I keep getting Emails from people asking me to re-upload the links and music etc. I think people are just getting to those particular pages so are not reading the reason for the dead links.
So I am putting this in place so hopefully people will read it and stop Emailing me about it.
The reason the links are dead is that my account with Media Fire has been closed with all 11,000 files lost. That is why you can not download the things and No I can not re-upload them.
Eventually I will start doing that again when I have found something suitable. In the meantime this blog will be information only blog.
Thank you all
Michaael
New Blog Forum
The 80s Music and Fame Media Forum is now open for users to chat, make new friends, leave messages for each other and leave comments on the blog sites. To access it click the link below or use the link in the side bar.
'Memorabilia' was the third single released by Soft Cell. Only released as a 12 inch the 12 inch was produced by Daniel Miller, the founder of Mute Records.
Recorded at Stage One Studios in December 1980 the single was released in 1981.
While 'Memorabilia' was a success in nightclubs, Soft Cell remained essentially unknown untill their next single 'Tainted Love'.
Click the link below to download the following: Single Version Short Version Long Version 12 inch Version Persuasion - B-Side
Soft Cell released 'Say hello wave goodbye' as their fifth single in early 1982. It was the last track on their 1981 album 'Non-stop erotic cabaret'. The song's title is a reference to The Beatles' song 'Hello, Goodbye'.
The 12" single included a nine minute version with an extended clarinet solo and instrumental parts.
The single version basically cuts the extended version of the 12" single into two parts, in which the first part becomes the instrumental version on the B-side, the second part is the single version on the A-side.
Soft Cell reached third place in the UK singles chart with this, one of their most acclaimed tracks in their career. It was covered by English singer David Gray in 1999.
Click the link to download the following: Video 1991 Video Version Single Version Instrumental Version - Single B-Side 12 inch Extended Version 1991 - The Long Goodbye - Extended Mendelson Remix Fun City - 1992 12 inch B-Side Memorabilia - 1991 Extended Grid Mix - Extra Track
Synth Britannia is BBC4 documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage.
In the late 1970s, small pockets of electronic artists including the Human League, Daniel Miller and Cabaret Volatire were inspired by Kraftwerk and JG Ballard and dreamt of the sound of the future against the backdrop of bleak, high-rise Britain.
The crossover moment came in 1979 when Gary Numan's appearance on Top of the Pops with Tubeway Army's Are Friends Electric heralded the arrival of synthpop. Four lads from Basildon known as Depeche Mode would come to own the new sound whilst post-punk bands like Ultravox, Soft Cell, OMD and Yazoo took the synth out of the pages of the NME and onto the front page of Smash Hits.
By 1983, acts like Pet Shop Boys and New Order were showing that the future of electronic music would lie in dance music.
Contributors include Philip Oakey, Vince Clarke, Martin Gore, Bernard Sumner, Gary Numan and Neil Tennant.
Originally Transmitted on 16th October 2009 on BBC4
The follow-up to a massive hit can go several ways, but the main possibilities include: 1) an almost exact simulation, a lucky strike turned into a formula or 2) the hit is used as a springboard to go deeper and weirder, with the added confidence caused by unexpected success.
'Bedsitter' came off the back of 'Tainted Love', Soft Cell's 1981 bestselling single. Their cover of Gloria Jones's northern soul classic (which segued, on the 12-inch, into the Supremes' Where Did Our Love Go) was a minimalist anthem that both betrayed the duo's north-western origins and made the most of their performance art leanings.
'Bedsitter' is cut from the same cloth as 'Tainted Love': sparse production, highlighting the simple, repetitive synth lines, the expressive vocal and the almost burlesque uh-uh hook cueing the verse. Ball understood structure and dance appeal, while Almond got the grunge beneath the glitz, the desperation behind the shiny facade of London's newly swinging club land.
Released in November 1981, Bedsitter peaked at No 4 that Christmas; the No 1 was the Human League with their breakthrough hit, 'Don't You Want Me'. The single version was included on Soft Cell's classic first album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, which continued the group's tender/wicked duality, especially in the segue between Youth and Sex Dwarf.
Click the link blow to download the following: Video Single Version 12 inch Extended Version Facility Girls - B-Side Favulty Girls - Extended 12 inch Version
Flexipop magazine was famous for the re-emergence of the flexible music disc in the UK during the 1980s. Launched in 1980 by ex-Record Mirror journalists Barry Cain and Tim Lott, the magazine featured a flexidisc in each issue. The magazine lasted for two years. One of the most notable issues was the February 1981 disc featuring Adam and the Ants performing a version of the Village People hit "Y.M.C.A.", called "A.N.T.S.".
The magazine has maintained a memorable reputation among music collectors because of the flexidisc and the revival of interest in 1980s pop. Huw Collingbourne, a contributing writer to Flexipop, gave an interview to Stylus magazine about the publication in which he said, "Other music mags may have dabbled in flexis, but Flexipop! made a career of it. We had singles by the top bands of the day—everyone from The Jam to Depeche Mode. A really good flexi would make the magazine fly off the newsstands."
In 1981 Flexipop Magazine Issue Number 12 came with the free flexi disc that had 2 tracks on it.
The first track was by Soft Cell entitled .Metro MRX'. The second track was by B-Movie entitled 'Remembrance Day'.
Following on from the exceptional reception for Soft Cell’s debut album, and the mammoth sales for ‘Tainted Love’, the extroverted Marc Almond was elevated to the status of cult figure, and was adopted as a figurehead of sorts for the gay community, though as per usual, sections of the press were keen to undermine his actions, and criticised what they perceived as deliberately effeminate posturing.
Regardless, Soft Cell continued to dominate the British charts throughout 1982, next up with the stand alone single ‘Torch’, which burned bright at number 2 in the U.K. Singles Chart, and featured the vocals of one Cindy Ecstasy. Cindy was a New Yorker, with whom Almond and Ball had become friendly whilst recording their debut set. Ecstasy by name, and in this case, by nature - the new club drug ecstasy, that is. It established the beginnings of a slippery slope for both, particularly Almond
The dominant A side of what was intended to be a double-A side, brings together all the classic Soft Cell elements: the world-weariness, the tender bitterness, the vulnerable regret of making avoidable mistakes. It was to be a real pinnacle of achievement and as was becoming a standard achievement for Marc, his lyrics delicately and effectively walked the fine line between pure camp and simple, basic emotion. As often, his characters care deeply but haven’t got their grip on the world quite right.
Click the link below to download the following: Video Single Version Extended Version Insecure Me - B-Side
Showing impatience in the wake of the chart failure of "Memorabilia", Phonogram Records allowed Soft Cell to record a second and final single in an attempt to score a chart hit. In July 1981 they release their third single, ‘Tainted Love’ which was backed by "Where Did Our Love Go?". This was an obscure 1964 northern soul track originally sung by Gloria Jones (the girlfriend of Marc Bolan) and written by Ed Cobb of The Four Preps.
The A-side of the 12 inch single of "Tainted Love" actually featured a two-song medley, with "Tainted Love" blending into the Motown classic "Where Did Our Love Go" by The supremes. There was also a version that had "Memorabilia" as the B side (which had been the A side of their second single). The A side appeared on their debut album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. The two B sides did not but were added as bonus tracks when the album was re-released on CD.
'Memorabilia' was the third single released by Soft Cell. Only released as a 12 inch the 12 inch was produced by Daniel Miller, the founder of Mute Records.
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