Tainted Love is a song composed by Ed Cobb, formerly of American group The Four Preps, which was originally recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964. It attained worldwide fame after being covered by Soft Cell in 1981 and has since been covered by numerous groups and artists. After the chart failure of Memorabilia, Phonogram Records allowed Soft Cell to record a second and final single in an attempt to score a chart success. The band opted to record a radically reworked cover version of Tainted Love, an obscure 1965 northern soul track originally released by Gloria Jones, the girlfriend of Marc Bolan at the time of his death, and written by Ed Cobb of The Four Preps. Released in 1981, Soft Cells Tainted Love was a No. 1 hit in 17 countries, including the United Kingdom, as well as a No. 8 single in the United States during 1982, and went on to set a Guinness World Record at the time for the longest consecutive stay (43 weeks) on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. The songs popularity developed slowly, needing 19 weeks to enter the US Top 40. The A-side of the 12-inch single of Tainted Love actually featured a two-song medley, with Tainted Love blending into the Motown classic Where Did Our Love Go (originally recorded by The Supremes, in 1964). According to Marc Almonds book Tainted Life, Soft Cell had exited the Tainted Love recording sessions with only modest expectations that the track might break into the UK Top 50. Furthermore, Almond wrote that his only significant contribution to the songs instrumentation (besides the vocals) was the suggestion that the song begin with a characteristic bink bink sound which would repeat periodically throughout. Almond also wrote that he dedicated this song to his sometime partner Christian Andrew
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 05:30:01 +0000
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