Ooooohhhh! Tainted Love

I attended a Tainted Love show last week expecting to unabashedly indulge in the kitschy sounds of the ’80s cover band with a smile. Surprisingly, I smiled even more than expected thanks to the easy camaraderie in the crowd; a scene where shots were shared, awkward dance moves applauded, and bad singing was rewarded with worse harmonization. It didn’t matter how you danced or sang because we were all drunk on liquor, and on 80’s music, which is really quite good.

Tainted Love opened with Alphaville’s “Forever Young,” an 80’s classic, and those slow synths mixed with towering vocals reminded me of certain songs we hear these days. I’m not saying that all synthesizers and reverberated vocals are indicative of the 80’s, but that preternatural, often cosmic sound is something that many 80’s bands perfected and many current bands pay homage to, including Bat for Lashes, M83, IVANSXTC, and Salem. For many reasons the 80’s were forgettable, but I’d contend that music is not one of those reasons. These bands would agree:

SALEM – Frost Get the 7″ here

Memory Tapes – Green Knight Get the LP here.

Toro Y Moi – Talamak Get the 7″ here.

CFCF – Monolith Get the LP soon from here.

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