Boy George Ahoy!

Here's a book Boy George may have once owned.  Or written.

In other words, a small Boy George update.  Not even that really, but a link to an interview I've just read over at Details mag.  This interview reminded me why I like Boy George, and why I enjoyed his autobiography -- it's cos he's funny!  I've you've not read his book, Take It Like a Man, it's well worth a read, especially if you have a passing interest in the late 70's/early 80's UK.  I'm talking squats!  No, not this kind.  

I heard it on the Radio

Good old radio, a great source for new music that doesn't involve (too much) typing or reading.  Going to keep this simple, just some embedded new songs that I'm rather taken with.  Do your own typing for more info, if interested.  Incidentally, I just noticed that both the videos I'm going to stick in this post have been posted by the same person!  Coincidence!

TOY



WAVE PICTURES



I'm also going to put up a video of Boy George's other performance on Later -- he played one of his old hits:

Survivor

Boy George was on Later last week and it got me thinking about pop stars of the past and how things may seem to them now, how the landscape has changed.  In the 80's it seemed like George was all over the news with all kinds of scandals -- drugs, death, sex, being openly gay, it was all one big controversy being Boy George, or so it seems in my recollection (I was only a kid back then).  I do remember some heroin scandals and I'm pretty sure someone died in his house.  All that plus the normal decline of fame that seems to come with the aging of any pop star; how did he handle it?  And how does it seem now, when the only controversies seems to come from what a pop star wears?  Things have certainly changed now, or they seem different to me anyway.  Probably a lot of that has to do with how the media are now -- there are so many more channels of information that it's rare the entire populace to unite around any one bit of news.  I also think, as a culture, we're far more forgiving.  I think the thing that would most irk me if I were George is how the issue of being famous and gay has changed -- irk me in the sense that things were so much worse for him; probably George Michael feels the same way, or worse, since he was a much bigger star, worldwide, than George is.  It's funny seeing these people age.  George (,Boy) is looking good though, I have to say, especially for 50 and especially given his past habits!  And I'm liking the new songs I've heard -- I'll put them in below so you can hear them until or unless they get taken down.  And, while I'm at it, it's also amusing to me that he plays a reggae-tinged number on the show and on his new album.  I love ska and reggae but you can always tell that a musician is from the UK, and probably from a certain era, when they're doing anything Jamaica-related -- that tiny island has had an outsize influence on UK pop music, and a good one, I'd say.  There should be, and may be, a book written about US vs UK pop music, and culture and that book should have a large section devoted to the black influence on each country's pop music and how the approaches have compared and differed.  It would make for some very interesting reading.

Jewels on Jools

It's been pretty quiet around here as of late, what with Ramadan and all, but I did watch Jools Holland's programme the other day (gasp!) and there were a couple of standout tracks on it, as well as an entire performance by the Manics!  Not putting any Manics up though.  Instead these...

First off, a track by Mark Ronson and his band with some guests, one of whom is Boy George.  Boy looks quite strange but I like his voice on this.  Not sure if he's doing more work that I'm not hearing about but he still has a voice that's worth hearing, I think, though he does seem to run out of puff a bit here and there:



Incidentally, the other track that Ronson and his band performed was a bit crap so I forwarded it -- something I also did with my second selection, by Klaxons.  Quite liked this though; singer's a bit strange looking isn't he?  But who am I to judge:



One more post to finish things, unrelated to the two above.  Tim Westwood, Radio 1's longtime rap and hip-hop DJ, is being pulled off the air.  He's a bit of a character but even I heard some good tunes on his show back in the day, only to return to the States and find out the tracks were quite underground.  Came across this video when reading about him some more -- it's a UK hip-hop documentary from 1987 that Westwood put together.  Probably worth checking out if you like that sort of thing: