Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

Contains bonus tracks.
Soft Cell: Marc Almond (vocals); David Ball (various instruments).
Additional personnel: David Tofani (saxophone, clarinet); The Vicious Pink Phenomena (background vocals).
Recorded at Camden Cell Studios, London, England.
As with so many groups of their time and place--synthesizer-obsessed England in the early '80s--Soft Cell's first album is also their best. NON-STOP EROTIC CABARET is a self-consciously seedy but nonetheless delightful excursion into knowing decadence. The artifice is plain--Marc Almond's coyly melodramatic vocals and Dave Ball's witty synths suggest that you shouldn't take this album seriously for a moment--but the songs are mostly strong enough to make this a satisfying album. The hyperspeed "Frustration" careens directly to the glorious "Tainted Love," an archetype of '80s pop music unmatched by anything else the duo ever did, though "Bedsitter," "Sex Dwarf" and the blatantly sentimental "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" come close.