On my first trip to New York, I connected with an L.A. friend who was at NYU. We were going to meet up in Times Square. “Meet me by the Disney Store,” he said.
The Disney Store? I don’t know if my shock and disappointment carried over the hotel lobby phone. This was the end of the 1990s, the era of Rudy Giuliani and TRL if you will, but the Times Square in my head was closer to the one Marc Almond describes on the latest Soft Cell album, with B movies playing in rundown theaters.
For their final album, Danceteria, Soft Cell takes listeners to the New York that inspired inspired so much of the English duo’s work. It’s the same New York that Madonna recalls on Confessions II and, if you listen to the two albums, you can hear similar perspectives that unfold in very different ways. Where Confessions II jumps back and forth through time, Danceteria maintains a narrative, and sound, that’s firmly rooted in the 1980s. You can hear the end of disco and the beginning of house in “Danceteria” and “The Space Inside,” which sit side by side on the album.
I could tell you that I’ve been a Soft Cell fan for as long as I can remember, which is kind of true because “Tainted Love” is one of my earliest musical memories and, since I’m from L.A., I grew up regularly hearing “Sex Dwarf” and “It’s a Mugs Game” on the radio. But, it wasn’t until the 1990s, when I was in high school, that I finally heard Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret and declared the band one of my favorites. I fell hard for Marc Almond’s narrative-style songwriting – I still consider him one of the best lyricists around – and Dave Ball’s instrumentation was so interesting. It was totally electronic, yet, there was still something kinda Motown about it. Soft Cell was a gateway band for me in a way. Through them, I went backwards and found out about stuff like Northern Soul and Scott Walker. And, at least partly through them, I had this picture of New York in my head that was long gone by the time I was finally able to visit the city.
It’s fitting that Soft Cell returned to ‘80s New York for their swan song. Like Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, there’s a storyline running through the album, much of which takes place in the nightlife. Danceteria, which does include elements of memoir in it, is the story of a trip that turns into a transformative experience. It’s occasionally dark and unsettling, but, ultimately, life-affirming. You get a sense of how pivotal the city was on Soft Cell in the album’s ballad, “The Rainbow Room.” Musically, it incorporates the influences that marked Soft Cell’s early 1980s output. There are even a few Northern Soul moments, like on the song “In Heaven (When I Dance With You).” Danceteria closes with a fitting nod to the era, a cover of the Was (Not Was) song “Out Come the Freaks,” with Nona Hendryx on backing vocals. (For more insight, you might want to check out Marc Almond’s recent interviews in the New York Times and Flood.)
Last October, Dave Ball died at the age of 66. Two days prior, Soft Cell had completed the album. Knowing that information does add a layer of finality to the album, but, even without that context, Danceteria sounds like the completion of Soft Cell’s story. It’s an amalgamation of the influences and themes that were part of a collaboration that began in the late 1970s, went on hiatus by the mid-1980s and then started again at the turn of the century. That’s a lot of time and it’s all distilled into an album that clocks in at a bit more than one hour. If you’re at all a fan of Soft Cell, you need Danceteria in your music collection.
Danceteria by Soft Cell is available now.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Follow on Instagram or sign up for the weekly, Beatique newsletter for updates on new stories and gigs.
Listen to the September, 2026 edition of Beatique, which also features music from Olivia Rodrigo, ear, Purity Ring, Brigette Calls Me Baby, Slayyyter and more.
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