Authorized Biography of Soft Cell by Simon Tebbutt (full review)

I have finally completed this particular book today. I was determined to finish this book before the month was up. I read a little bit here and there. Since I started school, I was a bit busy focusing on homework to enhance my writing and logic abilities. Speaking of, working on a paper for class that's due in a couple of days and thought to finally do some blogging to warm me up. 

The cover is from the "Soul Inside" sessions, I really love this photo; very expressional. This biography of Soft Cell is an excellent brief but detailed book of important facts and opinions of the artists’ views of music and just being an artist in general by Simon Tebbutt. I was on a insanely, dramatic adventure of the Soft Cell world seeing the sweet and bashful side of them; while on some parts the raw and crazy side of them. It includes a lot of exclusive pictures of the musicians and associates. The brilliance of the choices of words brought out how bizarre the life of an artist was. Especially actually having direct quotes from situations that were only mentioned but not thoroughly investigated by human ears or the eyes of the Internet. But the tongue-in-cheek twist and turns this book have, you in for one insane roller coaster ride. You can honestly tell that Soft Cell were one of the few real artists that really wanted to be seen as artists and reveal how hard life can be especially struggling through so much at a young age. Such occurrences like Dave Ball losing his dad at 17, same thing happened to me at 19, or having the doubt of being famous or to the point you explode at someone because they keep making accusations for nothing, or even keep stating to retire. It’s hard when no one encourages you, especially after going through so much. I didn’t even know Soft Cell’s third album The Art of Falling Apart, Marc lost money and friends just to make the album. It seems that this biography book was released before their last album was out because it wasn’t mentioned. It only stopped at their third album. It can be difficult when you want to establish an image for yourself. Knowing why their album art was unique than mainstream artists because of rebellion of wanting your own style or what depicts you personally. And this band was very emotional at what they did even when Marc went from different bands back to back, it was an outlet to do things that Soft Cell couldn’t produce as a whole. Ironically, the song that I play constantly or played constantly “Tainted Love” was the bands shadow and nightmare to the point it was considered “that song” or that song. Tebbutt gave intense biographical features from the rise and falling apart of Soft Cell by using exclusive pieces from different materials and what not. The sexual content wasn’t shocking because that was the Soft Cell image at the time and whatever that was left from the band. This is another piece or something extremely rare that obviously the musicians have changed and so on, but this is a glimpse of the life of this band. I mean I didn’t even know they were in Spain and at the time “Bedsitter” was more popular than “Tainted Love” or Phil Oakey of Human League stated this “Marc Almond has got a twenty times better voice than mine.” Or when Marc was talking about how musicians slag his voice but this quote really was deep,” I have been told by classically trained singers that I have an exceptional range.  And I’m getting better all the time. I listen to all the singers who slag me off and I can tell by the way they are singing that they are doing it all wrong. They’re singing from their throats and wallets, not their hearts and souls at all.” Both quotes are on page 122. That’s truly a deep quote and that’s how an artists should be, thinking about the heart and soul and not money and being pretentious. I am truly fortunate to have this as a gift. I can’t seriously thank you enough Elaine! I have six books to go, I’ll get a move on another book but this time it’s the unauthorized biography of the Pet Shop Boys and it will be a post about that one too, so stay tuned! I know this biography book is rare and harder to find but if you come across this book, if you love different, unique, raw, organic, sexual related stuff and hard working and real true artists, then this book is definitely for keeps! I truly apologize for the repetition but this book really moved me.