Musical Monday - Tainted Love by Soft Cell

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: September 5, 1981 through September 12, 1981.

Tainted Love is one of the first songs to reach number one that I recollect as being unequivocally identifiable as a product of the 1980s. There had definitely been quintessentially 1980s groups with number one hits prior to this point - Blondie for example. Hall and Oates for another. But their previous songs had clearly had roots in the prior decade. This one is definitively from the 1980s.

The other thing about Tainted Love is that pretty much everything about the song is memorable, from the hard hitting beat, to the wandery lyrics, to the nigh insane video that seems to mostly feature a man yelling at a little girl amidst a collection of people wearing a hodge-podge of period costumes.

I remember listening to this song on the radio in my grandmother's car. She drove a huge brown sedan - I think it was a Bonneville - and my family was visiting my grandparents in the summer, returning from the heat of Africa to spend time in the Virginia heat in the middle of August. We were in a parking lot, headed to pick something up, probably at a local drugstore, and it was beastly hot and humid. The car was cool, with the air conditioning putting in extra work to keep it that way, but what made me want to stay and sit after we had parked was the song. I remember being fascinated by it because it wasn't really like anything I had ever heard. I made my grandmother sit with the car idling until the song ended, and then we stepped out into the sun.

Previous Musical Monday: Japanese Boy by Aneka

Subsequent Musical Monday: Prince Charming by Adam and the Ants

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Japanese Boy by Aneka

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Prince Charming by Adam and the Ants

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

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