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Breeze · 07-23-2019, 06:48 AM

4. Soft Cell – Tainted Love (1982)

Total Points – 261
Charts – 4
Top 40 – 0
Top 20 – 2
Top 10 – 2
Total Ranking – 2, 3, 12, 20, NR, NR

Amazingly, this song reached number 4 in our countdown despite the fact it is only ranked in 4 of the 6 seed lists, making it’s final score better than 8 of the 10 songs that were ranked in 5 lists and better than 1 of the 2 that were ranked in all 6. Out of the 4 lists that this song appears in, it is always ranked in the top 20, and in two cases is ranked in the top 3. Soft Cell is a duo consisting of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball. The two came to prominence in the early 80s, generating 10 top 40 hits on the UK singles chart, including 5 hits in the top 5. However, the band’s only #1 single was this song, which coincidentally was also the best selling UK single of 1981. In the US, the song had a strange path in the Hot 100. It debuted on the countdown in January of ’82 at number 90. It climbed for a few weeks, but stopped at #64, then it fell to number 100 at the end of February. It stayed at 100 for a second week, before it oddly started climbing again. This time taking 19 additional weeks to crack the top 40. The song continued its slow progress up the charts and eventually peak at #8. At the end of the song's run it spent a then record-breaking 43 weeks in the Hot 100. The song was originally written by Ed Cobb of the group The Four Preps and recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964. Soft Cell originally recorded the song in 1976 as a dance number which had a significantly different tone and tempo even being described as frantic. The song was re-recorded with producer Mike Thorne, who admitted that he was originally surprised that this song was chosen to be the single, because he didn’t care for the 1976 version. However, he noted after seeing the band live, he heard a novel sound and a better voice than he expected. The song was slowed down significantly, and the key was dropped to G in order to make it a more natural fit for Almond, and the rest is OHW history. This song has been covered and sampled numerous times through the years. It was also featured in a very memorable Levi’s jean’s commercial, where a patient’s heart monitor creates the distinctive ‘bink bink’ hook in the song. Interestingly, that commercial was directed by Spike Jonze.

07-23-2019, 06:48 AM	#238
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	4. Soft Cell – Tainted Love (1982) Total Points – 261 Charts – 4 Top 40 – 0 Top 20 – 2 Top 10 – 2 Total Ranking – 2, 3, 12, 20, NR, NR Amazingly, this song reached number 4 in our countdown despite the fact it is only ranked in 4 of the 6 seed lists, making it’s final score better than 8 of the 10 songs that were ranked in 5 lists and better than 1 of the 2 that were ranked in all 6. Out of the 4 lists that this song appears in, it is always ranked in the top 20, and in two cases is ranked in the top 3. Soft Cell is a duo consisting of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball. The two came to prominence in the early 80s, generating 10 top 40 hits on the UK singles chart, including 5 hits in the top 5. However, the band’s only #1 single was this song, which coincidentally was also the best selling UK single of 1981. In the US, the song had a strange path in the Hot 100. It debuted on the countdown in January of ’82 at number 90. It climbed for a few weeks, but stopped at #64, then it fell to number 100 at the end of February. It stayed at 100 for a second week, before it oddly started climbing again. This time taking 19 additional weeks to crack the top 40. The song continued its slow progress up the charts and eventually peak at #8. At the end of the song's run it spent a then record-breaking 43 weeks in the Hot 100. The song was originally written by Ed Cobb of the group The Four Preps and recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964. Soft Cell originally recorded the song in 1976 as a dance number which had a significantly different tone and tempo even being described as frantic. The song was re-recorded with producer Mike Thorne, who admitted that he was originally surprised that this song was chosen to be the single, because he didn’t care for the 1976 version. However, he noted after seeing the band live, he heard a novel sound and a better voice than he expected. The song was slowed down significantly, and the key was dropped to G in order to make it a more natural fit for Almond, and the rest is OHW history. This song has been covered and sampled numerous times through the years. It was also featured in a very memorable Levi’s jean’s commercial, where a patient’s heart monitor creates the distinctive ‘bink bink’ hook in the song. Interestingly, that commercial was directed by Spike Jonze. Last edited by Breeze : 07-23-2019 at 06:52 AM.