Soft Cell -- classic or dud?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Apparently nobody's asked this yet! And with the reunion more or less under way and my editors at the AMG asking me to review the original singles collection, I was seized with inspiration (and I'm currently listening to "Torch" right now -- what a song).

Okay, for me this is an utter, complete and *total* no-brainer -- classic? More like one of the best acts ever, for me an eternal top five in the pantheon. Like most of known humanity, "Tainted Love" was what I first heard from them back in 1982 or so and all I knew for years. I first discovered Marc Almond's solo work in 1988 and now I'm a total and complete fanatic of both his work on his own (just an amazing series of albums over time, I could go on...) and with Soft Cell itself. And when I did discover Soft Cell fully -- man. Picking up that original singles compilation was just a revelation. For me a song like "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" is the pinnacle of romantic drama, "Bedsitter" the definition of slice-of-life depictions of reality behind fantasy, "Soul Inside" sheer desperate, frenetic paranoia. And that's both lyrically and musically, Dave Ball is such an underrated musician and arranger -- things like the steady build of the melody on "Loving You, Hating Me" and that beautiful, shimmering introduction on the extended version of "What!"

So I'd be interested to hear what everyone else thinks, even if you only know "Tainted Love." :-)

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I don't know that much, but everything I've heard I love, if that's any help.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 17 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

For me 'Tainted Love' became a bit of a millstone. I've always hated it. However like yourself Ned I recently picked up a copy of their singles collection (for next to nothing) and was astonished. Suicide meets Tamla Motown, a cluster of Electro-pop jewels, lovely. Previous indifference/dislike melted away into new found respect. 'Memorabilia' proto-techno from 1981, + 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye' is one of few tears that can cause tears in this listener. Volte-face, Soft Cell really had something, only it took 15 years after their split for me to hear it.

― stevo, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

they brought sodomy to the top 20 again - classic!

― Geoff, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Yep, I'm with you Ned, rilly top drawer, classic classic classic. And like Stevo, "Tainted Love" was a real turn off for me at the time. I didn't really pay attention until just after they broke up and never saw them live. I did get to see that Immaculate Consumptives show though, the one w/ Nick Cave, Foetus, Lydia Lunch and Marc. Marc did that Marc and the Mambas song about "waiting at the station for the train to ruination", sorry can't remember the title, with Lydia just languishing on a couch by his side spewing stuff like "Jeez, whaddya do with a guy like this?" and "Oh gawd, get out of town!" It was hysterical.

I used to love to play their version of the Heartbreakers "Born to Lose" to annoy all the dyed-in-the-wool Noo Yawk punker types who frequented the bar I DJed at. God, Soft Cell were great.

Other faves: "Numbers", a very human take on the whole John Rechy rack-em-up gay conquest thing and "Sex Dwarf"-so silly, so seedy, I never tire of it.

And the autobiography's swell, too.

― Arthur, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I own : 1 album, 1 single (guess which one, duh). vaguely recall : handful of other traxxx. but , all pretty hot.

― duane, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

The great thing about SC (when they were good which was not always) isnt the decadence - Marc A could clearly have done fullon decadence if he wanted and was lured into doing so, boringly, for most of his career - but the tension between the straight and the seedy. For most of Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (a totally classic album) Marc is singing about the frustrated itchy need to let go - "live a little, be a Tarzan, run a harem etc." - rather than the letting go. The silliness and shabbiness is really poignant: "Sex Dwarf" is more of a turn on because it captures the ridiculousness of amateur s & m as well as the power. And so on. And yes Ned the sounds - cheap and nasty - Dave Ball made are really key here: "Tainted Love" is one of the best singles ever mostly on the strength of the first ten seconds.

("Tainted Love" is one of the great oh-but-i-prefer-the-original-OF- COURSE singles. Other examples being Shipbuilding and Money's Too Tight To Mention. But ace though Gloria Jones single is...it's not *that* ace. Mind you I could also defend Simply Red vs the Valentine Brothers so.)

