Electro Classic Jukebox: Soft Cell.

Two years after the triumphant debut of their first album Non-stop Erotic Cabaret and its immediate followup Non-stop Ecstatic Dancing, Soft Cell (Marc Almond & Dave Ball) came back in dark form with their third release, The Art of Falling Apart. While NSEC had more of a playful mentality, singing praises and curses of the sleaziness of late '70s and early '80s Soho, London (think "Sex Dwarf", "Seedy Films", and the lonely doldrums of "Bedsitter"), The Art of Falling Apart found Mssrs. Almond and Ball in much darker territory. From the sadly dysfunctional family at each others' throats in "Where the Heart Is" to the excruciatingly savage and harrowing examination of a stripper's life in "Baby Doll", TAOFA was more interested in telling the stories of people who otherwise wouldn't be noticed by the average Londoner. Maybe that's why it didn't sell as well as its predecessor, but it could also have been the drugs that were beginning to plague the duo. But when I look at the work of Soft Cell during those first three years (their fourth album, This Last Night In Sodom was, to me at least, a mixed bag at best), I find TAOFA to be their most assured and seamless adventure. Almond's voice really reached a level of seedy cabaret brilliance, Ball's synths and drum programming were precise and warm, and their trumpeter John Gatchell delivered some pretty freaking incredible and soulful blasts of jazz into the proceedings. 

All that being said, my favourite track off this album is actually a B-side from the 12" release of "Where The Heart Is". It's a fantastic and really quite weird number called "It's A Mug's Game," and here we find Almond, Ball, and Gatchell delivering what is probably the funniest synth-pop song ever released, ever. This paean to practically the worst day ever has such a silly and incredibly vibrant energy to it, that it nearly explodes out of your speakers. Featuring horrible hangovers, food poisoning, venereal disease, unintended pregnancy, emergency visits to the chemist, money problems, and strict fathers, you've just got to listen to it to believe it. Best lyric: "Oh God, it's another disease / And you just got rid of the last / You were beginning to feel OK / And the friends you gave it to were speaking to you again."

Here's "It's A Mug's Game." Enjoy!

soft cell

"it's a mug's game"

the art of falling apart

Good Riddance, Proposition 8.

It is with great excitement and happiness that Second Drawer Up (a huge believer of equal rights and fairness for all) can today report that Proposition 8, long an unfortunate "voter approved" denier of the right for gays and lesbians to marry, has been overturned by the most honorable Judge Vaughn Walker, of San Francisco's District 9 Court. A lawsuit, filed by a gay couple from Burbank and a lesbian couple from Berkeley, maintained that their right to be happy and maritally joined with the love of their lives was thwarted by the voters who allowed this travesty of justice and common sense to become law. Here are some of Judge Walker's comments regarding the Proposition in question (from Huffington Post):

"Sexual orientation is commonly discussed as a characteristic of the individual. Sexual orientation is fundamental to a person's identity and is a distinguishing characteristic that defines gays and lesbians as a discrete group. Proponents' assertion that sexual orientation cannot be defined is contrary to the weight of the evidence."

"Individuals do not generally choose their sexual orientation. No credible evidence supports a finding that an individual may, through conscious decision, therapeutic intervention or any other method, change his or her sexual orientation."

"Same-sex couples are identical to opposite-sex couples in the characteristics relevant to the ability to form successful marital unions. Like opposite-sex couples, same-sex couples have happy, satisfying relationships and form deep emotional bonds and strong commitments to their partners. Standardized measures of relationship satisfaction, relationship adjustment and love do not differ depending on whether a couple is same-sex or opposite-sex."

"Marrying a person of the opposite sex is an unrealistic option for gay and lesbian individuals."

"Same-sex couples receive the same tangible and intangible benefits from marriage that opposite-sex couples receive."

"The availability of domestic partnership does not provide gays and lesbians with a status equivalent to marriage because the cultural meaning of marriage and its associated benefits are intentionally withheld from same-sex couples in domestic partnerships."

"Permitting same-sex couples to marry will not affect the number of opposite-sex couples who marry, divorce, cohabit, have children outside of marriage or otherwise affect the stability of opposite-sex marriages."

Thank God Herself for some plain and simple common sense! Governor Schwarzenegger himself approved of the ruling: "Today's decision is by no means California's first milestone, nor our last, on America's road to equality and freedom for all people," he said in a statement.

So, good news then!

And in Second Drawer Up fashion, I'd like to share a video to help celebrate the overturning of a bigoted, shameful, and disgusting law.

From the Montreaux Festival in 1985, here's Marc Almond from Soft Cell and Jimmy Somerville of Bronski Beat performing the classic hit, "I Feel Love."

Feel the love, dear readers!