When Soft Cell first appeared on Top of the Pops in summer 1981, miming along to their version of Gloria Jones’s ‘Tainted Love’, it felt like a moment of palpable newness. Well, it certainly did if you were prepubescent and really had no idea what sex actually was.
Romantic love — in either its glory or disappointment — was the everyday subject of the pop song, but here was this funny little fella in black, with studded accessories, singing of a love that was ‘tainted’. I had no idea what he got up to when the lights went out. I knew that homosexuality existed — in the same way that California condors existed, and Olympic athletes existed. But as a provincial 12-year-old, I had no idea that Marc Almond was gay, though I was absolutely certain he wasn’t the same as my parents, or my friends’ parents. Almond seemed less an imp of the perverse than of the downright perverted.
Thirty-seven years later, at their third final-ever gig — they have previously played final-ever gigs in 1984 and 2004 — the perversion was, understandably, less evident.
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