Today, I got a bit annoyed because I read a few comments on Facebook about how Boy George's voice changed and that he should call it quits. They said something along the lines of him just not being the same any longer. Oh, guess what? He's gotten older, and in my personal opinion, better. It's not 1982 any longer. I was born in 1983, 33 years ago. I am not the same person I was in 1983. Or in 1993. Neither were you. No matter what your age is now, you are NOT the same as when you were 10, 20, 30, etc. years old.
I, for one, have only recently become interested in Boy George (I wrote about that here - so I won't repeat myself). If he hadn't change, if he'd still be stuck in an endless loop of Karma Chameleons, I probably wouldn't have wanted to learn more about him. I absolutely LOVE his current voice. The changes that happened in his life are actually the reason why I find him inspiring. I don't like every single song of his, I don't even know all of them - but I don't go onto the YouTube channels and write "I don't like this." on the songs and videos I do not like. And other people actually become so impolite and horrible when they comment about something they do not like. Why is that so? Why do they focus so much energy on the negative? I can't imagine going to the videos of artists I do not like, and abuse them verbally.
If you look at your own life, do you not see how you have developed over time? Why does it seem like many people do not give the same right to famous people? Why are they not allowed to change?
When I listened to Boy George CDs released in later years, I went "What? THIS is Boy George?" I was positively surprised. Amazed even. I love him the way he's now. I also love some of his older stuff (especially when he sings it with his current voice!) And there are plenty others who love his voice. Let us enjoy him. Stop hating changes. For some people, the changes in other people's life can be very inspiring and helpful.
George showed me, indirectly as I've never talked to him (now, that would be an amazing experience), that you can hit the bottom, get everything wrong, and then get things right, and become even better than before. Changes like that are wonderful. They give people hope.
But his voice hasn't changed for the better, it's gotten worse. And it wasn't a conscious change on his part that he choose to do. It changed because he abused it through drugs and smoking.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you like his voice now, but people are entitled to their opinion not to like it. Singing is his job and people have every right to judge how he does his job. We all judged at our jobs every day.
Be honest, there are plenty of other artists who you don't like or criticize as bad singers.
It's hard not to notice the change in his voice, when you compare singers to other artists of his same age like Simon Le Bon or Madonna who don't sound nearly as different from their 80's stuff as George does.
You all bent out of shape about people being negative about George, but what about all the times George has been negative about other artists criticizing how they sing or play instruments? I bet you never got upset about him doing that, saying he shouldn't criticize Madonna or Jon Moss or whoever did you?
At the end of the day, everyone is entitled to their opinion of musical artists, positive and negative. That is what it means to live in a free society.
Hello, thanks for your comment.
DeleteOf course, people are entitled to their opinion - but it is a matter of how you voice that opinion. And I am honest: I do NOT go on pages of artists I do not like and leave hateful comments that are full of horrible swearwords. And that's what people do these days: they focus so much on what they hate, but do they leave the same amount of words on music they actually do like?
Criticizing someone/something is one thing - but being mean and hateful about it is something else. It is my personal opinion that people should at least try to be constructive when they criticize others.
It also seems that you have not read my words properly. How can I know everything about what Boy George ever said after only being interested in him for a couple of months? I'm not spending every spare minute with studying his life. It took me a few weeks to get through his first autobiography (because I have a lot of other stuff to read as I get paid to write reviews - honest reviews, but even if a writer is "shit" I would put my criticism into helpful words without verbally abusing the author).
Yes, he wrote some horrible stuff in his autobiography, so I can imagine he also said horrible stuff during that time. He took drugs, he did bad things, he was at times not a good human being. But only very few of us as saints 100% of the time. Boy George today seems to be a decent human being as far as I can tell. I never met him, so I might be wrong about many things. And I have not studied him like many other people did. I have seen recent interviews though, one of them a conversation that took over an hour and was more interesting than the usual interview stuff. He also admitted in various places that things he said in the past were too much, and that he learned a lot about what he should say and what he should not say. Will you hold everything someone said in the past against him or her for the rest of their lives? Would you like people to do the same to you?
In the past, I have been judgemental myself. When people did certain things in their lives, I thought they could just not be okay, and that certain things would never happen to me. I grew up, I learned. I had bad experiences myself. Some because of my own fault, some because of other people. I learned that people change, sometimes for the better. I believe that George has changed for the better.
Yes, I agree, we are entitled to our opinion. But you don't have to be rude about it!