In 1981, amid the nascent New Romantic band explosion and burgeoning synth pop scene, there emerged Soft Cell. You knew when they'd made an appearance on Top of the Pops, because everyone would talk about it at school the next day. From Marc Almond's eye make up, leather wear and theatricality, to the titles of their releases (what was a non-stop erotic cabaret anyway?), they hinted at something subversive, something sordid, seedy and exciting going on behind the net curtains of British suburbs and cities. When I first arrived in Leeds in the early 2000s, on a tour of noteworthy landmarks, my partner pointed out an innocuous looking flat in Woodhouse. 'Mark Almond lived there' she said, as we walked past. Marc Almond... the kohl-eyed, leather capped torch singer, the bedsitter, cooking meals to hide his emptiness? It was the highlight of the tour.
In Bedsit land, Patrick Clarke plunges into the archives and interviews more than sixty contributors, including the band members themselves, to follow Soft Cell through the many strange and sprawling worlds that shaped their extraordinary career. They lead him from the faded camp glamour of the British seaside to the dizzying thrills of the New York club scene. From transgressive student performance art to the sleaze and squalor of pre-gentrified Soho. From the glitz of British showbiz to the drug-addled chaos of post-Franco Spain.
Size: 129. x196mm (paperback)
Pages: 247
Publisher: Manchester University Press
