Soft Cell

Sure, this debut contains the won't-it-ever-go-away sounds of "Tainted Love", but it also has "Sex Dwarf" and "Seedy Films". Marc Almond takes everybody on a journey through the back alleys of gay discos and shows us some of the more interesting neon-lit experiences. Never before had synth-pop been so naughty.

To English popmusic fans, there is nothing like a good six-month fad. The punk explosion,
the warmed-over mods, the ska craze and the psychedelic revival–don't look now, but
you just missed the New Romantics–have come and gone (and in some cases, come again)
with such confounding rapidity that it is hard to take most of them any more seriously than
Hula Hoops or edible underwear. The country's latest rage is synthesizer music.... More >

I've always found "Tainted Love" catchy-annoying rather than catchy-seductive, but these takeoffs on Clubland "decadence" get at the emotion underneath with just the right admixture of camp cynicism. Now you feel it, now you don't. (Grade - B+)