Coil — Tainted Love

Coil, “Tainted Love” (1985) Originally released by Gloria Jones, 1964 Gloria Jones’ cult Northern Soul single “Tainted Love” has lived many lives since its original release, and even appears on this here list twice in radically different forms. Four years after Soft Cell made the song into a New Wave smash, Coil’s John Balance and Peter Christopherson rearranged it into a stark, painful dirge, interpreted as such to reflect the tragedy of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, complete with an artfully dark video at that. All the fun is sapped from the song and in its place anguish and mourning. But though it might not be obvious at first glance, Coil’s version is connected to Soft Cell’s: In the Museum of Modern Art-exhibited video, Marc Almond makes an ominous cameo as a kind of leather-jacketed angel of death. – Jeff Terich