That time this gay ’80s pop icon reminded us what he knows about “The Crying Game”
This Is What I Do, should rightly have reawakened interest in him as a songwriter.For anyone too young to remember, when Culture Club exploded in the early 1980s, George was huge.
When the band disintegrated, things turned sour quickly. Not only was the singer dealing with a heroin addiction, but we now know that he and the band’s drummer, Jon Moss, were at the end of a volatile on-off love affair.Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.George’s solo career got off to a great start in his home country, the UK, with the 1987 number one single, “Everything I Own.” Originally by Bread, George’s take owed more to the Ken Boothe reggae version from 1974.
The song sadly didn’t make much of an impact in the US.Afterward, George struggled with his musical direction and with his record label.
He was dismayed when it went ahead and released some tracks he’d made with the US producers, Gene Griffin and Teddy Riley. He didn’t think the songs worked.George then threw himself into the UK dance scene that flourished around the acid house boom of the late ’80s.
