Rocktrospectiva: The Less-Enthusiastic "Waking Up With The House On Fire" Turns 40

Released on 22 October 1984, "Waking Up With The House On Fire" was the third studio album by English band Culture Club, despite the problems and differences during recording, the album managed to peaked at No. 2 in the UK. The title for the new album was inspired by a line that Boy George spotted in an old Doris Day film. The album spawned three singles "The War Song", "The Medal Song" & "Mistake No. 3".

The album was less successful than the group's previous album, Colour by Numbers. This was an obvious thing because the chart phenomenon the band used to be, began to fade, even thought it was still going strong two years later, due in fact by the hysteria caused by "Karma Chameleon" and the Colour By Numbers album, recording sessions were awful, Jon Moss, recalls he made light of the writing sessions for the record: “We booked two or three weeks to do the songwriting and didn’t use one day of it. We had an argument and we left. We tried again three days later and had another argument. We rowed and rowed and George smashed his tape recorder and I threw a chair at him. Then we wrote the album in four days.

But things got cooled at the end of that 1984, and the new release, again produced by regular collaborator Steve Levine, was introduced by the UK No.2 single "The War Song," which also went Top 20 in the United States and several other countries, in order to support the album, the band already touring in the United States, finished in the UK and then moved on to Japan in where still exists a sort of mania for the band.

As expected, reviews were negative stated the album was a disaster of mediocrity and that the majority of the tracks were just a bunch of characterless stodge of bland blue-eyed soul, slouching rhythms, pedestrian horns and nonchalant vocals songs. Definitely the overexposure in the media, the ever-changing tides and trends of pop music, and, quite frankly, a less than laudable collection of songs resulted in a less than enthusiastic response, except for "The War Song", "Crime Time" and the upbeat and soulful "Mannequin,". 

Waking Up With The House On Fire Track List: 

 

1. The Dive

2. The Medal Song

3. Don't Talk About It

4. Mannequin

5. Hello Goodbye

6. Dangerous Man

7. The War Song

8. Unfortunate Thing

9. Crime Time

10. Mistake No. 3