Soft Cell hit #1 in the UK with “Tainted Love”

Tainted Love Soft Cell

Writer(s): Ed Cobb (see lyrics here) Released: July 17, 1981 First Charted: August 1, 1981 Peak: 8 US, 7 CB, 5 GR, 58 HR, 7 RR, 12 AR, 12 UK, 13 CN, 13 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 1.5 UK, 2.03 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 136.96 video, 782.66 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: While most people know this song because of Soft Cell, it actually originated in the mid-‘60s. Ed Cobb, a former member of the U.S. group the Four Preps, wrote the song about toxic relationships. He told Blender magazine, “I had a lover for whom you could say wasn’t a good individual. I tried to go into her head and write a song from her standpoint.” SF The resulting song was recorded by American R&B singer Gloria Jones and released as the B-side of her 1965 single “My Bad Boy’s Comin’ Home.” While the song didn’t take off at the time, it found an audience years later when Richard Searling, a club DJ, picked up a copy of the song in Philadelphia in 1973. He began playing it during his sets at Va Va’s, a popular club in Bolton, England. The song found life again and Jones re-recorded it in 1976. SF “It became a favorite of Britain’s Northern Soul clubs in the late 1970s.” TB “As synthesizers became readily available and affordable in the early 1980s, many seized the chance to try to emulate Kraftwerk and David Bowie’s ‘Berlin’ trilogy of albums. Among them were Marc Almond and Dave Ball, who formed Soft Cell, the archetypical synth-pop duo.” TB “Most synthesizer artists of the time were making clinical, clever and sweet tunes with the new technology. Soft Cell made the keybard as dity and sexual an instrument as any other.” TC They started covering “Tainted Love” to use as an encore for their shows. KL “It was a novelty to have an electronic synthesizer band doing a soul song.” KL Soft Cell’s record label wanted them to record the song, but add bass, guitar, and drums. As Almond said, though, “We wanted to be a guitarless band…We were looked on as rubbish, but we had the last laugh.” KL They kept the “solid, stamping beat – thus ensuring their version would work as a dance number.” TB Indeed. In their native UK, Soft Cell’s recording of “Tainted Love” became the best-selling single of 1981. WK The song didn’t chart in the U.S. until the following year. By the summer of 1982, it reached #8 and before its run was done, it had accumulated a then record-breaking 43 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. WK The DMDB ranks the song as one of the top 5 new wave/college rock songs of all-time. Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Soft Cell BC Brad Carl (2015). 50 Songs from the 70s and 80s That Still Hold Up. Pages 93-95. TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Page 410. KL Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh (2005). 1000 UK Number One Hits: The Stories Behind Every Number One Single Since 1952. London, Great Britain: Omnibus Press. Pages 272-3. SF Songfacts TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 193. WK Wikipedia First posted 4/17/2019; last updated 5/2/2024.