Culture Club's iconic frontman Boy George almost joined a different group. He got to know Malcolm McLaren, who was managing Bow Wow Wow, and McLaren cooked up a plan to have George join the band, either as a replacement for their lead singer Annabella Lwin or as an additional singer. He was going to perform as Lieutenant Lush. The plan fell through, and George ended up forming his own band, which became Culture Club.
The band wrote their songs together and shared the royalties, with Boy George writing the lyrics. Jon Moss handled many of the business affairs, and Boy George did most of the publicity. Since George was so prominent as the face of the group, it sometimes gave the impression that he was the leader, but the band shared equally in decisions and songwriting.
Culture Club was one of the first British bands to make a huge impact in America thanks to MTV. The channel launched in 1981, and in 1982 they put "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" in heavy rotation, which was their first single in the States and introduced America to the very unusual Boy George. They toured America in 1983 and scored two more hits from the album. Their next album included the #1 "Karma Chameleon," and they ended up with 10 Top-40 hits in the United States.
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.