While Culture Club wrote some of the most memorable pop songs of the 80s, and that's saying a lot, it's sometimes easy to forget that they also crafted top notch soul music, and this record really proves it. Boy George has never sounded better than on the slower "Black Money" and "That's The Way", and the vocal interaction between Boy and Helen Terry create some real evocative soul moments. There are more than enough fantastic pop songs, but the great soul tracks prove this band put all they had into this record and besides "Time (Clock of the Heart)" this album has the best of Culture Club.

Colour By Numbers still holds up as Culture Club's finest album.

By the time of its October 1983 release, "Church of the poison mind" and "Karma chameleon" were already hits, reaching no. 2 and no. 1, respectively, in the UK. The arrival of the album proper consolidated Culture Club's status as one of the most popular groups in the world.

Some may have missed the tribal percussion elements of the first album, but the new album mined Motown ("Church of the poison mind"), country ("Karma chameleon"), and gospel ("That's the way") influences to further refine the Culture Club sound. And the songs were so much better overall.

Helen Terry was also added to the group; her vocal presence is most notable on "Church of the poison mind", "Black money", and "That's the way". (She also features on "Time (Clock of the heart)" which was included on the US edition of Kissing To Be Clever, and on the Japanese edition of Colour By Numbers, but was just a stand-alone single in the UK.)

The singles here are largely the best songs on the album, though I still think that "It's a miracle" made more sense in its original version as "It's America". "Black money" should have been a single, but never was. I tend to skip over "Changing every day" and "Stormkeeper", but neither song is bad.

"That's the way (I'm only trying to help you)" is really the highlight of the album for me. It is simply piano and vocals, but the interplay between Boy George and Helen Terry makes for a riveting listen.

I'm not fond of the remastered edition; most of the extra tracks are available elsewhere, and I find the overall sound too compressed for my taste. My recommendation would be to find a used copy of the previous CD edition, and purchase the extra tracks from this edition as separate downloads.

Though they had scored nicely with the preceeding
album, 1982's "Kissing To Be Clever" containing
"Do You Really Want To Hurt Me",
"Time (Clock Of The Heart)" and "I'll Tumble For Ya",
it was this album which will go down as their "Sgt. Pepper"
in terms of what they were about and capable of!
Every song on here is bangin'!
Along with CC doing their thing and Boy George handling the
lead vocals in his "Smokey Robinson meets Sylvester" way,
there was the excellent and soulful wailings of Helen Terry
throughout (why she never got offered a deal is beyond me!)
and the late Jermaine Stewart in the background!
As I said, all of this album is still the bomb,
but one in particular, "Victims", still melts my heart
to this day!

This was the cd that I was waiting for. After my cassette version disintegrated years ago, I decided to wait for a proper remastered version to become available before getting a replacement. The wait was very long but finally the wait was worth it.

The remastering quality is brilliant and the album has never sounded better. The extra tracks are good too and unlike in other albums do not detract from or otherwise demean the main album material.

Boy George's antics may sometime detract from Culture Club as musicians and make it difficult to take them seriously but Boy is this album a good one (pun intended). All the tracks are wonderful and showcase the band as the great singer/songwriter/musicians that they are.

Great tracks, great sound quality, what more could you ask for? Go get this already!

OK CD.
Brings back A LOT of memories (like when I had this ON TAPE!!).
There's so many songs by Culture Club I wanted, I got their Best Of/Greatest Hits as well.
Good CD though.