Singer Marc Almond's Career's Handbook: The Perverse Pixie Of Pop

Peter Mark Sinclair "Marc" Almond, OBE is an English singer-songwriter and musician. Almond first began performing and recording in the synthpop/new wave duo Soft Cell. He has also had a diverse career as a solo artist.

'The Judy Garland of the garbage heap, the prince of sleaze, an acid house Aznavour, the Jim Reeves of the bedsit generation, the perverse pixie of pop'

In 1981, two young men who had met at Leeds Polytechnic and called themselves Soft Cell went into a studio and recorded a cover of an obscure soul track adopted by the northern soul scene. It was a sparse affair, with the minimal electronic arrangement and an insistent drumbeat. Singer Marc Almond delivered a blistering vocal, loaded with the menace and despair that would become his signature. The song was called Tainted Love and went on to break all records as the track that remained the longest in the US Billboard Top 100, and received a Brit Award for best single of that year.