So classic for that, and for some of the singles - particularly the extended mixes - classic too. (A truly great underlooked gem is the full-length "Facility Girls" with its shivery perspective twists. The full-length "Torch" is brilliant too.) But for most of Marc A's career he's played up the Deviant Glam bits rather than the dirty- raincoat bits, and that's always seemed somehow too easy a route, to me.

― Tom, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Classic.

Non stop erotic cabaret and art of falling apart are essential. They sound amazingly dramatic, passionate and lush nearly 20 years on. how people could find this music cold and distant is beyond me.

Non stop ecstatic dancing and last night in sodom both ok.

But in all cases they have one of the few CD reissues where the bonus tracks are actually worth having. Esp last night in sodom where the bonus tracks (you only live twice/007 theme/soul inside) are better than the actual album.

They're one of the few reunions when it looks as though something worthwhile may be produced other than topping up their pension scheme.

― Billy Dods, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

"Where the Heart Is", "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" and especially "Torch" are utterly classic. I've never heard any of the albums. Kinda gone off "Tainted Love" - must have heard the thing 10 million times, although I don't disagree with Tom's comments. It IS one of the best singles ever, it's just that I don't want to hear it much.

― Dr. C, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Sex Dwarves??????

― Mike Hanle y, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Soft Cell are good! Soft Cell are good! Me like Soft Cell.

― DG, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Classic, although I don't always admit it. And speaking of things I don't admit, my image at age 15, 1983 or whatever it was, was directly inspired by Marc Almond (black trench coat, black shades, dyed black hair, and occaisonally *gasp* eyleliner)... ok, some things are better left in the past.

"Non-Stop Erotic Caberet" still sounds good tho...

― Sean, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I was one of those poor sods who only knew them for "Tainted Love" and that alone made me want to classify them as total dud (The song being one of those completely played to death 80s songs). It wasn't untill recently as I was nosing around in my boyfriend's record collection that I stumbled across his copy of "Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret" and decided to give it a spin. Afterwords my first initial response was..."DUH!" and how I could have been so blind. I was completely dumbfounded by both the lyrics and music. Oh--and I confess to having a thing for "Tainted Love" now. ;)

― JC, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

"Non-stop erotic cabaret" was one of my fave albums for years, though listening to it now I'm kind of annoyed by all the saxaphone. The 3rd track used to really turn me on ... "isn't that you on the screen?" Whooo!

Also loved The Torch, Martin etc. Hut does anyone know that amazing Marc Almond 6 track EP (I think, I only had a copy) with Matt Johnson (The The) Starts with a proto-drum'n'bass rhythm and beautiful chord sequence, then a psychadelic indianish track, Jacques Brel's "If you go away", what I think is a Scott Walker song, plus another Dave Ball classic ... I think it was called "The Unnamable" or something ...

― phil, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

That's weird, whatever you have sounds like some edited version of Marc's first solo album, "Untitled", which does indeed have Matt Johnson backing Marc up throughout and said Brel cover as well.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

3 years pass...

"say hello, wave goodbye" is magnificent. i'm not sure how well he handled this later on, but on this record marc almond's struggling with his voice's inherent limitations is put to best advantage, epitomized that last wavering high note. he really knows how to tell a story--an incredibly expressive singer, if not a notably technically proficient one.

as for the story.... well, often male prewar country singers would sing ballads from the POV of a woman, which often serves to heighten my investment in the story even though from today's perspective this habit seems odd indeed. here we have a gay man singing in the persona of a straight guy singing to a girl, and the effect seems somewhat the same--not coy, not ironic, not camp as i understand that. just a story whose emotional undercurrents are made universal via the conviction with which almond puts across the details.

(those details included an entirely convincing back-and-forth between denial and disgust, transcendence and pettiness. i guess that's even hinted at in the title. and left unresolved by song's end.)

