Soft Cell Announce Reissue of Debut Album, ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’

1980s synth-pop duo Soft Cell will re-release their debut album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, on October 20 through Mercury-EMI/UMR. The group is perhaps most known for their hit cover of “Tainted Love,” which was originally sung by Gloria Jones.

The upcoming release for the remaster of Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret will include a 6xCD Super Deluxe edition. The Super Deluxe edition includes 98 songs, with 40 of those being never-before-heard tracks. The remastered album will also be available as a limited edition 2xLP in yellow and blue or black vinyl. 

[RELATED: Who Wrote Soft Cell’s 1981 Hit “Tainted Love”?]

In a recent press statement, Marc Almond of Soft Cell discussed Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, which was originally released on November 27, 1981 through Some Bizzare Records. “[Non-Stop Cabaret] tells a story of a bored ordinary bloke seething with his life wanting more and looking for excitement and adventure in a red neon-lit Soho world of red-light cabarets, prostitutes and sex dwarves, looking back at his youth and wondering what happened,” Almond explained, per Far Out Magazine.

“The album was the other side of the coin of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. I never felt it was political at the time, but it seems it now,” Almond continued. “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret was the secret seedy life that went on behind the mask of Conservative Britain.”

Ahead of the reissue’s release, Soft Cell dropped a new extended version of the original album’s first track, “Frustration.” The new version of the song was released two days ago and holds a runtime of six minutes and three seconds. The original track is only about four minutes and 11 seconds long.

During a May 2023 interview with The Guardian, both Almond and David Ball of Soft Cell were asked about their motivation for making new music. “The fear of stopping,” Almond responded. “I’ve been in the public eye for two-thirds of my life. As American novelist John Updike wrote: ‘Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.’ Even if I wasn’t working, I would still get recognized and asked: ‘Didn’t you used to be Marc Almond?’ I still feel excited by making music. So I might as well keep dancing.”

“I’ve got nothing else to do, really. In 2022, I fell down the stairs and fractured my spine; I haven’t been able to walk properly for a year. I’ve had to move house because of my accident, so now I have a New York-style bachelor pad with a recording studio overlooking the Houses of Parliament,” Ball said in his response. “That’s good for inspiration, and turning my bad situation into a good one.”

Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns