dates of the tour, including the all-important Beacon Theater show. Everyone was “WTF is wrong with him. It’s 1995. ’Crying Game’ was three years ago. We put all this hard work into making a great tour for him and his fans.”

Numerologist said no go. Everything had to be done over with him as consult. By end of day those “Fuck yeahs” had become “Fuck yous”

With that his US agent and label disappeared on him like an old CRT blinking out. Up to a couple days ago I’d still be all “too bad he didn’t have a better, less shitty numerologist? Cheapness And Beauty is great.” Oh well. Off to the "ugh, enough - please go away" file.

That's right, I remember you telling me this a couple of years later. Madness.

not surprised at that story at all, always assumed he was a self-centered arsehole

I reviewed Cheapness And Beauty for my college paper -- a solid and sometimes inspired album even when the band lacks any subtlety.

Hard to imagine any of us having the early 20s that he had and coming out of it with much of a sound mind.

Bob Lefsetz has a crazed article defending and agreeing with Boy George regarding Israel and saying all kinds of disproven nonsense

think he's misunderstood all those songs about zion

― Angine de Postecogloutrine (NickB), Tuesday, 28 July 2026 19:02 (yesterday)

omfg

he's released a follow-up ai song dissing the lead singer of the soup dragons for criticising his support of israel

I didn’t have that on my bingo card for the 2020s

Finger on the pulse there.

a follow-up ai song dissing the lead singer of the soup dragons for criticising his support of israel

that's the final peg in the board, we live in a simulation. I don't think there's any way around it

Next he's going to use AI to make a reggaefied cover of the Soup Dragons' already obliquely reggaefied cover of "I'm Free," and he'll be all sly and "do you see!?"

in 1995 Boy George made that full-on glam rock album Cheapness And Beauty.

Come to think of it, same year Duran Duran released their own Iggy cover on their own weird/surprise cover album "Thank You"!

weird and brave dude. i need to listen to cheapness and beauty.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251002-israel-pays-influencers-up-to-7000-per-post-to-occupy-information-space/

Not that brave

i'm just appalled to discover that "lead singer of the Soup Dragons" is still a public office

not MY (-president-) lead singer of the Soup Dragons!

Elected on the "dragon in every pot" platform.

I’ve been casual online acquaintances with Sean Dickson for a while and he’s as bemused about this as the rest of us.

Good to know

I really like Hifi Sean's music, his remix of Loleatta Holloway's cover of "Shout It To The Top" has never let me down when DJing in public

Likewise - I know his work as Hifi Sean far better than anything he did with the Soup Dragons, especially the Ft. album from 2016 and his more recent work with David McAlmont, and he's a widely respected DJ as well; he fits into that Glitterbox/Horsemeat Disco sphere. He's "the lead singer of the Soup Dragons" about as much as Dev Hynes is "that guy out of Test Icicles", or Norman Cook is "that bass player from The Housemartins".

There's always been an indie element to his mixing...