(i suppose a possible alternate reading, which i'm happy to hold in my head at the same time as the previous one, is of a [closeted?] gay man falling extravagantly in love with love for a woman, as a means of denying/transcending other feelings. the resulting melodrama is less the source of emotional trauma than the projection of a trauma that cannot be admitted.)

but yeah this song feels like a kind of apocalypse, but with just enough bitter humor to keep it from feeling sticky or overwrought.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Thursday, 9 September 2004 06:20 (8 years ago) Permalink

although yeah, the third interpretation is that the "girl" part is just almond being coy, and the song is about a gay man struggling to deny his sexuality and aiming instead for a conventional wife/kids/suburbs life.

though actually i think the lyric is written and delivered in such a way that it can support all of these interpretations. v. clever of almond to register the emotional overlap between radically different forms of self-denial and -disgust. (or are they so radically different?)

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Thursday, 9 September 2004 06:25 (8 years ago) Permalink

As for me well, I’ll find some one
Who’s not going cheap in the sales.

ouch! I always found these lyrics so dirty and cruel and true - like a slap in the face. but i'm definitely a soft cell/ marc almond fanatic...

― Marco Damiani (Marco D.), Thursday, 9 September 2004 08:33 (8 years ago) Permalink

If I were to get one Soft Cell CD, what should it be?

― supercub, Thursday, 9 September 2004 08:43 (8 years ago) Permalink

"non stop erotic cabaret" is the classic one with the biggest hits, but my favourite is "this last night in sodom" - frantic, violent, occasionally lost in a thick haze of cheap drugs and sleazy sex.

― Marco Damiani (Marco D.), Thursday, 9 September 2004 08:55 (8 years ago) Permalink

― amateur!!st, Thursday, 9 September 2004 15:14 (8 years ago) Permalink

I was asleep when you posted this last night, sir. ;-)

A very fine reading of an apocalyptically great song. I was reminded recently again of Soft Cell's brilliance thanks to the weird and wonderful Non-Stop Erotic Video Show getting a DVD release, as I wibble on about here...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 9 September 2004 15:17 (8 years ago) Permalink

6 months pass...

amateurist's interpretation of Say Hello... is fine indeed. I just listened to Non Stop Erotic Cabaret today for the first time in ages and similar thoughts were bouncing around my head re Frustration. How angry is that song?

I'd forgotten about the genius of Seedy Films. It's his Walk on the Wild Side, I guess. Whatever, it works so beautifully. Blimey, and to think I was 14 when I first heard it

― Japanese Giraffe (Japanese Giraffe), Sunday, 3 April 2005 19:09 (8 years ago) Permalink

Oh and let's not overlook Dave Ball's contribution to Say Hello Wave Goodbye. Those 'strings' in the chorus still make me all goosepimply.

― Japanese Giraffe (Japanese Giraffe), Sunday, 3 April 2005 19:12 (8 years ago) Permalink

Me too. I have a compilation called 'The Best of Soft Cell' or something like that - without Tainted Love! Can't say I miss that song at all.

― moley, Sunday, 3 April 2005 20:22 (8 years ago) Permalink

Tainted Love will be the soundtrack to the end of the world.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Sunday, 3 April 2005 20:57 (8 years ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

For the fanatics -- Marc Almond's site is now selling The Bedsit Tapes, which collects all/most of the original demos Marc and Dave did while still at school in Leeds. I have a hunch you might be able to find it cheaper elsewhere if you look around, but ya never know. Dave does liner notes; tracklisting:

1 .. Potential
2 L.O.V.E. Feeling
3 Metro Mr X
4 Bleak Is My Favourite Cliche
5 Occupational Hazard
6 Mix
7 Factory Fun
8 Science Fiction Stories
9 Purely Functional
10 A Cut Above The Rest
11 Paranoid
12 Excretory Eat Anorexia Nervosa
13 Cleansing Fanatic
14 Walking Make Up Counter
15 Pyrex My Cuisine
16 Tupperware Counter

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 6 August 2005 13:02 (7 years ago) Permalink

Those titles are so great! "Walking Make Up Counter"!!! "Excretory Eat Anorexia Nervosa"!!!

