It opens with an Iggy Pop cover

January 15, 2018 8:47 PM

Hey, remember that time back in 1995 when Boy George put out a punk/glam rock album that was also full of beautiful pop songs and ballads? Cheapness And Beauty was a real thing! Full album [YT playlist, ~50m] Side A: Funtime [video], Satan's Butterfly Ball, Sad, God Don't Hold A Grudge, Genocide Peroxide, If I Could Fly

Side B: Same Thing In Reverse [video], Cheapness And Beauty, Evil Is So Civilized, Blindman, Your Love Is What I Am, Unfinished Business, Il Adore [video]

Bonus tracks: Sad (Scary Newman Club Mix), Same Thing In Reverse (Evolution's Brick In My Handbag Mix)

posted by hippybear (8 comments total)

I first encountered this album hearing Same Thing In Reverse playing during a visit to Sisters And Brothers Bookstore in Albuquerque, NM (RIP, still sorrowful), and I bought it and then the first track ripped my brain out. And then it continued, and then it settled down, and then I got it when my brain was ripped out again, and then Unfinished Business happened and holy shit. And then the total heartbreak that follows...

Not meaning to editorialize, but to a 27 year old out queer in the midst of the AIDS crisis living in the backwaters of New Mexico, the anger and sarcasm and bitchy queeny-ness and the need to be understood and the outrage and the sorrow and literally the fucking guitars on this album were a much needed balm. I listened to little else for a few months after I got it.
posted by hippybear at 8:47 PM on January 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

Holy Shit. I've never heard of this. I get all the commercial influences..... but wow does it sound like Hedwig.
posted by kittensofthenight at 10:44 PM on January 15, 2018

There is a lot going on in the guitars! This is great. I usually love artists "80s" periods, their second wind after the initial success, and here is an 80s artist's 90s period. What a surprise, can't wait to get into it more.
posted by kittensofthenight at 10:50 PM on January 15, 2018

The backstory for the song "Unfinished Business." (TL:DR; For a time in the 80s George had a relationship with Kirk Brandon of the band Theatre of Hate, which Brandon subsequently denied after getting married to a woman. When George wrote about it in his autobiography, Brandon sued George - and lost.)
posted by dnash at 5:49 AM on January 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

The anger on this album did me some real good during a bad relationship.
posted by sixswitch at 6:29 AM on January 16, 2018

Weirdly I was thinking of this the other day (pity the quality is so bad)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:19 AM on January 16, 2018

I do not remember. I don't know how I missed it.
posted by bongo_x at 11:59 AM on January 16, 2018

Well, I guess I have this to listen to now. I had no idea that BG had any music I would be interested in. Love the Iggy cover. Thanks hippybear.
posted by evilDoug at 10:38 AM on January 17, 2018