Synth-pop and soul: The northern soul origins of Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’
No sound captured the neon hues and hairspray clouds of 1980s dancefloors quite like those opening few bars of Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’, ushering in an age of synth-pop domination and transforming the Leeds-formed outfit from electronic outsiders to pop music icons. Decades before that single hit the number-one spot, though, it found an audience on the sprung dancefloors of the northern soul scene.
By the time the 1980s dawned, Marc Almond and David Ball were in dire need of some commercial success. Having formed in the midst of Leeds’ post-punk explosion in 1978, the duo had already recorded and released a litany of increasingly obscure singles, EPs, and compilation tracks, but nobody seemed to be paying attention. After all, their unique brand of rather jarring synth-led electronica was still something of a novelty during the late 1970s, and mainstream audiences simply weren’t ready for it.
Following on from ‘Memorabilia’, their woefully underrated electro masterpiece, which Phonogram Records nevertheless viewed as an absolutely flop, the pair were given one final chance with the label – last chance saloon to either become successful pop stars or spend the rest of their existence wallowing in the electronic underground.
In their desperation for a hit, Marc Almond looked towards a particularly unexpected avenue of inspiration. Having witnessed the power of the northern soul scene throughout the 1970s, which saw the provincial towns and cities of the north filled with the glorious sounds of impossibly obscure, overlooked American soul records, Soft Cell made the questionable decision to re-record one of those iconic soul stompers.
Eventually, after discounting Frankie Valli’s northern soul masterpiece ‘The Night’, the duo landed upon ‘Tainted Love’, the storming single first recorded back in 1964 by Gloria Jones. Despite the undeniable talents of the future T Rex keyboardist, the single didn’t achieve anything in the way of commercial success upon its 1965 release via Champion Records in Chicago. With strong overtones of the Motown sound and an infectious footstomping tempo, though, the song was a natural fit for the blossoming northern soul scene of the early 1970s.
Reportedly, it was Richard Searling who first discovered the track during a record-hunting trip to the United States, and when he injected the two-minute track into his setlists at Va Va’s in Bolton, it became an instant northern soul classic – defining the sound of the entire subculture, for many soulies.
Among those who spent many an amphetamine-fueled night dancing to the sounds of Gloria Jones in the nightclubs, dancehalls, and social clubs of northern England were Soft Cell, who, despite a sonic disparity between their synth-driven electronica and the classic soul sounds of Gloria Jones, quickly adopted the song as their own. After trailing its potential in various live performances, the pair finally decided to lay it down in the recording studio as a last-ditch attempt to do what Jones herself had failed to do 15 years prior, and score a chart hit.
Inevitably, the duo were successful, eclipsing the expectations of even themselves and scoring one of the most iconic number-one singles of the 1980s, as well as proving the timeless power of the soul mastery which continues to dominate the northern soul scene to this very day.
