Soft Cell

Soft Cell is an English synthpop duo consisting vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball. The duo is most widely known for their 1981 worldwide hit version of "Tainted Love" and platinum debut Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. In the UK, they had ten Top 40 hits, including "Bedsitter", "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye", "Torch", and "What!", and also had four Top 20 albums between 1981 and 1984. The duo split in 1984, but reformed in the early 2000s to tour and released a new album in 2002. Their songs have been covered by various artists including Nine Inch Nails, David Gray, Nouvelle Vague, Marilyn Manson and A-ha. Soft Cell's track "Memorabilia" earned recognition for the band as pioneers of techno style. The duo have sold 10 million records worldwide.

Their first singles were "A Man Can Get Lost" and "Memorabilia" which was a success in nightclubs. The band recorded a reworked cover version of "Tainted Love", an obscure 1964 northern soul track sung originally by Gloria Jones.

"Tainted Love" was released in 1981 and became a No. 1 hit in 17 countries as well as a No. 8 single in the United States during 1982, and went on to set a Guinness World Record at the time for the longest consecutive stay on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. The A-side of the 12 inch single of "Tainted Love" actually featured a two-song medley, with "Tainted Love" blending into the Motown classic "Where Did Our Love Go". Two videos were created for "Tainted Love" and one was released in 1981 and the other was released in 1991.

The duo's first album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, hit UK #5 and singles included "Seedy Films", "Frustration" and "Secret Life". A companion video titled Non-Stop Exotic Video Show was released alongside the album and featured videos directed by Tim Pope. The video generated some controversy in Britain, mainly due to the scandal involved with the "Sex Dwarf" clip. The original version of the music video featured Almond and Ball in a bloody butcher shop surrounded by chainsaws, nude actors, and dwarves. However, the film was confiscated by police and censored before it was even released. As a tongue-in-cheek substitute, a re-filmed "Sex Dwarf" appeared in Non-Stop Exotic Video Show featuring Almond dressed in a tuxedo, directing a symphony orchestra of transvestites.

The duo released a second album, a 6-track mini album entitled Non-stop Ecstatic Dancing which contained remixes of older material along with their new hit single "What!".

In 1983, Marc Almond formed the group Marc and the Mambas, featuring collaborations with The The's Matt Johnson and future Almond collaborator Annie Hogan. Soft Cell's third album release, The Art of Falling Apart, was a Top 5 hit in the UK but the singles were only modest successes. The duo once again generated some controversy when their second single from the album, "Numbers", was banned by the BBC due to references in the song to the drug speed.

By 1984, the duo decided to end Soft Cell. They played farewell concerts at Hammersmith Palais in January, and released one final album called This Last Night in Sodom. Their final single was "Down In The Subway".

Almond and Ball reunited as Soft Cell in 2001, with a series of live dates. A new album, Cruelty Without Beauty, was released during late 2002. Their first new songs together in almost twenty years included "The Night".

The band released a remix album, Heat, in November 2008.