Culture Club
Colour By Numbers

THE REVIEW

It's known that the devil is in the details, and my grandmother (who, if reincarnated, would have become a priest) always told me that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

However, the summer, the heat, and a few too many topless moments might loosen one's attention and allow, just for once, our innocence to be stained with some shameful blasphemy. And so, off we go, a whirlwind of emotions, colors, sweat! Underwear? No, excuse me, look...

The next day, you can't really expect to be at your best. Because I wanted to, and the witnesses are present, atone for my sins kneeling before the speakers, blasting "To Mega Therion"... yet, the eye falls, the finger presses Play and damn it! You find yourself with Boy George crooning "you come and go, you come and go" to a Caribbean rhythm. All very slick. All fairly calm. All rather colorful. All "I drink it like a glass of water and then pretend I never heard it".

Those of you of the right age will know all too well what this is about and maybe, if you're a true-Norwegian-Debaserian, you might have had the fortune to hate this record first-hand. As for me, I couldn't even stand at the time, but I remember very well my father pointing out every time he brought out this record that the person on the cover was NOT a woman. Because you never know, some things are better clarified right away.

Years later, Boy George is forgotten, and of all this '80s stuff, really little is left around. However, could it be that one day even the Culture Club will be reassessed by posterity? And who am I to miss the opportunity to be "the first man on earth to have reviewed the Culture Club on Debasio"?

The Culture Club, by their very nature, are the classic band you listen to just like that, just because. You don't tell your friends that you even have Colour By Numbers in original (and that the guy who played the trumpet had a mustache worthy of mention just for that). You don't tell them that you've actually done some research and, believe it or not, the backup singer is the same one doing the "du bi du baaa" in "Walk On The Wild Side".

The fact remains that CC (for brevity, called artists) were the bridgehead for all English synth pop in the USA (the Americans must have been thrilled) and they must have sold something like my annual salary multiplied by now until when my great-grandchild will be born. The fact remains that it's a cute little record, which also tries to delve into the melodramatic ballad (Victims) but which, in my opinion, gives its best in upbeat rhythms but not too much, in their pompousness but not too much, and in their catchiness [which is there].

So: in the end, I don't feel like openly expressing myself in favor of these CC (for brevity, called artists), I just can't. Yet, sometimes the eye falls and the finger presses Play...