Even by Eighties standards, Scritti Politti had one of the weirdest pop journeys ever. Green Gartside started out as a U.K. post-punk anarchist. But then he decided to make an even kinkier avant-garde statement by crashing the Top 40 with New Romantic synth-pop hits about feminist theory. Absolute is the definitive Scritti anthology, and the first attempt to tell the whole story on one album, along with two electro-minded new gems. From the art-damaged funk of "Perfect Way" to the poignant ballad "Oh Patti," it sums up Gartside as a uniquely deranged pop mastermind.

“Karma Chameleon”

Boy George has said this song was about standing by what you believe in. However, at the time, he was involved in a secret affair with Culture Club drummer Jon Moss. "Now people can understand the songs better," he said. "They were written about my relationship with Jon, and they were also written about being a gay man in a homophobic world." The lines "If I listen to your lies, would you say/I'm a man without conviction/I'm a man who doesn't know how to sell a contradiction," described his life at the time, he said. "I was selling this big lie."