![]() ![]() Soft Cell’s imperial phase arrived early, the treasure-trove first album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret yielding up most of their best work. Nothing, though, could detract from the triumphant ascendancy of the duo, fuelled by this quirky, particular, defiant piece of brilliance. ![]() The irony was that, being a cover version, the band’s best-known, bestselling track made them far less money than might be expected. It even cracked the US, climbing to a creditable eighth in the US Top 40 the following year. Endlessly danceable, punctuated by a trademark synth riff – the double beep subsequently sampled in 2006 on Rihanna’s SOS – Tainted Love became a phenomenon, lodging itself at the top of the UK charts, selling more than any other single in 1981 and to date racking up nearly 1.3m sales. Produced by a sceptical Mike Thorne, the Soft Cell version was perceptibly slowed down, Almond’s distinctive vocal – mordant, expressive, a shade flat – relishing each lyric, queering the story of an affair gone awry in a manner that was still relatively risque. It was also Soft Cell’s make-or-break moment, after Memorabilia failed to chart. ![]() Although now a world-beater, a cover version that wholly eclipses the original – which was sung by Gloria Jones, appropriately, given that she was the former partner of Almond’s teen hero Marc Bolan – Tainted Love was, at the time, an offbeat choice for a single. ![]()
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