[5][6][7] Their hits include "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me", "Time (Clock of the Heart)", "I'll Tumble 4 Ya", "Church of the Poison Mind", "Karma Chameleon", "Victims", "Miss Me Blind", "It's a Miracle", "The War Song", "Move Away", and "I Just Wanna Be Loved".

After his tenure with that group ended, bassist Mikey Craig started Culture Club, inviting George to be the vocalist.

Subsequently, drummer Jon Moss (formerly of the Damned and Adam and the Ants) and guitarist Roy Hay joined the new group.

[14] Realizing they had an Irish gay man as the lead singer, a black Briton on bass, a blond Englishman on guitar and keyboards, and a Jewish drummer, they came up with the name Culture Club.

The band's 1982 debut on Top of the Pops created tabloid headlines, which focused on George's androgynous style of dress and sexual ambiguity.

Pete Burns, lead singer of the pop band Dead or Alive, would later claim he was the first to wear braids, big hats, and colourful costumes, but George would cut back with a sharp-tongued remark, "It's not who did it first, it's who did it better.

This gave Culture Club the distinction of being the first group since The Beatles to have three Top Ten hits in America from a debut album.

The first single, "Church of the Poison Mind", featuring backing vocalist Helen Terry, reached the UK and US Top 10.

1 in 30 countries, thus becoming one of the top twenty best-selling singles of the 1980s sold seven million copies worldwide,[18] with one of the most iconic images of Boy George on the cover shot by photographer David Levine.

The group's back-up singer, Helen Terry, began work on her solo album, for which George and Hay wrote the song "Love Lies Lost".

The song was written with Phil Pickett (former member of the 1970s band Sailor) who had also co-written "Karma Chameleon" and frequently played keyboards for the group.

George was in New York City for an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman when Geldof called him, but managed to catch the final Concorde of the day to London and was the last singer to record a lead vocal track for the song "Do They Know It's Christmas?".

The song would become the biggest selling single of all-time in the UK and a huge international hit, raising millions for famine victims in several African nations, particularly Ethiopia.

Due to the break-up of his relationship with Moss, and all the ensuing tension with the rest of the band, George turned to relief in drugs.

From Luxury to Heartache began to fade from the charts as well, and the album ultimately sold fewer than one million copies worldwide at the time of release.

In 1998, George and Moss put their differences aside and the band reunited to do a reunion tour, kicking off with a performance on VH1 Storytellers.

[24] Culture Club then became inactive again, largely due to George's successful DJ career, as well as his semi-autobiographical musical Taboo.

It was a success in London, but was a flop on Broadway, only running for 100 performances, as well as losing $10 million for its producer, Rosie O'Donnell.

Early that year, the band's record company placed an ad for a lead singer to "...take part in a 2007 World Tour and TV Series."

On 19 July 2014, the band were among the line-up for a two-hour concert in Edinburgh Castle, ahead of the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

A television documentary, Boy George and Culture Club: Karma to Calamity, aired on BBC Four on 6 March 2015.

A spokeswoman for Boy George confirmed: "Jon's taking a break from Culture Club but the door is open in the future.

"[31] In December 2019, Moss filed a writ at London's High Court naming the band trio as defendants.

Moss' lawyers say he was told to "take a break" by manager Paul Kemsley, demanding nearly £200,000 in missing payments and a share of profits.

[33] Culture Club returned to the SSE Arena in Wembley on 19 December 2020 for a livestream concert broadcast around the world, in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

They also served as an opening act for Rod Stewart on his Greatest Hits tour in the UK in June and July 2023, and in addition to continuing their Las Vegas residency that February, Culture Club embarked on a U.S. summer tour titled The Letting It Go Show, with Howard Jones and Berlin serving as opening acts.

"[49] Stephen Holden, music critic for The New York Times, said in his article Rock: British Culture Club, that "Culture Club blends soul, rock, funk, reggae and salsa into a music that programmatically reconciles white, black and Latin styles", adding that, "Mr. O'Dowd made the group's best songs – the Motown-flavoured 'Do You Really Want to Hurt Me' and the Latin-inflected dance tune 'I'll Tumble 4 Ya' – shine like jewels.

[53][54] The band were part of the Second British Invasion of the 1980s in the United States, as R. Serge Denisoff and William L. Schurk said in their book Tarnished Gold: The Record Industry Revisited, "Here comes the rock and roll of 1984.

The invaders were a mixed bunch led by Culture Club, whose sound has been described as 'recycled Smokey Robinson' or 'torchy American schmaltz and classic Motown'", adding that, "Boy George's drag-queen appearance made the group a natural for the visual demands of cable television".

[55][56] In her book Magazines for Children: A Guide for Parents, Teachers, and Librarians, author Selma K. Richardson said that Culture Club's music is soft rock that contains "enough soul and new wave elements to cover almost all audiences.