Songoftheday - Sometimes I feel I got to run away....

Soft Cell - "Tainted Love"

from the album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (1981)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (two weeks)

weeks in the top-40: 15

Today's Song of the Day is by the synth-pop duo Soft Cell, and their remake of an obscure 60's northern soul track "Tainted Love". The song was written by Ed Cobb, who was the bass singer in the vocal group the Four Preps, who backed up Ricky Nelson on the Ozzie and Harriet show, and Sandra Dee in the Gidget movies. However, the song is much darker than either of those experiences would clue in, and while the song was recorded by Gloria Jones, it remained more of a cult classic.

The duo of Marc Almond and Dave Ball met at college and formed Soft Cell at the beginning of the 80s. Their first single, "Memorabilia" was a club hit in England but a relative failure on pop radio. They recorded their version "Tainted Love" as the followup with a darker and more stark instrumentation using only synthesizers to create the "bwon bwon" thud throughout the track, while Almond crooned in the most soulfully campy way possible...

This was by far the gayest thing on the radio, and with its bacchanalian video, upped the ante twofold. After a slow start in the US, "Tainted Love" would go on to reach the top-10, spending a then-record 43 weeks on the pop chart. Meanwhile, the song would be the biggest selling single in 1982 in Britain. The 12" single including a segue into their cover of the Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go" also made the top-5 on the dance chart.

While the duo would go on to have eleven more top-40 hits in England, "Tainted Love" would be Soft Cell's only Hot 100 appearance in America. Almond would later go solo, and have a minor hit in the US with "Tears Run Rings".

In 2001, Marilyn Manson would redo the song for the film Not Another Teen Movie, and had a top-5 hit in England and Germany, with some play on American rock radio as well.