Watch out for Boy George making an impressive re-entry (we don’t like to call it a return, since he never went anywhere) into the music scene with a brand spankin’ new album titled: Ordinary Alien (Hard Candy Music) Yes, Boy George’s first studio album in over 10 years has hit the market in the U.K. and is available on itunes. The first single “Amazing Grace” hits all the right spots. SEE THE MUSIC VIDEO HERE.
Featuring 15 tracks by Boy George and producer, collaborator Kinky Rolands, this groovy, dance-floor pleaser, is not necessarily an all out happy-go-lucky affair, but an optimistic joy of an album that will enlighten and entertain.
George told Billboard.com earlier this week: “Maybe that’s my saving grace, that somewhere inside me, no matter where I am, there is that kind of optimism that lingers that good things will happen — which is like a miracle, in a sense, when you think how the last few years have been.”
Boy George - "Amazing Grace" cover art (Hard Candy Music)
The new album features tracks that go back 20 years in the making; some previously released, but for most part, there are brand new songs. “It’s songs that were hanging around unfinished, various different things,” says George. “I’ve always made music, and I’ve posted some of it on the Internet and played it myself [in DJ sets], but a lot of it was unfinished because I was busy being messed up and distracted — and working as well.”
There is also that popular Fleetwood Mac song “Go Your Own Way” created by George for the Night Of A Thousand Stevies concert in New York. Another song that gets our attention is “Yes We Can,” inspired by President Barack Obama’s famous three words. George who gave up drugs in 2008 explains: “I call that my recovery song, because I wrote it when I first got clean. I tapped into his sentiment and the whole feeling that was going on while he was campaigning, that kind of feeling of optimism and change, which is something that was happening to me as well.”
Let’s take this as the re-emergence of George as a crafty singer-songwriter and a successful producer. And with a Culture Club tour planned for 2012, fans worldwide will finally get a soul quenching fill of George and the boys.
Henrick Vartanian