― I Should Coco Schwab (Arthur), Saturday, 6 August 2005 14:24 (7 years ago) Permalink

Heheheh. I should have guessed you would approve. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 6 August 2005 14:37 (7 years ago) Permalink

bravo! i'd imagine it sounds pretty, umm, rudimentary, but hey, that never stopped The Normal or Cabaret Voltaire or Fad Gadget or DAF...

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Saturday, 6 August 2005 14:41 (7 years ago) Permalink

i bought that 12"/80s/2 compilation the other week (i'd link to the thread, but i can't be arsed finding it) and it's got the extended version of bedsitter on it. i've never heard it before, and it is absolutely spellbinding: their finest moment after the 12" of "say hello" (which might, on the day of reckoning, just end up being my favourite song in the world).

it has a little skeletal rap in the middle eight, addressed to a girl. the way the bassline comes back in during this final couplet:

make your single bed
and push the tea leaves down the drain
take a long deep breath
and start the nightlife over again
brings tears to my eyes; just the sheer perfection of it.
there's also a heartbreaking additional refrain towards the end: "i'm waiting for something/i'm only passing time". this wasn't in the original, was it?
is everyone familiar with this version or not - ie is it just me that's managed to miss its existence for all these years?
― grimly fiendish, watching the mirror and counting the lines (grimlord), Saturday, 6 August 2005 15:54 (7 years ago) Permalink

shit.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Saturday, 6 August 2005 15:54 (7 years ago) Permalink

normal service now resumed.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Saturday, 6 August 2005 15:55 (7 years ago) Permalink

Rah.

it has a little skeletal rap in the middle eight

Yeah, I love that -- first time I heard that I was all 'amazing! and so good! how to improve on something theoretically unimprovable.'

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 6 August 2005 16:26 (7 years ago) Permalink

9 months pass...

I'm hearing something now and I'm not believing my ears. It's Soft Cell doing a Hendrix Medley. Purple Haze et al. I am truly amazed.

― honorary joy division roadie (Bimble...), Sunday, 7 May 2006 21:47 (7 years ago) Permalink

Yeah I'd really like to have the Bedsit Tapes.

― honorary joy division roadie (Bimble...), Sunday, 7 May 2006 21:53 (7 years ago) Permalink

My friend's a big fan, I think he has their whole discography. I like them too, I'd say their cover of Tainted Love assures they are closer to classic status than to dud..

― Harrison Barr (Petar), Sunday, 7 May 2006 21:57 (7 years ago) Permalink

anyone else have that rare 12" mixes boot that's knocking around?

― lil' merzbow wow (haitch), Sunday, 7 May 2006 22:46 (7 years ago) Permalink

this one

― lil' merzbow wow (haitch), Sunday, 7 May 2006 22:52 (7 years ago) Permalink

that Hendrix medley is on Art of Falling Apart, isn't it? I am pretty sure my copy has it..

― dar1a g (daria g), Monday, 8 May 2006 00:14 (7 years ago) Permalink

Tainted Love will be the soundtrack to the end of the world.

-- Onimo (gerry.wat...), April 3rd, 2005 10:57 PM. (GerryNemo)

WTF was I on about?

Curse you drunken internets!

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 8 May 2006 00:24 (7 years ago) Permalink

Hahahahaha it's all our faults.

― honorary joy division roadie (Bimble...), Monday, 8 May 2006 03:54 (7 years ago) Permalink

Tainted Love will be the soundtrack to the end of the world.
-- Onimo (gerry.wat...), April 3rd, 2005 10:57 PM. (GerryNemo)
WTF was I on about?
Curse you drunken internets!

-- Onimo

I just realised it's a Dr Who reference. Tainted Love is played by Cassandra on the "iPod" in The End Of The World

Curse you failing memory!

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Monday, 8 May 2006 07:02 (7 years ago) Permalink

I for one welcome our newly failing memory.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 8 May 2006 08:57 (7 years ago) Permalink

A great song in "Bedsitter" and one of the best cover versions ever in "Tainted Love". Those two alone make them classic.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:02 (7 years ago) Permalink

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I don't even think "Tainted Love" is their best Northern Soul cover (which is "Down In The Subway").

