Soft Cell - Non Stop Erotic Cabaret

Rating out of 5 starts - ****

This was the debut album of Mark Almond and David Ball under the moniker Soft Cell and was released in 1981. Ball looked after all the electronics and sounds, while Almond did the writing and singing although Tainted Love which was the most successful song was written by Gloria Jones. The album whilst all poppy and bright musically speaking, great electro dance music being the musical background, had a dark and seedy side to it in Almonds lyrics which mainly went around sexual aberration although of course that depends on your interpretation of said behavior and relationships that couldn’t work. The album starts with Frustration which has a simple dance beat with added horns to fill out the sound in this tale of a boring suburban life. It kicks straight into Tainted Love which is an electro dance classic, from there we slow down into Seedy Films with its tale of blue movie’s and illicit self exploration and its bluesy type sound. From there its Youth with its tale of lost youth and lost beauty and then to end side one of the LP Sex Dwarf which is all sleaze lyrically, and a staccato type dance beat. Side two starts in high energy electro disco with Entertain Me which bounces along and segues straight into Chips on my Shoulder which is a bouncing beat with whistles galore, the odd shouted background repartee and a fast minimalistic dance beat - slowed down Postal Service sound. On to a slower beat in Bedsitter all about loneliness and the joys or lack thereof of self amusement by drinking clubbing and the like with the ultimate problem or not of being alone at the end of it all. Same slower dance beat pervades Secret Life, and then the best song on the album for me in Say Hello Wave Goodbye which is a bitter sweet love song with gorgeous synths in a slowish mood, true to life of course it doesn’t work out, the joys of the theory of being too different and then hiding the resulting relationship from the world. Almond’s voice with the synth background works really well in this song and its a fitting end to this great introduction to early 80’s electro dance music.

Favourite songs: Say Hello Wave Goodbye, the obligatory Tainted Love and Bedsitter