In the early 1980s, Soft Cell brought the darker corners of club culture into the pop spotlight. Fronted by Marc Almond, the duo fused icy synths with sleazy glamour, queer subtext, and emotional extremity—songs that felt at home in both underground clubs and on the radio. “Tainted Love” may have made them ubiquitous, but the aesthetic was always sharper, stranger, and more confrontational than mainstream pop suggested.
