Artist · chart history · #283 in alternative artist polls
Culture Club
Band London United Kingdom Formed 1981 English pop group
Culture Club formed in 1981 in London, United Kingdom. Culture Club has 56 chart appearances on 23 radio countdowns from 12 stations on RockLists, spanning 1983–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Karma Chameleon”, which appears on 13 lists with a best position of #11. The station that charted Culture Club most often is KROQ (Los Angeles, CA), with 12 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1983.
Culture Club came out of London's New Romantic scene in 1981, and they were named for the mix of backgrounds in the band: Jamaican, Irish and Jewish. Boy George sang and fronted it all, with a look that set tabloid tongues wagging, while Roy Hay played guitar and keyboards, Mikey Craig played bass and Jon Moss drove the drums and percussion.
The music was just as mixed-up and just as seductive: new wave crossed with American soul and pop, with dashes of reggae, calypso and salsa, and George's warm, honeyed voice gliding over the top. Kissing to Be Clever in 1982 had "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me", a lilting ballad that went to number one in Britain, and the bouncy "I'll Tumble 4 Ya". "Time (Clock of the Heart)" glides by on a silky, shimmering groove.
Colour by Numbers in 1983 was the big one, selling in the millions, with the stomp of "Church of the Poison Mind", "Miss Me Blind" and "Karma Chameleon", with its dash of country twang, which became the biggest-selling single in Britain that year and a number one in America too. They were a fixture on MTV, a flagship of the Second British Invasion, and in 1984 they picked up the Grammy for Best New Artist.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Culture Club on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Karma Chameleon | 13 | #11 | – | 1983 | |
| 2 | Do You Really Want to Hurt Me | 13 | #11 | – | 1983 | |
| 3 | Church of the Poison Mind | 9 | #5 | – | 1983 | |
| 4 | I'll Tumble 4 Ya | 6 | #16 | – | 1983 | |
| 5 | Miss Me Blind | 4 | #33 | – | 1983 | |
| 6 | Time (Clock of the Heart) | 6 | #265 | – | – | |
| 7 | Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me | 1 | #365 | – | – | |
| 8 | I'll Tumble for You | 1 | #33 | – | 1983 | |
| 9 | War Song | 1 | #39 | – | 1984 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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