In the last of this series, we look back at Soft Cell’s bleak but beautiful synthpop – from their run of Top 3 hits to their disintegration amid drug use and nervous breakdown
Likeminded art student renegades at Leeds Polytechnic in the late 70s, Dave Ball and Marc Almond originally came together to make music to accompany theatrical productions – an evolution of Almond’s developing interest in often extreme, sexual, graphic and confrontational performance art. Their first release, the short EP Mutant Moments, was funded by a £2,000 loan from Ball’s mum, and was enough to grab the attention of record label Some Bizzare, whose eccentric owner, Stevo, would go on to talent-spot some of the 80s’ best underground electronic groups. Their early single Memorabilia, from 1981, reveals just how much of the winning Soft Cell formula was already firmly in place. Claustrophobic, slightly stalker-y (“I have got to have you”) and with a brilliant electronic riff that lodged in your brain alongside the pen portrait of an obsessive collector, it was a remarkable calling card.
Related: Marc Almond: ‘I’ve had the chance to be subversive in the mainstream’
Continue reading...by Jude Clarke via Electronic music | The Guardian
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