If
Culture Club,
Boy George's old group, scored surprising across-the-board success with a wild new fashion sense and old-fashioned pop-soul music, as a solo artist
Boy George seems determined to address a much smaller, more targeted audience. "I'm here to tell you that the boy's back in town," he declares in "Whether They Like It Or Not," but that song title seems to express his take-it-or-leave-it attitude. Wonder about his scandalous history of addiction and homosexuality? Fine--he gives you songs with titles like "You Are My Heroin" and "You Found Another Guy." Now and then, he returns to the soulfulness of old, notably on the ballad "I'm Not Sleeping Anymore," reminding us that the voice that carried "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" is still there. But for the most part
The Boy wants to engage in thinly veiled confessions set to new jack swing percussion tracks into which he nearly disappears. Was his future on the dance floor? This album's lack of success suggested not. ~ William Ruhlmann