What! – Soft Cell

Soft Cell

Year: 1982
Artist: Soft Cell
Hit Song: Tainted Love
Album: Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing, The very best of Soft Cell

This is the type of song that stays in your head long after hearing it. I first heard it on the radio in the mid-80s and it stimulates the auditory cortex part of my brain but there’s no way for me to log in and Google for it because duh! It was the 80’s – only the library has that much information. All I can do was to stay tuned to the station and pray that the next DJ will play the single again just so I can hear it once more –to finally scratch that melody that was stuck in my head. Fast forward to the mid-90s – I heard a friend mentioned this song in passing and of course my subconscious noted it. Fast forward again 9 years after the millennia – I was staring at my PC when the memory of my subconscious relives the past conversation about the song.  Immediately, I rummaged for it but it took me half an hour to know  the title, the artist and the lyrics just because typing the word ‘WHAT’ In Google spewed hundreds of useless link that is not what I’m searching for. I had to dig a little deeper for this internet tool to be useful so after few minutes more of keying the first line of the lyrics, and the chorus, and voila! Found it! Power of information at my fingertips, without moving my butt.

The 3rd song of Soft Cell that went to top 40 UK chart. Not only this song but the whole album ‘Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing’ was later admitted recorded and mixed under the influence of ecstasy –I only learned such drug exists in the mid 90’s but these guys has been crunching this as far back as 1982. The synthpop duo of Soft Cell consists of Marc Almond (vocalist) and David Ball (instrumentalist). A note on Marc Almond: on the course of his career he went solo and recorded 2 of my fave new wave songs…watch this space!

They are most widely known for their 1981 worldwide hit version of “Tainted Love” where in 2006 Rihanna extensively samples “Tainted Love” on the single “SOS” from her album A Girl like Me. It became a #1 successful single all over the world.