ORIGINAL VERSUS COVER: PART TWELVE, TAINTED LOVE


Gloria Jones:

Here is my next and final post in the series in which I'll argue that the cover is better than the original version of the song. This time I'm going to compare Gloria Jones' original version and Soft Cell's cover version of the song, Tainted Love.

Written by Ed Cobb, Tainted Love was originally recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964. Gloria Jones is an American Motown soul singer who made it bigger in Britain than in America. With this song, she is regarded as the Queen of Northern Soul, a 1970s' music scene that flourished in the North and Midlands of England - the centre of this scene was the Wigan Casino. Gloria Jones also played keyboards and sang in Marc Bolan's English glam rock band, T. Rex. She gave birth to Marc Bolan's son, well the baby was her son too!

Gloria Jones' Tainted Love:

Gloria Jones' version of Tainted Love is good, and Glen Campbell played lead guitar in the song. But in 1981, Soft Cell covered this song which when released as a single became a massive hit in many countries. It charted high in America, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Not bad for a cover song!

Soft Cell's Tainted Love:

Apart from Northern Soul aficionados, I've not met anyone who likes Gloria Jones' original version over Soft Cell's cover version. This isn't that surprising as the Northern Soul music scene prided itself on championing American soul songs that weren't hits. Gloria Jones was there for the taking, and it just so happened that Marc Almond's Soft Cell took the song and turned it into a gay anthem.

Which version of Tainted Love do you like best, Gloria Jones' or Soft Cell's?

Looking back on the 12 songs I've chosen to argue that a cover version is better than the original version, I readily accept that I've been biased. I realise that a quarter of the original versions were folk songs and I'm no folk music fan, and that another quarter of the cover versions were either discofied or new waved and I'm a disco, new wave freak. But music is all about opinion.

Before I sign off this series,. I want to mention The Avalanches, an Australian electronic music band, and their album Since I Left You released in 2000. The album contained about 3,500 sampled pieces of music, nearly 200 samples per song on the album. The credits filled one side of the CD album cover.

The Avalanches are possibly the ultimate cover band. But big credit to the band for acknowledging their samples. In stark contrast, George Harrison released his My Sweet Lord song as a single in 1970. In 1976, a court ruled that the ex-Beatle has plagiarised his hit song given its similarity to Ronnie Mack's song He's So Fine which was a hit for The Chiffons in 1963. My Sweet Lord is a naughty cover!

If nothing else from this series, I've learnt that what the original and what the cover of the song isn't easy to determine.

Below are links to my other blog posts in this 'original versus cover' series:


Soft Cell:

Comments

  1. Bow and Arrow ManJuly 18, 2024 at 4:01 AM

    I'm going to take a break from Blogger in terms of submitting blog posts because everyone who reads my blog is on AFF and the number of views and comments I get are dwindling fast. I'll still occasionally pop in to see what's going on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JNJuly 20, 2024 at 11:22 PM

    I'm using Blogger as an archive storage more than actual blogging.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bow and Arrow ManJuly 21, 2024 at 1:31 AM

      I save my AFF blog posts, well the ones I want to save, on my computer elsewhere.

      Delete
  3. smartyJuly 21, 2024 at 1:56 PM

    The synth in Soft Cell's song is iconic. Kind of a dorky video though, haha!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bow and Arrow ManJuly 21, 2024 at 2:11 PM

      Your comment got spammed!
      The more I play the original, the more I like Gloria Jones' original.

      Delete

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