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:31 (7 years ago) Permalink

What?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 8 May 2006 11:33 (7 years ago) Permalink

You're right. My Written English Gland appears to have packed in while writing that.

What I meant to say, is I think "Down In The Subway" is Soft Cell's best cover. Feel free to disagree, as I'm sure you all do.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 8 May 2006 12:47 (7 years ago) Permalink

You misread my post.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 8 May 2006 12:57 (7 years ago) Permalink

I agree with Marcello.

― Tim (Tim), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:02 (7 years ago) Permalink

"Oh BA-by!"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:04 (7 years ago) Permalink

It's an exclamation mark though, not a question mark, isn't it?

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:58 (7 years ago) Permalink

What?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 8 May 2006 14:01 (7 years ago) Permalink

Third base.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 8 May 2006 14:24 (7 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

the 12" of "say hello" (which might, on the day of reckoning, just end up being my favourite song in the world)

i've just finished copying a dusty HD's worth of old MP3s on to my new(ish) mac. out of several thousand, this is the one i went straight to and played.

i don't think i'd change a word of what i wrote there, either.

― toast kid (grimly fiendish), Monday, 6 October 2008 17:32 (4 years ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

I just rediscovered Non-stop Erotic Cabaret. God I love this album. Is it a bad thing that it kind-of speaks to me?

― burt_stanton, Thursday, 26 February 2009 17:40 (4 years ago) Permalink

What, do you identify with being a sex dwarf?

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 26 February 2009 17:42 (4 years ago) Permalink

haha, no. Just the feeling and attitude of grubby urban vice and disappointment.

― burt_stanton, Thursday, 26 February 2009 17:45 (4 years ago) Permalink

xpost
Bored suburban housewife?

― Creedence Clearwater Couto (Billy Dods), Thursday, 26 February 2009 17:46 (4 years ago) Permalink

Nah. My friends were weirdo eccentrics and we'd go out and do the club thing, be weird, do drugs, etc. and my father was some button-down guy who secretly picked up trannies in 1980s Time Square ... and would disappear in prison for weeks (we were told he was working late). My highschool best friend (who's now dying of AIDS sadly) looks exactly like Marc Almond, so maybe that, too.

Anyway, this is a great album. Soft Cell A+

― burt_stanton, Thursday, 26 February 2009 17:49 (4 years ago) Permalink

my father was some button-down guy who secretly picked up trannies in 1980s Time Square ... and would disappear in prison for weeks (we were told he was working late)

Exactly what was the explanation for weekends, then.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 26 February 2009 17:53 (4 years ago) Permalink

No idea. We just thought he was working. What a weird upbringing. Anyway, Marc Almond really does irony well just using music ... I didn't appreciate it until now.

― burt_stanton, Thursday, 26 February 2009 18:01 (4 years ago) Permalink

yeah, anyone who can cameo as well as he did in the frickin' Coil "Tainted Love" video can operate on a level higher than an "is it irony or not?" type thing.

― System Jr. (Mackro Mackro), Thursday, 26 February 2009 20:12 (4 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

I just learned what a "bedsit" is and boy did I have that song wrong. I thought a bedsit was like a babysitter for grown-ups? Which I knew made no sense because he was "all alone," but I thought maybe he felt alone spiritually next to the cold panoptic eye of this freaky adult babysitter. That and sometimes it's foolish to try & make sense of lyrics but maybe I should've tried harder with this one by employing a dictionary instead of totally making shit up.

― the 'hip' thing nowadays — gay Mormon missionaries (Abbbottt), Sunday, 17 April 2011 17:24 (2 years ago) Permalink

Another hypothesis was a "bedsit" was a person who works at a spanking parlor? I feel kind of embarrassed by all this but you have to admit such a figure would fit in the general Soft Cell world.

― the 'hip' thing nowadays — gay Mormon missionaries (Abbbottt), Sunday, 17 April 2011 17:25 (2 years ago) Permalink

I like all these alternate interpretations!

