New Culture Cure

I've just been listening to CDs from 3 bands I think of as '80s bands. I have the CD player on random so it switches between The Cure, Culture Club, and New Order. The CDs are from recent box sets.

These three bands are the ones I return to most. I think I have almost everything they've put out.

Growing up in Sebastopol I only heard Culture Club on the radio (or on top 40 video shows). We didn't receive the SF stations that were playing the Cure and New Order. I wasn't an early fan of any of them because I didn't know they existed until they'd been around awhile.

I heard snippets of "Blue Monday" and "Bizarre Love Triange" emanating from other people's stereos (I distinctly remember hearing a car pass in Santa Rosa blasting "Bizarre Love Triangle" and thinking to myself, "There's that song again. I wish I knew who did it. I'd buy it right now.") When I finally knew who they were New Order were my gods. I had to overcome some internal (& external) homophobia to adopt Culture Club, what with that "big drag queen" Boy George so prominent in the band. But when I heard "Karma Chameleon" I knew I had to own whatever record it was on. The Cure had a whole atmosphere about them that put me off -- the slash of lipstick, the ratty hair, the girls who (rather like Duranies) adopted the Cure look. And sometimes Robert Smith's verge-of-tears voice got on my nerves. It wasn't until "Just Like Heaven" that I was really won over. The album that included it, "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me", grew on me until I was playing it regularly. I haven't gone back and bought all the Cure's early stuff but I have everything since "Kiss Me" and the singles collections.

After Boy George recovered from his heroine addiction and 'fessed to the torrid love affair with Jon Moss (Culture Club's drummer) he ditched the coyness about half his life and got more interesting. The Culture Club box set is varied and fresh. I read George's autobiography, Take it Like a Man. For a few years he was writing a weekly column for a London paper and I'd read it on the web. ... Just discovered a second volume of autiobiography is forthcoming. Price is listed in pounds; will there be an American release?