From Luxury to Heartache was produced by veteran pop and R&B producer Arif Mardin, who replaced Steve Levine, the producer of Culture Club's previous three albums, in a bid to revitalise the band's sound. Due to lead singer Boy George's growing addiction to drugs, recordings dragged on for so long that Mardin had to disband the sessions and leave it up to engineer Lew Hahn to record the final vocals. The final credit on the album gave production credit to both Mardin and Hahn on all tracks. Songs like "Gusto Blusto" and "Reasons" took days for the addicted singer to finish.
Following the release of the album, rumours of George's heroin addiction began to circulate in the press and in British and US tabloids, and by the summer of 1986, he announced that he was indeed addicted to drugs. In July, he was arrested for possession of cannabis, several days later, keyboardist Michael Rudetsky, who played on the album and had co-written "Sexuality" with George, was found dead from a heroin overdose in George's home.
The band come from what critics called a disaster with Waking Up With The House On Fire, the Culture Club album that had failed to scale the giddy heights of its two predecessors. So, t was clear that the band who'd defined the early 80s but had started to seriously flag by its mid-way point needed to mix things up for studio effort number four.
In this case, From Luxury To Heartache proved to be the final nail in the coffin of their golden years. After all, its 10 tracks were recorded amidst seemingly insurmountable tensions. Not only had the on/off Boy George and Jon Moss just gone through their messiest split but the former had suddenly gone from a virtual teetotaller to a full-blown heroin addict within a matter of months. With Boy George wrapped up within the grips of his addiction, studio sessions reportedly also became delayed and interrupted so frequently.
Considering this difficult inception, and unlike other albums from their heyday, this never received the remastering treatment, while lead single Move Away is its only track to have regularly featured in the band's reunion setlists, which it's a pity cause "God Thank You Woman" it's a fine track/single too as well.
The multiple Grammy award-winning producer Mardin had also just worked his magic on another British pop act’s masterpiece, Scritti Politti’s Cupid & Psyche 85. He adopted a similarly maximalist approach here, filling almost every second with his bank of synths and drum machine beats, perhaps a little but overproduced, even the mighty tones of Jocelyn Brown – joining ever-present Helen Terry on backing vocals – struggle to make themselves heard. Arguably, Culture Club have never sounded more vibrant than on the slap-bass funk of Gusto Blusto, one of many kiss-offs no doubt aimed at the drummer in the room,
Perhaps, the biggest misstep about From Luxury To Heartache wasn't the decision to take a break from regular producer Steve Levine or its failure to embrace the music emerging from the New York club circuit, but its choice of singles. Move Away might have given the Club their final UK Top 10 hit. Second single God Thank You Woman peaked at No. 31 was even more pedestrian, combining faux-gospel pop with the kind of corny sentiments. It’s quite possibly the group's weakest single for several critics, but it works for me, at least after heard it being played on the A-Team episode which was a plus to me, ironically and despite of this, the record development in the US was even worse. "Gusto Blusto was a failed in the charts, and the final single "Heaven's Children" despite it was scheduled for released was cancelled.
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