David Ball of Mushy 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 loss of life was introduced in a publish on Mushy Cell’s web site, which didn’t state a trigger however mentioned that Ball died at his house in London. On Fb, the duo’s singer, Marc Almond, wrote that Ball’s well being “had been in gradual decline over current years” on account of an unspecified sickness.
“It’s exhausting to write down this, not to mention course of it, as Dave was in such an important place emotionally,” Almond mentioned on Mushy Cell’s web site. “He was targeted and so pleased with the brand new album that we actually accomplished only some days in the past. It’s so unhappy as 2026 was all set to be such an uplifting yr for him, and I take some solace from the truth that he heard the completed file and felt that it was an important piece of labor.”
Ball and Almond carried out as Mushy Cell eventually month’s Rewind Competition 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.
Mushy Cell was an “experimental electro band [writing] bizarre little pop tunes about consumerism,” as Almond instructed the Guardian in 2017, when the duo determined to file 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 previous Korg synths” in addition to a state-of-the-art Synclavier that value greater than £100,000, in line with the Guardian. Mushy Cell’s cowl felt “twisted and unusual,” Ball mentioned, which suited the “bizarre couple: Marc, this homosexual bloke in make-up, and me, an enormous man who regarded 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 yr because the Human League’s “Don’t You Need 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.
Immediately the tune has been streamed greater than 1 billion occasions on Spotify, saved alive partly by Rihanna’s distinguished pattern of “Tainted Love” in her 2006 hit “SOS.”
Ball was born Might 3, 1959, in Chester, England, and grew up in an adoptive household in Blackpool. He and Almond fashioned Mushy Cell in 1979 after assembly as college students at Leeds Polytechnic, the place Almond was recognized for a efficiency artwork piece through which “he’d be bare in entrance of a full-length mirror, smearing himself with cat meals and shagging himself,” Ball instructed the Guardian.
The duo launched its debut album, “Non-Cease Erotic Cabaret,” in 1981, then adopted it with two extra LPs earlier than splitting in 1984. “Few teams took as a lot pleasure in perversity,” mentioned Rolling Stone, which referred to as “Non-Cease Erotic Cabaret” a “conceptual salute to the intercourse trade.” In 2022, Pitchfork mentioned the duo’s debut supplied “a snapshot of pre-AIDS queer life at its heady peak.”
After Mushy Cell’s breakup, Ball collaborated with Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle and fashioned a dance group referred to 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.
Mushy Cell reunited in 2001 and once more in 2018; the assertion on the band’s web site mentioned “Danceteria” would come out in early 2026. In line with the assertion, Ball’s survivors embody 4 kids.
