High Hat (album)

High Hat
Compilation album by Boy George
Released	1989
Recorded	1988
Genre	Pop-soul new jack swing
Length	51:32
Label	Virgin
Producer	Gene Griffin Bobby Z. Mike Pela Boy George
Boy George chronology
Boyfriend (1988) High Hat (1989) The Martyr Mantras (1991)

High Hat is a 1989 album compiling tracks from Boy George's second and third UK and European solo albums, Tense Nervous Headache and Boyfriend.

Production and release[]

Since neither Tense Nervous Headache or Boyfriend are any longer available, High Hat remains the only place to find any of Boy George's songs from 1988 to 1989. While High Hat has only ten tracks, the two other albums together included eighteen tracks: nine on the vinyl and twelve on the CD and cassette for Tense Nervous Headache; plus eight for Boyfriend, one of which (the hi-energy remix of "No Clause 28", also known as "Pascal Gabriel Mix") would later re-surface on Jesus Loves You's The Martyr Mantras album.

Tense Nervous Headache was shelved in the UK shortly after release of the first single due to lack of interest (or, as George put it in his autobiography,^[1] after it "died a solitary death"), despite the singer getting to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart the previous year with "Everything I Own". Half of the ten tracks on High Hat were quite unsuccessful singles either taken from Tense Nervous Headache or Boyfriend: "Don't Cry", "Whisper", "Don't Take My Mind on a Trip", "You Found Another Guy" and "Whether They Like It or Not".

The only track actually taken from High Hat as an independent single in the United States was the US remix of the opener "Don't Take My Mind on a Trip"; the version of which included on High Hat is slightly different from that originally opening Boyfriend. "Don't Take My Mind on a Trip" was a club hit in Canada and the US, charting at No. 5 on the Billboard R&B charts. "You Found Another Guy" went into the top 40 of the same charts also. High Hat nonetheless did a little better than its US predecessor Sold, reaching number 126 on the Billboard charts.^[2] It was also released in Australia (V2555) and Mexico (LEMP-1640).

Critical reception[]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]

William Ruhlmann from AllMusic gave the album three out of five stars and wrote that while Boy George was in the band Culture Club, together they "scored surprising across-the-board success with a wild new fashion sense and old-fashioned pop-soul music", but "as a solo artist [he] seems determined to address a much smaller, more targeted audience". According to Ruhlmann, in the majority songs on the album, George "wants to engage in thinly veiled confessions set to new jack swing percussion tracks into which he nearly disappears".^[4]

Track listing[]

1. "Don't Take My Mind on a Trip" (US Remix) – 5:21 (Griffin)
2. "Whisper" – 5:40 (O'Dowd, Maidman, Bobby Z)
3. "Whether They Like It or Not" – 5:10 (Griffin, O'Dowd, Bell)
4. "You Found Another Guy" – 4:27 (Griffin, Bell, Middleton)
5. "You Are My Heroin" – 6:21 (O'Dowd, Maidman, Nightingale, Stevens, Fletcher)
6. "I'm Not Sleeping Anymore" – 4:20 (Griffin, O'Dowd)
7. "Kipsy" – 6:06 (O'Dowd, Nightingale, Dewar, Geary)
8. "Don't Cry" (single version) – 4:09 (O'Dowd, Maidman, Bobby Z)
9. "Girl with Combination Skin" – 6:00 (O'Dowd, Fletcher, Maidman, Nightingale)
10. "Something Strange Called Love" (edit) – 3:59 (O'Dowd, Vincent, Dewar)

Personnel[]

Tracks 2, 5, 7–10

Tracks 1, 3, 4, 6

• Boy George – lead vocals
• Lee Drakeford – backing vocals
• Zan – backing vocals
• Marsha McClurkin – backing vocals
• Mauricette Martin – backing vocals
• Teddy Riley – all instruments, backing vocals, arrangements
• Bernard Belle – acoustic guitar & backing vocals
• Dennis Mitchell – engineer
• Bill Esses – assistant engineer
• Gene Griffin – production

Charts[]

References[]