Bedsit land: The strange worlds of Soft Cell

by Patrick Clarke

A rich and revealing examination of the legendary pop duo Soft Cell.

Soft Cell are not your average pop band. Marc Almond and Dave Ball may be best known for the string of hits they released in 1981, but the powerful first phase of their collaboration embraced a staggering array of sounds, influences and innovations that would change the face of music to come.

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.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

Published September 3, 2024

Reviews

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun oral history, with that early 80s sense of sheer speed as things go from being beaten up in Leeds to watching people party in a giant bath of piss in New York in a matter of months.

[Wizadoraa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book, very well written and told mostly through archived interviews. The interviews are the driving force behind the book, but the filler narrations outside of these interviews holds it up very well. As a massive Soft Cell fan and have read both of Marc Almond’s autobiographies (tainted life, in search of the pleasure palace) and Dave Ball’s, “Electro boy.” I had to add this one to my list too.

It read as a biography for Soft Cell and went into detail about the music industry, the social circles of the duo and some key moments also referenced in the duo’s autobiographies. It also focuses on the timeline of 1979 to the band’s first amicable split back in 1984. It doesn’t go into Soft Cell after 1984.

This is a great book for citations and referencing too.

I would recommend the read. Well written, well structured and

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always hard to know how to rate pop music books - 5 stars for me, but not if you don’t already have a more than passing interest in Soft Cell. This was really fun. Obviously there were a lot of difficult times but the overall vibe is positive; nice people with loyal friends having a good time and making the most of opportunities that came their way. The mixture of new interviews and archive worked very well. I’m interested to see what the next subject of this series will be.

[Leoniepeonie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly an exquisite book. Expertly researched and knits together a fantastical array of voices and vignettes from within and around Soft Cell into a pretty damn impressive tapestry of narrative. Clarke did an incredible job of tracing a story through this piece, and I felt like I knew and understood Almond and Ball and the many other people involved at every stage. Clarke's writing is lucid and I'm stunned at how well he has stitched together so many interviews, punctuating and elevating them with his own interjections to create this. With my own family coming from Southport, I'm over the moon that Bedsit Land jumped out at me from a shelf in a London bookshop. It tells a story of a band, but also of the camp northern seaside, of Yorkshire where I now live, of New York in the early '80s, of a London now mostly lost, and captures and freezes a whirlwind period within social and music history. I adored it!

[david james · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a massive fan in the 80s and 90s - Soft Cell, Marc and the Mambas and Marc's solo career, I had most of the singles and albums. Lost track a bit after the 90s when they got back together, what with having a family and responsibilities and all that that shit entails, but I always had one eye on what Marc was up to and tried to get tickets to a couple of their shows in more recent years, without success.

I wouldn't exactly describe myself as a Gutter Heart, but anyone expressing a love for Soft Cell or Marc (or, indeed, anything a bit different) was always regarded as a little bit of a weirdo by the mainstream establishment and your 'normal' friends, so I definitely feel an affinity for many of the characters in this book.

I didn't really follow their personal lives that much and this book sheds some light on their genesis and their journey and the relationship between those around him, the record label, the other synth bands of the time, the club scene and the edginess of the times and it kind of brings back a lot of suppressed memories of those times.

The author has done a fantastic job of stitching together so many interviews and comments from people who knew the band, from Marc and Dave, and from other bands and making it a free flowing historical journey that was hard to put down. Generally I'm not a fan of biopics, especially fan written ones, but massive kudos to Patrick Clarke for this excellent book.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a music professor who enjoys reading just about any music book I can get my hands on. I was intrigued by this first edition of the British Pop Archive series as I revisited the bands of my childhood. As a University Press book, I wasn't expecting a volume so accessible to any audience from fans to students to faculty. Clarke writes a compelling narrative with copious quotes from band members and their associates. I learned so much about the development of Soft Cell as a band, related bands like Kraftwerk, The The, Cabaret Voltaire, Bronski Beat, etc. and their context and relationship to bands and artists such as Depeche Mode, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Boy George, and David Bowie. I learned about early post-punk electronica, performance art at the time, and cultural context in England and America. All this was packaged in a fun-to-read detailed narrative. Personal perspective: my knowledge of Soft Cell was limited, but now I'm interested in learning more. I look forward to future issues of the British Pop Archive series.

Thank you to Manchester University Press for the complimentary review copy.

[Harrie Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely the most perfect book for Gutter Hearts - A fabulous detailed fast reading knowledgeable study of the disparate roots of one of the most beloved pop groups of all time with details I have never heard or read before - Fascinating on the NYC history and the links with Non Stop Erotic Cabaret and onwards
The sign of a great read is slowing down in the reading because you are enjoying it so much and that is the stage I am now at-smiles-My favourite Soft Cell album is The Art of Falling Apart and I am awaiting this telling with keening anticipation
Really good to read about Marc's connections with Throbbing Gristle and Thee Temple of Psychick Youth in the formative years as England's hidden underground music scene deserves the recognition
Two men and a drum machine and synth take on the world on their own terms and create magick for a few wonderful years-Swoon
Thank you Patrick Clarke for such a wonderful dark glitter filled book

[sheenewood68 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t love the premise, that Soft Cell were more than just your average pop band, which has a slightly rockist assumes view of how the underground or left field ideas traditionally have fed into all sorts of pop music. Ditto the idea that, had Tainted Love not happened, they could have been a revered cult band, which I’m not sure is as interesting an endpoint as the one Sort Cell actually pulled off. That said, the oral history format mostly really works and whilst some of the 20th century history is pretty pedestrian (bin bags in Leicester Square klaxon!) it is good and right that the book lingers on 1980s New York and Raymond era Soho. I wish that someone had found Cindy Ecstasy, and that I’d appreciated Dave Ball more when he was here. RIP.

[Alvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for the Soft Cell obsessive, this slim volume could also work as a good introduction for initiate fans. Clarke deftly details the social context in which the band, and its various offshoots, produced their unique and masterful music; '70s art school culture, Sleazy Soho, Top of The Pops, The NY '80s club scene, etc. The author's perspicacity is all the more impressive given that he's too young to remember the 20th century and heterosexual to boot.