Kissing to Be Clever is the album that put Culture Club on the musical map. Incorporating pop, rock, dance, new wave, soul, and Caribbean rhythms (an amalgamation of "cultures"), the result was a soulful, progressive pop outing that scored several landmark international hits and made a star out of the band's outrageous frontman, Boy George. A couple of tracks were European dance hits, but the first "official" single, "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," was a simple masterpiece...   [ read more ]

CD $43.68

Born of the image- and fashion-conscious glam rock of the mid-'70s, the Brit-based Culture Club were perfectly suited to the 1980s with a fresh blend of pop and (at the very least) eye-catching style -- courtesy, for the most part, of flamboyant and ambiguously gendered frontman "Boy" George O' Dowd (vocals). The quartet also featured Jon Moss (percussion), Roy Hay (guitar/keyboard/sitar), and Michael Craig (bass) and quickly became the darlings of the newly launched 24-hour-a-day cabl...   [ read more ]

CD $11.38

It's clear from the cover photo on 2005's Fireflies that Faith Hill is beating a retreat from her half-baked, half-successful 2002 pop diva makeover, Cry. Not that the album was bad, or even an outright flop -- it just failed to do what it was intended to do, which was to make Faith Hill a true rival to Shania Twain, where her pop success was as great as her country following. Big and polished Cry may have been, but it just wasn't memorable or hooky enough to be great pop and ...   [ read more ]

CD $18.03