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 17 April 2011 17:28 (2 years ago) Permalink

i have recently found that i quite like soft cell. not always as music (they have only a small handful of songs i hold close), but as characters, as performance, as a wonderful thing that existed in the world. like suicide, they transmute rock & pop into this wholly other language, the rinky-dink chintz of the sounds a perfect foil for marc's arch sleaze and coy torment. also enjoying the way their music and attitude - perhaps in turn channeling throbbing gristle's? - leach out into their followers and contemporaries, usually in more "palatable" (less explicitly queer) guise. berlin's "sex (i'm a)", eurythmics' "love is a stranger", even ebn-ozn's "aeiou sometimes y"...

― normal_fantasy-unicorns (contenderizer), Friday, 22 April 2011 20:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

classic burt itt

― buzza, Friday, 22 April 2011 20:44 (2 years ago) Permalink

i guess everything i just said is a cliche, the received wisdom, soft cell 101, but i never really gave them a fair shake at the time and have been entertaining myself recently playing russian roulette with nostalgia. "talk talk" vs. "it's my life", that kind of thing.

― normal_fantasy-unicorns (contenderizer), Friday, 22 April 2011 20:52 (2 years ago) Permalink

I still can't believe a bedsit is just a place a person lives in.

― offee is for losers only, do you not c? (Abbbottt), Saturday, 23 April 2011 00:54 (2 years ago) Permalink

that it is literally his (only) home
I think about this every day.

― offee is for losers only, do you not c? (Abbbottt), Saturday, 23 April 2011 00:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

what kind of question is this, who would ever say dud?

― akm, Saturday, 23 April 2011 03:04 (2 years ago) Permalink

3 months pass...

The original video for Sex Dwarf remains disturbingly impressive:

http://vimeo.com/10458506

(NSFW and probably illegal in a few states.)

― doug watson, Friday, 12 August 2011 02:18 (1 year ago) Permalink

oh man i wanna watch that but i'm at W
..Cabaret is the best €2 purchase I made this year

― willem, Friday, 12 August 2011 06:48 (1 year ago) Permalink

NSEC is one of those albums that sold because of the hit single, only to surprise/shock said buyers that the single isn't remotely representative of their style. Sometimes, discovering that can be a good thing. This time, it is.

― Lee626, Friday, 12 August 2011 08:18 (1 year ago) Permalink

7 months pass...

Here doggy doggy

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/soft_cells_infamous_sex_dwarf_video_nsfw

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 28 March 2012 20:28 (1 year ago) Permalink

now that looks like a good time

― preternatural concepts concerning variances in sound and texture (contenderizer), Wednesday, 28 March 2012 20:40 (1 year ago) Permalink

...is currently banned from YouTube.

Nope.

I don't know how anyone could call the band who made that video a dud.

― viborg, Thursday, 29 March 2012 00:19 (1 year ago) Permalink

I never got into Soft Cell as much as I did other bands from that period, but I still enjoy listening to that first album from time to time.

― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican), Thursday, 29 March 2012 09:48 (1 year ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

The extended Torch is extraordinary. Their best moment, I think. Loving this tonight.

― kraudive, Tuesday, 5 June 2012 01:49 (1 year ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

NON-STOP EROTIC CABARET is one of the best albums of the 80s. It has aged like fine wine. Little known secret: Soft Cell's videos are amongst the best of all-time. They were all directed (AFAIK) by Tim Pope, who worked extensively with The Cure.

― Tyler Burns (burns46824@yahoo.com), Saturday, 20 October 2012 18:26 (8 months ago) Permalink

5 months pass...

Chilling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz_x1Arnuw0

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 31 March 2013 14:32 (2 months ago) Permalink

When I finally read the book it worked even more brilliantly, though they are two different beasts in the end.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 31 March 2013 14:48 (2 months ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

Go Alfred!

http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/soft-cell-feature

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 22 May 2013 20:16 (4 weeks ago) Permalink

thanks!

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 23 May 2013 00:17 (4 weeks ago) Permalink

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.