About a week ago, I got a few records back from my friend Carlos that I had been letting him borrow. One of these was my 12" of Soft Cell's "It's a Mug's Game". While I have the 7" version on my "Loving You, Hating Me" single, it just isn't the same. I don't know what it is about this song, and this particular version, but they just got everything right. David Ball throws down one of the hardest beats of 1982, and Marc Almond finds himself making fun of a teenager (a younger version of himself, maybe?). The whole song sounds like it was recorded in one pass, with its repetitive beat, and Almond's seemingly stream-of-conscious lyrics. Nothing rhymes, and most of the lines begin with the word "and," so that only the first lines of each verse seem like they were written. It's this kind of effortlessness that I find so great. Of course the lyrics were written. How else can the listener, over the course of the song, realize that the protagonist is actually a high school student (or the UK equivalent of high school) who for all of his fast living is actually afraid of getting grounded by his father?
Soft Cell also accomplished something else with this song, and that is making horns sound good in electronic dance music. Yes, I know they were strongly influenced by American soul records, and that might have something to do with it. Or maybe it was John Gatchell, the trumpet player in question. While his playing is always present, it never dominates the rest of the song. Producer Mike Thorne, on his website notes that Gatchell was one of the best session players in NY at the time, and just by being an outside influence, helped to ease some of the tension in the group at the time. Perhaps it was Thorne himself, the man behind the boards on every Soft Cell release from "Tainted Love" through "The Art of Falling Apart."
For me, Soft Cell's best period was the one between their first two LPs. The "Torch/Insecure Me" single and "Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing" expanded on the first album perfectly, and "It's a Mug's Game" is like the end of an era. By the time of "The Art of Falling Apart", their sound had gotten too mopey for most of their listeners. This song is their last great dance song.