Boy George
Taboo (DRG, 2004)
by Tony Esposito This is the album of the Broadway musical produced by Rosie O'Donnell. Since we were not all lucky enough to see the show (or the British original), understanding the story was not obvious.
The original UK version, set in the 80's, has a runaway kid, Billy, discovering the world of alternative bars like Taboo, where colorful characters like Philip Sallon, Marilyn and Boy George were dwelling. No trace of Billy in this US version. But plenty from the others characters...
Out of curiosity, I read Boy George's autobiography again, Take it Like A Man, to check if there was a sense of reality to the story of Taboo, to discover that it is an artist's prerogative to change history.
21 songs distributed between 9 main singers (+ the ensemble). And what great songs they are!!!
We enter Taboo's world with a clearly broadway theme (Freak/Ode to Attention Seekers) sung by Raùl Esparza (playing Philip Sallon). Then it's Boy George's entrance (played by Euan Morton) with the touching Strangers in This World. I felt brought back to the end of my teenage years with my own bag of questions, my loneliness, like the wind of changes between a suffocating past and a future full of hopes and fears blowing on the train platform of Jimmy Somerville/Bronski Beat's Smalltown Boy.
Since he already wrote and sang about his friends and entourage in the past, Boy George simply took some older songs and included them in the show. Genocide Peroxide, originally from Cheapness and Beauty, by Jeffrey Carlson playing Marilyn, offers a new version with more meaning through the rocky/rock voice of Jeffrey. His voice gives a great reply to Euan's in the comic Guttersnipe, about the dreams of fame of the two friends.
To mark the raising of Boy George's fame, new versions of Do you Really Want to Hurt Me, Church of the Poison Mind and Karma Chamelon are also added, sung by Euan. About Karma Chamelon, a snappy comment by Leigh Bowery's character (played by Boy George here under his full name George O'Dowd) is hilarious: "That's a dreadful song, it will never go anywhere."
To clearly illustrate the 80's, two songs give the beat: Dressed to Kill with full cold synthetiser sounds on the importance of look, hair, clothes, style, and then Everything Taboo post-disco dance music.
A lots of slow songs: on top of Stranger in This World, there is also Pretty Lies by Euan, again on confusion and loneliness; Love is a Question Mark, underlining the two love stories of the show (George/Marcus and Leigh/Nicola). Then there is the strong and beautiful Talk Amongst Yourselves by Liz McCartney, looking back on a lost life. Two heart-breaking cries: I See Through You by Cary Shields (playing Marcus) and Petrified by Raùl.
Three shades for the three concluding pieces. The quintet (Euan, Jeffrey, Cary, Raùl and George) Out of Fashion brings back the musical themes of previous songs in a finale on ending, end of relationships, end of a lifestyle, end of an era. Boy George did an earlier and simplier version on his 2002 album, You Can Never B2 Straight, but the song really gets so much meaning and strength by including all the variations of the whole musical. The new interpretation of Il Adore, originally from the album Cheapness and Beauty, about AIDS, is breath-takingly done by Sarah Uriarte Berry (as Nicola). Then we get to the end with the goody-candy hope song, Come on in From the Outside.
The whole is strong, charming, funny, witty, touching and probably more disturbing for those who knew and lived the 80's, its music and the lifestyle of that decade. Small links to other successful musicals were predictable. Sexual Confusion has a certain Rent side, while the new version of Ich Bin Kunst (originally on You Can Never B2 Straight, and a lot less sinister then) sounds like The Producers.
A definitively great album, showing that Boy George/George O'Dowd still has it. No need to have seen the show to enjoy the album, even if that must have been also a great pleasure.
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