Gloria Jones - Tainted Love

Sunday, time for a classic.

Somehow it turned out to be a girls week, so why not end it with a high head and a real classic that most folks do not know.

"Tainted Love" is a song composed by Ed Cobb, formerly of American group THE FOUR PREPS, which was originally recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964.

It attained worldwide fame after being covered and reworked by English synth-pop duo SOFT CELL in 1981 and has since been covered by numerous groups and artists. Buoyed by the then-dominant synth-pop new wave sound of the time and a memorable performance on the BBC's Top of the Pops, "Tainted Love" reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, and was the best-selling single of 1981 in the UK. A major hit in the US during the Second British Invasion, the song spent a then-record 43 weeks on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number eight.

American artist Gloria Jones recorded the original version of "Tainted Love" in 1964; the song was written and produced by Ed Cobb and arranged by Lincoln Mayorga. It was the B-side of her 1965 single "My Bad Boy's Comin' Home", which was a commercial flop, failing to chart in either the US or the UK. According to Nick Talevski, before Jones recorded the song, Cobb had offered it to THE STANDELLS, whom he managed and produced, but they rejected it. THE STANDELLS say that the song was never offered to them and that they were not signed to Cobb's company Greengrass Productions until 1966, some two years after Jones's recording.

In 1973, British club DJ Richard Searling purchased a copy of the almost decade-old single while on a trip to the United States. The track's Motown-influenced sound (featuring a fast tempo, horns, electric rhythm guitar and female backing vocals) fit in perfectly with the music favoured by those involved in the UK's Northern Soul club scene of the early 1970s, and Searling popularised the song at the Northern Soul club Va Va's in Bolton, and later, at Wigan Casino.

Owing to the new-found underground popularity of the song, Jones re-recorded "Tainted Love" in 1976 and released it as a single, but it also failed to chart. This version was released on her album "Vixen" and was produced by her boyfriend Marc Bolan.

The story behind the song "Tainted Love" by Gloria Jones, in a short documentary by Top 2000 a gogo (Dutch Public TV) from 2010.


Here is a clip from German TV, not sure about the time but approx 10-15 years ago or so.


Here is the original version of the tune, enjoy!



More info @

Official Gloria Jones Wiki

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