I hadn’t intended to do such a quick follow-up to the post from earlier this week, but it felt like the right thing to do on the back of the comments that were added when I featured Hard Times/Love Action by The Human League.
Mention was made of July 1981 being a great month for 12″ releases, thanks not only to the Human League but also singles by Soft Cell and Spandau Ballet, with the latter being a particular favourite of postpunkmonk (whose website/blog is one of the best written and most informative out there….his depth of knowledge is ridiculously impressive).
As I’m away on a short holiday, I felt it made a bit of sense to do a bit of cut’n paste from the previous occasions when the 12″ versions of Tainted Love and Chant No.1 featured on the blog.
It was only after making this decision that I found out the long pieces on both singles were over on the old blog, going back to sometime between 2007 and the first half of 2013.
Damn!
But here’s what was said as part of the Soft Cell ICA (#156) from February 2018.
mp3: Soft Cell- Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go (12″)
“On the LP (Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret), the last wail of the sax on Frustration goes straight into one of the most recognisable two-note pieces of music ever recorded.
Marc Almond has since written that the arrangement on Tainted Love is all down to David Ball, with one exception; it was Marc’s idea to open with the tinny sounding ‘bim bim’ that would then be repeated throughout the song in the background. It was also his idea that the song would segue perfectly into another sixties classic, albeit in Where Did Our Love Go? they were deploying a tune that was incredibly well-known. At this time, the duo were still focussed on being experimental as much as possible, and the plan when they went into the studio was to go for a 12” release aimed at the club market. It was producer Mike Thorne who twisted their arms to go with Tainted Love as a stand-alone track and as a compromise, a stand-alone cover of the Supremes number would be the b-side.
The 7” became a #1 hit the world over and went Top 10 on the Billboard chart in the USA, staying in that particular Top 100 for 43 weeks. It has sold millions, but of course neither Almond nor Ball have any songwriting royalties from such sales thanks to the error of not including one of their own compositions on the single (albeit a re-recorded Memorobilia was on the 12”).”
And here’s what was written in September 2017 in a longish piece offering the opinion that Spandau Ballet once had ‘it’ but lost ‘it’ somewhere along the way….probably around the release of Gold or True.
mp3 : Spandau Ballet – Chant No.1 (I Don’t Need This Pressure On) (12″)
This piece of horn-driven funk climbed all the way to the Top 3 in the UK, spending months hanging around the charts and becoming a staple of every club and discotheque in the country. If a black band, say from NYC or Philadelphia, had written and recorded Chant No.1, it would have been held up as an instant classic, but instead this group of young, fashionable Londoners were accused by their critics of music by numbers. It was, and remains, a nailed-on classic that the band never ever bettered.
I stand by all of the above paragraph.
As my dear friend from Germany says in his sign-offs,
Take care. And enjoy.
JC
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
There was a real thrill when hearing Tainted Love and knowing (familiarity with the club) that it would the extended version. Most goth clubs mostly played the extended version. Thank you goth clubs.
I was quite fond of Spandau Ballet. As I’ve noted on these pages I was quite the new romantic – the particular genre that first took my paper round money from me in exchange for records. Journeys to Glory I still think of fondly.
That said chunk-funk stunk and Chant No. 1 had no place in my emerging interest in music. We all have our stinkers (other views are accepted) and this was, it remains, one of mine. The ‘funk’ shouldn’t have come as a surprise e.g. Muscle Bound, but it did. I’m still not a fan of funk. I acknowledge it’s influence and enjoy bands who’ve gone on to utilise its elements but… it’s not a genre that captures me.
I’d rather be standing on a dance floor in a goth club for eight, or so minutes, systematically nodding my head to each and every ‘bim bim’.
Please, no pelters.
Flimflamfan
2 excellent pop songs
SC
tainted Love is one of my favorite singles. Having said that I’d rather listen to stars on 45 on repeat than ever hear the 12” version again.
WinterInMaypark
As opposite to FFF I consider myself a rather solid funk-fan, but I prefer Spandau Ballet in their New Romantic fashion (read the first album primarily).
I love the Tainted Love 12″, the breakdown and synth line into WDOLG is superb.
Thanks for the kind words, TVV (check’s in the mail)! Well, you’ve managed to pair one of my top singles of 1981 (and my vision of Spandau’s apex); rightly noted, with a 12” mix that has gotten the “New Wave Hall Of Shame” stamp on my blog. Though I’ll never complain about the “always leave them wanting more” succinct 7” version of “Tainted Love.” I didn’t know that it was Thorne who persuaded Soft Cell to forego any writing royalties on their worldwide top selling single. Any fool knows you always put a self-written cut on the B-side of a cover version single! That’s songwriting 101!
When I was a kid, Tainted Love was a radio litmus test. If they played the full 9min mix then they were cool.
Chant #1 is (at least over here) sort of a stealth bop. In the US folks pretty much only know one Spandau Ballet song and when I play Chant they are shocked to learn it’s the same band (before dancing their ass off of course)
I agree that ‘Chant no.1’ still sounds great all these years later. If you like the style check out: J.Walter Negro* / Nicky Tesco – Cost Of Living from 1983 produced by David Allen with the bass up front. For some reason it was never a hit! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcvryQgSHf0&t=77s. Nicky Tesco was of course the Members lead singer – J Walter Negro was a tag name of a New York base rapper – see ‘Shoot the pump’ from 1981 and the man who invented the phrase ‘Zoo York.