Music Video

Granted, this week of “Tainted Love” songs has run longer than a proper week, but I couldn’t go without mentioning SOFT CELL’s cover, which is the quintessential version for Gen X’ers and always guaranteed a good turnout on the dance floor.

Featuring Marc Almond and David Ball, it’s perhaps this is what SOFT CELL is best known for. It even set a Guinness World Record for longest stay on the Billboard Hot chart.

Perfectly programmed, expertly composed, it’s an absolute earworm that will never die. The video is oddly queer phantasmagoria, even for the 80s, but also completely fascinating and compelling.

Even though this is the most languid cover of “Tainted Love”, I have so much adoration for it. It’s so evocative and has so much heft, a quality which I always loved COIL for. They managed to aurally imbue queer anguish into it, which is a goddamn feat. While I know it was specifically recorded for the AIDS/HIV pandemic — yet another pandemic that still isn’t over! — it works on so many other levels.

“Everybody is looking for something. I traveled the world and the seven seas…”

This is a very quality live jazz cover of “Tainted Love” but I’ll give you two guesses as to what I don’t like about it, and the first doesn’t count. (My wife immediately sussed it out, if that’s a hint.) Otherwise, it’s hella fun!

You might not expect me to be a big rockabilly fan, but I am! It’s so joyful and I love the brass and boisterous voices!

Consequently, I find this cover absolutely delightful, although it is oddly perfunctory, but I’ll take what I can get.

BROKEN PEACH are known for their outlandish, specialized Halloween-centric videos, and last year they chose to cover “Tainted Love” and it’s goddamn brilliant. Of all of the videos I’ll be posting in this series, it’s my favorite because it’s so goth.

Most covers of the song submit to being relatively demure, but this? This is all wild-eyes and abandon, and I cannot get enough of it. It has a crazed energy and sensuality and theatrics, and the video is fascinating as it posits the song as folks who are trying to heal (or pleasantly hurt) in a mental hospital.

It’s perfectly choreographed for an indie ensemble video, and the spiral kickdrum is the cherry on the top. It’s a video that leaves me feeling as delightfully exhausted as it appears they are, and what more could you want from that?

Goddamn, it’s perfection. They fucking nailed what they wanted to do in every which way.

“TAKE MY TEARS AND THAT’S NOT NEARLY ALL!”

Welcome to “Tainted Love” week! “Tainted Love” is one of those few perfect pop songs that are amazingly specific, but at the same time can be construed in multi-faceted ways; it could be about a bad break-up, or could be about abuse or a traumatic relationship. There’s no wrong way to listen to it!

If you were/are a youth clubbing, this song — in one of its many variations — is an absolute staple. I can’t feature all of the covers — there are so many — but I can pinpoint my favorites, so buckle up!