0200. Soft Cell
Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret
Early synth-pop didn't always hit the mark and this Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret is a prime example of that. A lot of the sounds used are a bit off, too high in the mix, or just plain wrong. When it's also combined with a lack in the melody-department courtesy of both Soft Cell-members the album sounds more like a boy room-demo than an actual release on vinyl.
But there is something there, a potential that, when it comes together, makes for greatness. Like Chips On My Shoulder where they find their respective melodies and somewhat also on Sex Dwarf (even though it's more entertaining than good, actually). The lyrics of Secret Life deserves better than the musical backing it got (I don't know what that glockenspiel meets piano-sound is, but it annoys me).
And then of course there's Tainted Love.
Their cover of Gloria Jones' song, which in their version got the Guinness World Record for longest stay on the Billboard charts with a whopping forty-three weeks in a row and climbed to number one in seventeen countries. Without it, they might just have been one of the bands passing by, but with it they became stars.
