Culture Club’s ‘Colour By Numbers’ Gets Vinyl Reissue
The group’s second album featured hits like ‘Karma Chameleon.’
British icons Culture Club are set to reissue their second album, Colour By Numbers, on vinyl. The album has been remastered at Abbey Road Studios.
Order Colour By Numbers on vinyl.
Originally released in October 1983, Colour By Numbers has sold in excess of 10 million copies, and features the hits “Church Of The Poison Mind,” “Miss Me Blind,” and, of course, the global number one hit “Karma Chameleon.” Selling over a million copies at home, “Karma Chameleon” became the UK’s biggest-selling single of the year, and won both BRIT and Ivor Novello Awards in 1984.
The record reached number two on the Billboard Hot 200, only kept out of the top spot by Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Colour By Numbers is certified triple Platinum in the UK, Diamond in Canada, and 4× Platinum in the U.S.
The album was a success with critics as well. Rolling Stone suggested the record “secures lead singer Boy George’s place as a blue-eyed soul balladeer in the first rank.” That year, NME placed it at number seven in their “Albums of the Year” ranking.
After the success of the group’s first album, Kissing To Be Clever, which went to number five in their home country, they felt the pressure to release a followup even more successful. In 1983, frontman Boy George explained, “with so many great bands around, people can forget about you really quickly,” he said. “Especially when you’re a new band. So for us, it’s important to just keep pushing the records out so that we don’t lose our momentum.”
Recently, the group has been uploading a series of clips from their 1984 live show in Birmingham supporting Colour By Numbers’ followup album, Waking Up with the House on Fire. So far, the performances uploaded are of “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me,” “The Medal Song,” “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya,” and “The Dive.”
