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This chapter chiefly profiles Stephen Pearce, better known as Stevo, an illiterate teenager from Dagenham who was to become Soft Cell’s manager, and how his eccentricities and extreme approach to the music industry belied a considerable wiliness when it came to operating within its confines. It argues that his Some Bizzare compilation album, which featured future stars such as Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, The The and Blancmange, was one of the most seminal releases of its time, because it provided the first coherent gathering of the British acts at the vanguard of early synth pop. It explores how Stevo managed to strongarm the label Phonogram into offering Soft Cell a deal, which was on the brink of collapse until the surprise success of ‘Memorabilia’, recorded with Daniel Miller.
The book tells the story of Soft Cell’s evolution from the strange and crumbling environs of north-west British seaside towns, through a radical art school education, the burgeoning independent music industry of the late 1970s and early 1980s, their exposure to the thriving club scene of New York, the seediness of the Soho sex industry, prolific drug use and increasingly esoteric influences from avant-garde artists. It explores how all these factors, many of which pulled the band in opposing directions, caused both a brief period of extraordinary musical output and a rapid implosion under the strain. Simultaneously, the book delves into the wider social history of the many environments in which the musicians Marc Almond and Dave Ball found themselves. Through interviews not only with the band, their friends and collaborators, but also historians, writers and other key cultural figures, it explores the social, historical and political factors that made these scenes just so influential when Soft Cell crossed their paths, and profiles the extraordinary and strange characters who were at their hearts.
This chapter tells the story of ‘Tainted Love’, by far Soft Cell’s biggest hit, and the factors that made it both so phenomenally successful and ultimately a curse for the band who were desperate to escape its shadow. It argues that the song combined two crucial elements: the innovative electronic music of Kraftwerk, and the raw energy of the Northern Soul scene, both of which Dave Ball was exposed to simultaneously during his formative years in Blackpool. It tells the story of just why his home city had emerged as the epicentre of that scene, chiefly a divide between the cultural sensitives of youth from the north and south of England, respectively. It also examines how Soft Cell’s live show was developing, and the addition of key players Josephine Warden and Brian Moss into their live setup.
The book’s epilogue argues that Soft Cell’s story could have turned out differently in a number of ways. They might have arrived at a point where culture was less hostile to queerness, or where synth pop was more easily understood by the public. Or, they might have benefitted from more sensible management and a more harmonious relationship with their record label. And yet, it points out that Soft Cell’s defining qualities were restlessness and curiosity and that ultimately it was their pursuit of these aspects despite any obstacle that made their music so engaging.
The chapter recounts Soft Cell’s time recording their debut album in New York, and how multiple different aspects of the city’s vibrant club culture were to have a huge effect on their output going forwards, including gay clubs, disco, early hip-hop and new wave. It argues that when they arrived there, the city was entering a key transitional point, where the desolation of the 1970s was giving way to the cultural explosion of the 1980s, and before it was to be decimated by both the AIDS pandemic and a wave of gentrification and sterilisation. It explores the impact of then-legal drug ecstasy and its associated culture on their work, as well as that of pivotal figures they met in New York such as Anita Sarko and Cindy Ecstasy. It draws direct lines between all of the culture the band were absorbing, and the music they were producing in the studio, not only on their debut album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, but also a follow-up remix album, Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing, and argues that the latter was to be a pioneering release in the world of dance music.
The introduction gives an overview of the way in which Soft Cell have been unfairly dismissed as one-hit wonders due to the massive popularity of ‘Tainted Love’, and how their chart success has overshadowed a career that was far more radical than is often given credit for. It argues that Soft Cell were subject to two rival pulls: the pursuit of mainstream success and their desire for uncompromising creative expression, and that ultimately it was the clashes between the two that led to both the band’s early demise and the high quality of the music they produced during this time.
The chapter explores the way that in Britain the idea of the ‘seaside’ is different to that of the ‘coast’, in that it is essentially an artificial creation. It charts the history of this idea, from the first resort set up around mineral springs in Scarborough, through the masses of Victorian factory workers who descended on the coast during scheduled Wakes Weeks, and the towns’ ultimate decline as newfound prosperity after the Second World War saw richer people begin to holiday abroad. It tells the story of how Marc Almond and Dave Ball spent their childhoods in such towns – Southport and Blackpool, respectively – and how their culture created a lasting impression on them that would persist throughout their work, whether clowns and circus performers, pantomimes, the desolation of seaside attractions during the off-season or intense Northern Soul parties in the case of Blackpool. It also acknowledges wider pop culture influences on the young men, such as David Bowie’s appearance on Top of the Pops as Ziggy Stardust, and Ball’s hearing of Kraftwerk’s ‘Autobahn’.
This chapter tells the story of Soft Cell’s first releases, from their self-financed debut EP Mutant Moments onwards, and how a revolution in the world of independent labels, spearheaded by Buzzcocks’ New Hormones imprint, made this possible. It also explores the wider relationship between punk and early synth pop, and how punk’s oft-ignored theatrical aspects had a huge impact when the Sex Pistols’ now-infamous Anarchy tour came to Leeds. It also widens the discussion of early synth pop to explore the way in which other artists across Britain were also taking advantage of synthesisers’ increasing cheapness and availability, and how this was leading to a time of flux within mainstream British music and the birth of a scene that would later be termed ‘New Romantic’. At the same time, the chapter details the complex of bedsits in Leeds in which the band and a number of friends and collaborators were living, including Anni Hogan, Soft Cell’s growing status in the local music scene and their introduction to the pioneering producer Daniel Miller, with whom they would record their first professional releases.
This chapter asserts that in parallel to New York, London’s Soho had an equally significant effect on Soft Cell’s music going back as far as their formation. It compares the two locations, arguing that while the former was loud and extravagant, the latter was defined by a sense of seediness and euphemism, and that Soft Cell were able to embrace both within their music. It argues that Soho’s unique role in the psychogeography of London, as a place for transgression and the meeting of different societal strands, is down to a number of different factors, including the way it is hemmed in by major roads, preventing development; the influence of morally loose property barons such as Paul Raymond; and its openness to artists, immigrant communities and more. It examines how strong of an impact the visual identity of Soho had on that of Soft Cell, particularly through the work of crucial visual collaborators Peter Ashworth and Huw Feather. It also tells the story of their video album Non-Stop Erotic Video Show, particularly the way in which the video for ‘Sex Dwarf’ was so scandalous that it saw them raided by the Metropolitan Police’s vice squad amid a tabloid furore. The chapter also charts Soft Cell’s transition into a darker sound on their second album The Art of Falling Apart, arguing that this was the result of a number of factors, including the worsening AIDS epidemic and ever-increasing tensions between the band and their label.
This chapter examines the enormous importance of Top of the Pops when it came to boosting a musician’s profile in the early 1980s, due to this being the only opportunity for mass exposure aside from the music press, and how Soft Cell’s performance on the programme propelled them to overnight mega-stardom. It also argues that this was in no small part due to the queerness of their performance, and the radicalism of this, given the pervasive homophobic attitudes within the media at this time. It also explores the impact that sudden fame had on the band, for both good and bad.