Vintage record cover: Soft Cell

A new series with favourite sleeves from my vinyl collection…
The general public will remember Soft Cell only for ‘Tainted Love’, one of the most frequently played songs of the 80’s. Of course they also had some other big hits, like ‘Say hello Wave Goodbye’, ‘Memorabilia’ and ‘Torch’. Another succesful single (top 5 in the UK in August ’82) was ‘What!’ (a cover of a 60’s song by Judy Street). Poppy, soulful and dramatic/theatrical like Marc Almond can be. Personally I especially like the long B-side ‘So’, which is very electronic (though containing some trumpets) and minimal, slightly funky. Very danceable and still sounding fresh enough to be played at modern electro nights.
Around 1982 the music of Soft Cell was played a lot by DJ’s in New York. Various remixes were made and Marc Almond (who is recovering from a motor accident at the moment) and Dave Ball were introduced to the new drug ectasy. In June 1982 Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing was released, a mini-LP with dance mixes. On a later cd reissue the long versions of ‘What!’ and ‘So’ were also included. In 1984 the synthpop pioneers split up, but they made a come-back in 2002.