THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (11)

It was last November when Part 10 of this irregular series appeared.  I hope some of you are happy to see it return as, along with its companion pieces – the 12″ Lucky Dip and the CD Single Lucky Dip – there’s going to be a lot of such postings going forward.  If nothing else, it saves me trying to come up with some sort of smart-ass title most days.

Soft Cell came to prominence in August 1981, thanks to a cover of an obscure Northern Soul song.   Their final single from that original era of recording appeared in February 1984, just two-and-half years later, and it too was a cover of an obscure Northern Soul single

mp3: Soft Cell – Down In The Subway

The time period between the two is important, as it highlights the brevity of the period of domination enjoyed by Marc Almond and Dave Ball.  Nine hit singles and three hit albums was some achievement, particularly as they never really got a fair press for much of it….their rise to fame made them fair game for the UK tabloids, while the music papers were still very suspicious of synth-music, not deeming the groups to be authentic as they relied on machinery to make so many of their sounds, particularly in live settings.

The duo had already announced they were dissolving Soft Cell by the time the third album, This Last Night In Sodom, was released.  There was no enthusiasm for any sort of promotional activities, and neither Marc nor David seemed too fussed that the reviews ranged from lukewarm to hostile.  They probably anticipated as much.  It’s far removed from the synth-pop with which they made their name, and leans in places towards the industrial grime of the sort of acts that the music papers fawned over and whom the tabloids had no inkling.  It’s not an easy listen, but it proved to be a great two-fingers departure to the pop industry, with it being a full 18 years before the next studio album, and a further 20 years again to the one after that.

Down In The Subway was the cover version included on This Last Night…. It dated from 1968, and was written by Jack Hammer.   Their take on it didn’t have too much in the way of synths on it, and I don’t think many folk imagined it would be a single.  But to be fair, many of the subject matters of the songs on the album made them almost impossible to issue on 7″ vinyl.

Rather unusually, the single version is longer than the album version, thanks to a much longer outro.  It reached #24 in the charts, which was actually one place higher than the double-A side effort Numbers/Barriers had achieved some 12 months earlier.

The b-side was an otherwise unavailable Almond/Ball composition

mp3: Soft Cell – Disease and Desire

It’s everything that the duo were looking to do at this point in their career.  It’s not a sing-a-long effort, and it’s not one that would fill the dance floors.    It was the exclamation point after the final word of the last sentence on their letter of resignation to the pop industry.

Enjoy??!!

JC