R.I.P. Dave Ball, one half of synth-pop duo Soft Cell

Ball "passed away peacefully in his sleep" at 66 years old.

R.I.P. Dave Ball, one half of synth-pop duo Soft Cell

Dave Ball, founding member of the pioneering English synth-pop duo Soft Cell, died on Wednesday. Representatives for the musician told The Guardian that Ball “passed away peacefully in his sleep at his London home,” but did not share an official cause of death. Ball was 66.

With his Soft Cell partner Marc Almond, Ball produced chart-topping hits like the duo’s popular cover of Gloria Jones’ “Tainted Love” and their 1981 debut Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, which went platinum in the U.K. In a tribute on his website, Almond called Ball a “wonderful brilliant musical genius,” writing, “Thank you Dave for being an immense part of my life and for the music you gave me. I wouldn’t be where I am without you.” 

Ball was born in 1959 and raised in Blackpool, England. Ball later cited the “showbizzy” side of the resort town as an early inspiration, as well as his father’s engineering background, which led to an interest in electronics, per The Guardian. He’s also cited listening to Kraftwerk’s Autobahn in 1975 as a “turning point” in his life. Ball later moved to study art at Leeds Polytechnic, where Almond was the first person he met. “There was this one guy wandering around with a leopard-skin top, bleached hair and spandex trousers, and I thought, ‘he’s got to be in the art department, he’s not an accountant,’ so I asked him, ‘do you know where I enroll?'” Ball recalled, per the outlet. 

The duo formed Soft Cell in 1979. “We wanted to make catchy but twisted pop songs,” Ball told Mojo magazine in 2021. “But we were just two weird guys from Leeds Poly art school—being in the charts was never the plan. We were electro punks. We never saw ourselves as ‘new romantics.’ We weren’t aspirational like Spandau Ballet or Duran Duran. If we’d done a video on a yacht it’d have sunk. A canoe would have been more our speed!” The band’s first few singles didn’t really take off, but eventually they would find the chart success they never sought with “Tainted Love,” which went No. 1 in the U.K. and 16 other countries, and became the second-biggest seller in their home country that year (after Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me.”) “Written by Ed Cobb and sung by Gloria Jones, it was the B-side to a 1964 single that flopped,” Ball told The Guardian in 2017 of the song’s original recording. “When we started on our own version, it felt twisted and strange. That suited us. We were a weird couple: Marc, this gay bloke in makeup; and me, a big guy who looked like a minder.” 

The band went on to produce several more hits including “Bedsitter,” “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye,” and “Torch,” before amicably splitting in 1984. Ball went on to form a few other short-lived groups and collaborate with Throbbing Gristle’s Genesis P-Orridge on the soundtracks for films Decoder and Imagining October, before finding success again with Richard Norris, with whom he formed the Grid in 1988. “Being in a duo with someone is different from being in a band: the bond is very tight. That’s how it was with us,” Norris wrote in his own tribute. “Thanks for the good times, the endless laughter, your unwavering friendship. Most of all, thank you for the music.”

In the following decades, Ball would go on to produce for several other artists, including Kylie Minogue and Gavin Friday. He also reunited with Almond several times to tour and release three new albums, Cruelty Without Beauty, Happiness Not Included, and Happiness Now Completed, in 2002, 2022, and 2024 respectively. In his tribute, Almond also shared that the duo had recorded another album, Danceteria, that will now be their last. “I wish he could have stayed on to celebrate 50 years in a couple of years time,” Almond wrote. “He will always be loved by fans who loved his music. It’s a cliche to say but it lives on and somewhere at any given time around the world someone listens to, plays, dances, and get’s [sic] pleasure from a Soft Cell song – even if it’s just that particular two and half minute epic.” 

 
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