David Ball of Smooth Cell, whose delectably sleazy synth-pop association drove that English duo’s 1981 hit “Tainted Love” to the highest of the U.Okay. singles chart, died Wednesday. He was 66.
The producer’s dying was introduced in a publish on Smooth Cell’s web site, which didn’t state a trigger however stated that Ball died at his dwelling in London. On Fb, the duo’s singer, Marc Almond, wrote that Ball’s well being “had been in slow decline over recent years” because of an unspecified sickness.
“It is hard to write this, let alone process it, as Dave was in such a great place emotionally,” Almond stated on Smooth Cell’s web site. “He was focused and so happy with the new album that we literally completed only a few days ago. It’s so sad as 2026 was all set to be such an uplifting year for him, and I take some solace from the fact that he heard the finished record and felt that it was a great piece of work.”
Ball and Almond carried out as Smooth Cell ultimately month’s Rewind Pageant in England; the LP they’d simply wrapped is about to be titled “Danceteria” after the New York Metropolis nightclub that turned an incubator of recent wave and synth-pop within the early ’80s.
Smooth Cell was an “experimental electro band [writing] weird little pop tunes about consumerism,” as Almond informed the Guardian in 2017, when the duo determined to report a canopy of “Tainted Love,” which the soul singer Gloria Jones had launched to little success in 1964.
Ball devised his tackle the tune utilizing his “dodgy old Korg synths” in addition to a state-of-the-art Synclavier that price greater than £100,000, in response to the Guardian. Smooth Cell’s cowl felt “twisted and strange,” Ball stated, which suited the “weird couple: Marc, this gay bloke in makeup, and me, a big guy who looked like a minder.”
With Almond’s panting vocal over Ball’s horny but sinister manufacturing, “Tainted Love” hit No. 1 within the U.Okay. the identical 12 months because the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” and “Prince Charming” by Adam & the Ants. Within the U.S., “Tainted Love” peaked at No. 8 on Billboard’s Scorching 100 in 1982.
In the present day the tune has been streamed greater than 1 billion instances on Spotify, saved alive partially by Rihanna’s distinguished pattern of “Tainted Love” in her 2006 hit “SOS.”
Ball was born Could 3, 1959, in Chester, England, and grew up in an adoptive household in Blackpool. He and Almond shaped Smooth Cell in 1979 after assembly as college students at Leeds Polytechnic, the place Almond was identified for a efficiency artwork piece during which “he’d be naked in front of a full-length mirror, smearing himself with cat food and shagging himself,” Ball informed the Guardian.
The duo launched its debut album, “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret,” in 1981, then adopted it with two extra LPs earlier than splitting in 1984. “Few groups took as much pleasure in perversity,” stated Rolling Stone, which known as “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret” a “conceptual salute to the sex industry.” In 2022, Pitchfork stated the duo’s debut provided “a snapshot of pre-AIDS queer life at its heady peak.”
After Smooth Cell’s breakup, Ball collaborated with Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle and shaped a dance group known as the Grid with the producer Richard Norris; he additionally labored within the studio with the likes of Kylie Minogue, the Pet Store Boys and David Bowie.
Smooth Cell reunited in 2001 and once more in 2018; the assertion on the band’s web site stated “Danceteria” would come out in early 2026. In line with the assertion, Ball’s survivors embrace 4 kids.
