Soft Cell are an English synthpop duo who came to prominence in the early 1980s. The duo consists of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball.
Formed in 1978, after Almond and Ball had met at Leeds Polytechnic in the previous year, the duo, defined by the dynamic between the dramatically expressive Almond and the quiet but menacing Ball, became one of the defining bands of the 1980s, whose influence is still felt to this day.
In their short five-year career, they delivered the immediate synthpop classic Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (1981), its dancefloor-oriented sister album Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing (1982), the darker The Art Of Falling Apart (1983), and the experimental and uncompromising farewell, This Last Night In Sodom (1984), accidentally invented Acid House half a decade early with their debut single “Memorabilia”, and racked up a string of hits including “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”, “Torch”, “Bedsitter” and, most famously, an instantly addictive minimalist reworking of “Tainted Love” which was the UK’s biggest-selling single of 1981, broke the record for longevity on the Billboard charts, and sold well over a million copies.
Almond and Ball reunited as Soft Cell in 2000 with a series of live dates which were lated followed by a new studio album in the form of 2002’s Curel Without Beauty. After another hiatus, further live shows followed in 2018 with a fifth Soft Cell studio album Happiness Not Included being released in 2022 to critical acclaim.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .