Soft Cell’s 1981 recording of “Tainted Love” gave the English duo a US one-hit wonder.
The song was written by Ed Cobb and first recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964. Jones’s version became associated with the northern soul scene in Britain, where it developed a devoted following. Soft Cell, consisting of Marc Almond and David Ball, transformed the song into a stark synth-pop performance with a pulsing electronic rhythm and Almond’s dramatic vocal.
Soft Cell’s version was a major success in the United Kingdom in 1981 and reached number eight on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1982. Its extended US chart run helped make it one of the era’s defining new-wave songs. A later medley paired it with “Where Did Our Love Go,” but the central hit remains “Tainted Love.”
The song is often mistakenly treated as an original Soft Cell composition. Its earlier history is important: Jones’s recording preceded the duo’s version by 17 years, and Cobb wrote the composition before synth-pop made it famous to a much larger audience.