Culture Club Reunion Planned for 2012

Culture Club will reunite next year, Boy George has announced. To coincide with their return, the singer also promised a "proper huge worldwide tour" and an accompanying new album.

Responding to a Culture Club reunion question, sent to the BBC's 'Breakfast' show by celebrity fan Mark Ronson, Boy George said (via the Guardian), "We are getting back together. Next year. This year I'm doing the Here and Now tour ... on my own. It's kind of a precursor for what I'm doing with Culture Club in 2012. We'll be doing a proper huge worldwide tour. And a new album."

The reunion falls on the band's 30th anniversary and 10 years on from their last reformation. They nearly returned in 2006 when original members Mikey Craig and Jon Moss announced plans to tour, but with their flamboyant frontman declining to sign on plans were soon scrapped.

Not that Boy George was particularly worried about the band reforming without him. He explained at the time, "To me, the mark of a good band is when someone else can't successfully sing their songs, and [someone else] can't sing my songs. They're my gay love songs about my boyfriend."

Thursday's, Jan. 27, announcement comes in the run-up to the release of the singer's new solo album 'Ordinary Alien', part of which was written during his four-month stay in prison.

"I kind of use my writing like a diary, so I write about things that are very personal to me, things that I've experienced, things that have affected me and that I feel strongly about. I've surprised myself really with my resilience. Yes [prison] did happen, but it feels so long ago now."

Watch the Video to Culture Club's 'Karma Chameleon'