Although Marc Almond and Dave Ball grew up in Southport and Blackpool respectively before meeting at Leeds Polytechnic in 1977, Soft Cell are arguably a London band: both men moved to the capital as soon as they could and remained there for decades after wards.
While their debut album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret isn’t exactly a London concept record, it captures the sound of pre-gentrification Soho better than anyone else. Seamy songs like Youth, Sex Dwarf and Seedy Films drip with the danger and illicit sex of the city in the 1980s.
For the remainder of Soft Cell’s first incarnation, and his even murkier 80s alter-ego in Marc And The Mambas, Almond lived opposite infamous Soho strip club Raymond Revuebar. For Soft Cell, success only meant finding nicer homes in London, rather than suburban retreats or country mansions. Indeed, their second split, after Cruelty Without Beauty in the early Noughties, was precipitated by a row after bumping into each other in the streets of central London.