Third Time the Charm: The Story of Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love”

When “Tainted Love” hit the U.S. charts in 1982, the moody production sounded shockingly new. But the song? It’d waited patiently in the wings for over 15 years. Here's how it all went down.

“Presentably edgy?” Or “allegedly presentable?” David Ball and Marc Almond in 1981, photo by Fin Costello

The year is 1982. The airwaves are dominated by slick, highly produced pop-rock: Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical”; Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”’ the Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra.” Into this guitar-heavy slurry comes a dark, arresting—and don’t forget catchy!—song about paranoia and abuse called “Tainted Love.”

The artist is Soft Cell, an English duo consisting of singer Marc Almond and multi-instrumentalist David Ball. The spare, electronic production resembles nothing else then on the airwaves, and the song climbs to Number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, in total spending a record-breaking 43 weeks on the chart.

What most of the perplexed American radio audience didn’t know was that the song was a cover, having first been recorded in 1964 by a then-little-known American artist, Gloria Jones. She’d go on to re-record it in 1976, in effect covering herself. But if neither of her versions would make any impact on the charts, the story of this agonized song would enfold a strange list of figures from the bowels of rock history—including one responsible for much of the genre that would become known as “garage punk.”

That person was Ed Cobb, a shadowy figure in American rock and pop in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Originally a member of squeaky-clean vocal group The Four Preps, he dabbled with writing R & B and soul songs for other artists. He’s the one who wrote “Tainted Love,” as well as penning Brenda Holloway’s 1964 hit “Every Little Bit Hurts”—a song would go on to be one of the most-covered of the genre, subsequent versions being recorded by the Small Faces, Jimi Hendrix, George Clinton, the Spencer Davis Group, the Clash, the Jam, and Alicia Keys.

Cobb might’ve joined the ranks of countless other songwriters and producers plying the lucrative byways of ‘60s pop, but it’s here that his career took a distinct left turn. Eschewing the family-friendly harmonies the Preps had helped pioneer, he turned to harder-edged bands like The Standells—who took his song “Dirty Water” to Number 11 on the Billboard singles chart—and The Chocolate Watchband, whose blend of snarling garage and arch psychedelia would inspire countless fuzzed-out imitators—though that’s a story for another day.

Gloria Jones’s original version of “Tainted Love” didn’t find much commercial success, which is a shame.

It’s a classic soul stomper, a thumbnail sketch of a sadomasochistic love affair that’s over and done in little more than two minutes. Jones would go on to record an album and a few more singles before pursuing an advanced degree in piano, with a focus on the works of J.S. Bach.

But the music industry wasn’t quite done with her. Having largely given up on a solo career, she became a backing singer and songwriter and moved to England. This led her to English glam superstar Marc Bolan of T. Rex—with whom she began a romantic relationship in the early 1970s. Tragically, it was Jones who was behind the wheel of Bolan’s BMC Mini when it left the road and hit a tree in the early hours of September 16, 1977, killing Bolan instantly.

But Bolan’s influence would live on in the form of a second version of “Tainted Love,” which he’d produced the previous year. The original version had become a favorite on the booming underground Northern Soul scene—perhaps the first and most crucial “revival scene” of the Rock era—after English club DJ Richard Searling brought a copy of the original single to the U.K. in 1973. But sadly for Jones, her second version of “Tainted Love” had even less of an impact than the first, with Bolan’s slick ‘70s production rounding off the original’s appealingly rough edges.

But the world still wasn’t quite done with “Tainted Love.”

Having discovered it through the Northern Soul scene, Soft Cell radically reworked it, stripping away the horn-spiked gloss to reveal the desperation at the song’s core. Producer Mike Thorne—who’d produced Wire’s essential first three albums, among many others—is succinct in his assessment:

“You could smell the coke on that second, Northern Soul version, it was really so over-amped and so frantic. It was good for the dance floor, but I didn’t like the record…when Soft Cell performed the song I heard a very novel sound and a very nice voice, so off we went.”

And Soft Cell went far with the song. Before they’d recorded it, representatives from their label Some Bizzare made it clear it’d be their last release from them if it failed to chart. Instead, it went to Number 1 in 17 countries starting in 1981.

Although “Tainted Love” would represent Soft Cell’s commercial high-water mark the song, as they say, persists. Its stark and moody affect—devoid of nearly any acoustic instruments save Almond’s voice and the band’s snaps and handclaps—influenced generations of would-be synth-balladeers, and you can hear its influence today in artists such as Charli XCX, Glass Spells, and others.

Some 43 years after it was recorded, Soft Cell’s version of “Tainted Love” remains in semi-regular rotation on rock and pop radio. If it once sounded out of place amid the bloated rock productions of the early ‘80s, its longevity is a testament not only to its directness and forward-thinking production, but to Gloria Jones’ impassioned delivery and songwriter Ed Cobb’s knack for bringing dark, troubling material to the previously safe pastures of pop radio.