Four decades on, Soft Cell’s inaugural full-length offering, “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret,” still demands its place in the limelight as a beacon in the world of decadent electronic cadence and synth-pop. Drawing from the moody overtones of post-punk, the lilting notes of French chanson, the soulful echoes of America, gritty drama, and seedy nightlife, this album—after all these years—has themes that flirtatiously wink at the past while nodding to the now. It’s carved a path for many a synth-armed duo, stitching together the mysterious with a pop garnish that heralded a fresh era.
Unveiled to the world in those halcyon days of November of ’81, this collection of ten tracks, as Almond so eloquently describes, “tells a story of a bored ordinary bloke seething with his life wanting more and looking for excitement and adventure in a red neon lit Soho world of red-light cabarets, prostitutes and sex dwarves, looking back at his youth and wondering what happened.”
“Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret” blessed us with melodies that defined the era: the ubiquitous Tainted Love (oh, the anthem of ’81!), the poignant Bedsitter, and the bittersweet farewell of Say Hello Wave Goodbye. Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret captured the initial essence of Soft Cell, a decidedly pop chapter. By 1982, that chapter closed, making way for something a tad more… nocturnal. “We were done and dusted with that. The next one, was much darker,” Dave Ball reminisces. “All very weird and extreme, from living in a council flat and suddenly you’re flying on Concorde to New York.”
The popularity of Soft Cell’s sensuous, unapologetically queer take on Gloria Jones’ soul-soaked Tainted Love across the pond cannot be overstated. Staying atop the Billboard Hot 100 for an astonishing 43 consecutive weeks, the song opened American ears to the likes of The Cure and Depeche Mode.
Now, Mercury-EMI / UMR is celebrating Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret with various supplementary extras and rarities. The 6-CD, 98-track Super Deluxe Edition is the ultimate version of the album and features 40 unreleased pieces.
CD1 features Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, newly remastered in 2023 by Barry Grint, plus the A & B sides in their original 7” versions, including Torch, What!, the band’s first Phonogram single A Man Could Get Lost and Memorabilia produced by Mute’s Daniel Miller along with the 2016 edit of Fun City and a new edit of Persuasion, both only released on 12” at the time.
CD2 Non-Stop Extended Cabaret contains the entire album in extended 12” form, made up of Dave Ball’s 2018 studio reworkings of the album using only the original studio parts, plus the original “Bedsitter” 12” which all parties agreed just could not be improved upon. Also featured are new remixes of “Memorabilia” by techno legend The Hacker, Mute founder Daniel Miller, and a new Dave Ball extended of “A Man Could Get Lost.”
CD3 entitled Non-Stop Eclectic Cabaret is a treasure trove of rarities including BBC session highlights, a selection of demos, outtakes, audio from BBC TV and radio appearances on The Richard Skinner Show, The Old Grey Whistle Test, Top Of The Pops / Top Of The Pops 2 and The Oxford Road Show as well as selections from Heat: The Remixes, including Richard X’s now legendary version of “Seedy Films.”
CD4 is Non-Stop Instrumental Cabaret, which presents the full album instrumentally for the first time and six original 1981 demos, five of which are previously unreleased. These demos include a Daniel Miller-produced version of “Tainted Love,” “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye,” and a version of “Sex Dwarf,” which was previously presumed lost.
CD5 brings together the original 12” A and B-sides of 1981 and 1982 under the banner Non-Stop Original Cabaret, including “Memorabilia,” “Tainted Love,” “Say Hello Wave Goodbye,” and the standalone singles “Torch” and “What!.” Soft Cell were rightly hailed in their day for pouring their creative efforts and energies into the extended form, and these pioneering sides have become legendary.
CD6 includes the album performed live in full, plus “Torch” and “Memorabilia,” recorded live at Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo in November 2021. There are also three tracks from the band’s jubilant London O2 Arena show in September 2018.
Included in the beautiful 10” x 10” package housing the deluxe edition, is an essay on the story of the album by Adrian Thrills, including new interviews with Marc and Dave as well as full song lyrics, contemporary photography along, album, and single sleeve scans, and compiler’s credits from Chris Smith.
The 6-disc super deluxe edition is the ultimate representation of an album that defined a genre and a decade. Soft Cell is still active, touring and releasing new music. Their latest album, Happiness Not Included, is the first in 20 years. Additionally, they received great reviews for their collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys, Purple Zone, last year. As Marc Almond describes their enduring of Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret: “Dave and I will carry on being creative, but it will be hard for us to produce another record that’s loved in quite the same way as Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret was loved.”
The Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret deluxe edition is set to be released on October 20th. See the full tracklisting for the CD and Vinyl edition below.
Soft Cell’s Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret 6 CD Expanded Edition:
CD1: Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret: 2023 Remaster + Singles, B-Sides & Edits
CD2: Non-Stop Extended Cabaret: Full-Length Versions & New Remixes
CD3: Non-Stop Exotic Cabaret: Curios, Rarities, Sessions & Alternate Mixes
CD4: Non-Stop Instrumental Cabaret: Instrumentals & Bonus Demos
CD5: Non-Stop Original Cabaret: The 1981 / 1982 12” Mixes & B Sides
CD6: Non-Stop Intimate Cabaret: Live In Concert, London 2021 & 2018
Soft Cell’s Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret 2-LP Expanded Edition. Available in black vinyl and limited edition yellow/blue vinyl.
Side A
Side B
Side C
Side D
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