Boy George - High Hat (1989)

Farther than ever removed from his days as a pop singer, Boy George continues to embrace the DJ tradition with his second mix album for Moonshine, A Night in With Boy George. The album follows A Night out With Boy George, a related mix album released months earlier. However, where A Night Out embodied the high-energy progressive house sound George had patented as his own throughout the early 2000s as a globe-trotting club DJ, A Night In embraces the downbeat style that swept through the home-listening DJ scene during the same era. The concept here is that George mixes together an eclectic array of down-tempo rarities you're not likely to hear elsewhere, particularly in such a context as this. Furthermore, there's an intimate vibe that permeates throughout the mix, a vibe that's unique and individual. As such, A Night In couldn't be any further distanced from George's other mix albums, which have tended to seem a bit typical. That's anything but the case here -- A Night In doesn't rely at all on George's reputation to set it apart from the myriad other mix albums out there. George throws down 15 tracks in total -- only two of which are credited to well-known artists (Röyksopp, Can), the rest utterly random and curious as a result. Of course, there's more to these sort of late-night chill-out mixes than randomness, namely the mixing. As any armchair DJ will tell you, it's not easy to mix tracks like these. The bpms here vary wildly, as do the tone and mood. Regardless, George does the job, often relying on simple cross-fades rather than trying to actually beat-match. The resulting mix is certainly a mishmash, culling tracks mostly from the late '90s and early 2000s, most of which have some sort of electronic instrumentation as well as some sort of organic element, usually vocals as well as guitars. All of this aside, though, what's most important here is that A Night In is atypical of George's other mixes. If you're a George fan, you'll likely find this to be an insightful snapshot of the man's home-listening habits; if not, or even if you're a casual fan, you'll likely find it downright random and perhaps even odd.