I'm skilled at the art of falling apart
Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts
16/01/83 : The Art Of Falling Apart - Soft Cell
Marc Almond has been many things over his years, but he's very rarely been boring. And in Soft Cell, he and Dave Ball managed to make art school/bedsit music which a lot of people actually liked and bought - I wasn't convinced by all of it and I've never heard this album, but I'm interested to hear it.
And yeah, I didn't mind this at all - Marc delivers a strong vocal as expected, but Dave produces some really interesting synth-y sounds in the background. I don't really know how to describe it other than saying if you like Soft Cell then I don't see why you won't like this. The Human League would be another musical touchpoint I'd mention - they both emerged about the same time. I was surprised the album was 75 minutes long but, upon checking, the original version was a tight 40 minutes which a re-release increased (of course) - by adding a mere 4 tracks. I gave up half way through the ten minutes of the first one (which was a peculiar medley of Hendrix tracks) so as not to spoil my overall opinion. It's a weird album cover though and, to no-one's surprise, we've never owned this one - 13/51.
We're at #5 with a new entry this week - this was its high-point before it slid rapidly down the charts and disappeared after nine weeks. Above it in the charts were Raiders Of The Pop Charts, Men At Work, Phil Collins and John Lennon - the only other new entry in the top ten was The Stranglers at #7.
Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album - it dismisses all a bit as "well, not as good as what they did before" which may be true, but it's still a bit harsh. Although, NME had it as their 4th best album of the year, which, if I'm being honest, feels a bit generous. It also tells us that "Numbers" was based on the banned 1967 John Rechy novel of the same name - but has an amusing editorial footnote which goes "errr - I've looked, and it wasn't banned anywhere". There's no note on commercial performance, which suggests it did nothing anywhere else which doesn't massively surprise me. What did surprise me was the note on their entry that some reasonably knowledgeable people view them as pioneers of techno because of the track "Memorabilia" released in 1981 - I checked it out and it is surprisingly techno and the Wikipedia page for techno suggests it was pretty early. So considered me educated.
"Customers also listened to" Marc Almond & The Willing Sinners, Marc & The Mambas, The Human League and Visage - a definite overly dramatic musical thread running through those. I didn't mind this at all though and it's the sort of album I was hoping to get for 1983, which has rarely happened. It feels unlikely I'll revisit it, but I'm looking forward to Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret when we get there because I've somehow managed to avoid that so far in my many years.
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