RARE SOFT CELL 12" BOX SET MARC ALMOND RARE 6 X 12"

	£		35
	$		46

YOU ARE BIDDING ON A RARE 6 X 12" LIMITED BOX SET

SOFT CELL

THE TWELVE INCH SINGLES

RELEASED ON SOME BIZZARE CEL BX 1

6 X 12" SINGLES COMPLETE WITH COVERS & 1 X BOOKLET

TRACKS ARE

Memorabilia - Long Version
Persuasion

What!
....So

Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go
Tainted Dub

Bedsitter
Facility Girls

Say Hello Wave Goodbye - Extended Version
Fun City - Live

Torch
Insecure Me

ALL RECORDS & SLEEVES ARE EXCELLENT CONDITION

BOX TOP EXCELLENT

ALL SIDES EXCELLENT

BACK SLIGHT WARE

A synth-pop duo famed for its uniquely sleazy electronic sound, art students Marc Almond and Dave Ball formed Soft Cell in Leeds, England in 1980. Originally, vocalist Almond and synth player Ball teamed to compose music for theatrical productions, and as Soft Cell, their live performances continued to draw heavily on the pair's background in drama and the visual arts. A self-financed EP titled Mutant Moments brought the duo to the attention of Some Bizzare label head Stevo, who enlisted Daniel Miller to produce their underground hit single "Memorabilia" the following year.

It was the next Soft Cell effort, 1981's "Tainted Love," that brought the duo to international prominence; written by the Four Preps' Ed Cobb and already a cult favorite thanks to Gloria Jones' soulful reading, the song was reinvented as a hypnotic electronic dirge which became the year's best-selling British single, as well as a major hit abroad. The group's debut LP, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, was also enormously successful, and was followed by the 1982 remix collection Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing.

While 1983's The Art of Falling Apart proved as popular as its predecessors, the LP's title broadly hinted at the internal problems plaguing the duo; prior to the release of 1984's This Last Night in Sodom, Soft Cell had already broken up. Almond immediately formed the electro-soul unit Marc and the Mambas; another group, Marc Almond and the Willing Sinners, followed before the singer finally embarked on a solo career in the late '80s. After a number of years of relative inactivity, Ball later resurfaced in the techno outfit the Grid.

After disbanding Soft Cell, vocalist Marc Almond pursued a solo career that followed the same vaguely sleazy, electronic dance-pop his former group had made popular. Almond's strength was never his personality — his voice tends to waver around the notes instead of hitting them. It was the atmosphere he created with the synths and drum machines. Underneath all of the electronics and disco rhythms, Almond harked back to the days of cabaret singers, updating that sound for the dance clubs of the '80s.

Before he properly started a solo career, Marc Almond formed Marc & the Mambas, a loose congregation that featured Matt Johnson of The The and Annie Hogan. Untitled (1982), the group's first album, featured covers of Lou Reed, Syd Barrett, and Jacques Brel; throughout his career, Almond would cover the songs of Brel, which he had learned from the records of Scott Walker. Like Walker, Almond used Brel's heavily orchestrated compositions and social ruminations as a starting point, both musically and lyrically — Almond added a self-conscious element of camp with his Euro-disco and occasionally sleazy lyrics. Torment & Toreros (1983), Marc & the Mambas' second album, explored this path in more detail than Untitled, only to an orchestral background. After its release, the group broke up.

Almond formed the backing group the Willing Sinners in 1984, releasing Vermin in Ermine in 1984. Almond began to hit his stride with this album, which fulfilled most of his campy cabaret fantasies. Stories of Johnny, released the following year, was more cohesive, spawning a British hit with the title song. Even though he maintained a cult following in England and various parts of Europe, his records were not being released in the U.S.

In 1987, Almond released Mother Fist and Her Five Daughters, his first proper solo album and his bleakest work to date; a compilation, Singles: 1984-1987, appeared the same year. Stars We Are, released the following year, was a brighter, more welcoming album that revived his commercial career. In addition to a duet with Nico on "Your Kisses Burn," Almond dueted with Gene Pitney on Pitney's own "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart," which became a number one single. Stars We Are also became his first album released in the U.S. since Soft Cell.

Almond followed the success of Stars We Are in 1990 with the pet project Jacques, a collection of Brel songs. That same year, he released Enchanted, which was more successful than Jacques, yet didn't reach the heights of Stars We Are. In 1991, he released The Tenement Symphony, and in 1993, a live album entitled Twelve Years of Tears, followed by a pair of albums on EMI. Almond then switched over to New York independent Thirsty Ear, who reissued some of his material, and then again to Instinct with his 1999 release Open All Night. Through the early 2000s, Almond stayed busy releasing archived live performances on both CD and DVD as well as issuing the studio efforts Stranger Things (2001) and Heart on Snow (2003) for yet another label, Psychobaby.