ONLY NOISE: How Tainted Love Became My Feminist Jam

ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. This week, Liz Ohanesian hits replay on the unlikely track that gave her strength on dance floors and in traffic alike.

Stuck in the perennial gridlock that crisscrosses Los Angeles, blasting the same oldie over and over again, I must have seemed ridiculous. But, that’s what happens when your jam is less than two-and-a-half minutes long. Right at the moment when I felt like I would become one with the song, it ended; I had no choice but to hit that little button on the CD player and repeat it.

“Sometimes I feel I’ve got to run away,” it began, every time.

Yes, I’m talking about “Tainted Love,” but not the ’80s synthpop sensation. That would have made more sense, since Soft Cell’s big hit single had never really left L.A. radio. This was the original, a concise soul number recorded by Gloria Jones in the mid-1960s that was a far more anachronistic choice during the years bridging the 20th and 21st centuries.

I played that song loud enough to drown out any of my pathetic attempts to sing along to it, all the while wishing that I could belt out lines like “Once I ran to you/Now I’ll run from you” with all of Jones’ confidence. I had no desire to be a singer; I just wanted to be able to stand up for myself. With “Tainted Love,” I could or, at least, I could in the relative privacy of my car stuck in traffic on a Los Angeles freeway.

Jones was a young singer from Los Angeles when she recorded “Tainted Love,” penned by Ed Cobb, which was released on the flipside of the single “My Bad Boy’s Comin’ Home” in 1965. Since the single didn’t chart, “Tainted Love” became something of an obscurity. That changed to an extent in the 1970s, when the B-side attained cult popularity within the rarity-fueled Northern Soul scene in the U.K. Jones, who had gone on to perform in Hair, sing backup for T. Rex, and have a child with the band’s frontman Marc Bolan, re-recorded the song for her 1976 solo album, Vixen. Still, that wasn’t the version that became a mainstream earworm.

In 1981, then-up-and-coming synthpop duo Soft Cell put their own spin on “Tainted Love.” Their cover would go on to become legendary. It was a number one single in the U.K. and hit the top 10 in the U.S., while turning up on charts in numerous countries. So popular was Soft Cell’s rendition of the ’60s soul song that it became the reference point for subsequent versions. In 1984, the experimental electronic group Coil covered “Tainted Love.”  Theirs was a slow, haunting reflection upon the AIDS crisis, but one where the influence of Soft Cell is still present in its structure (plus, Soft Cell singer Marc Almond makes an appearance in the video). Many years later, in 2001, Marilyn Manson had a bit of success with a cover that was very clearly derived from Soft Cell’s take on the song.

I grew up with Soft Cell’s 1981 version of “Tainted Love,” which was a radio staple in Los Angeles that hung around long after the ’80s ended, and became quite a fan of the band too. Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, their debut album and the one that contains “Tainted Love,” remains one of my all-time favorite records. But hearing the original version of the song I thought I knew so well was nearly life-changing.

It happened sometime in the mid-to-late 1990s when I was a college student, going to parties where kids rolled up to the venue on Vespas and DJs dropped vintage soul tracks into their sets. I can’t remember exactly where I heard it, but I remember it being a song played with enough frequency to become part of the sonic fabric of my life at that time.  Every time I danced to “Tainted Love,” my connection to it grew stronger.

“I give you all a girl can give you,” Jones sang.

Hearing “Tainted Love” from the perspective of a woman was eye-opening. Jones was on the cusp of her teens and twenties when the song was recorded and released, around the same age I was while dancing to it a few decades later. Her voice, though, sounded older. It was deep, raw and powerful, resonating on those dance floors with authority.

I had always thought of “Tainted Love” as a song about romance-gone-wrong or a relationship at its bitter end. Maybe it is, but when Jones sang it, there was always another layer. Any sadness in the lyrics, “Take my tears and that’s not nearly all,” gave way to liberation, of knowing that you’re worth more than whatever crap someone else throws your way. It was the voice of wisdom set against a high energy bounce of a beat that reminded me to take care of myself. Now, I heard “Tainted Love” as a song about empowerment. It became my feminist jam.

I wasn’t necessarily feeding a broken heart all those times I blasted “Tainted Love.” Sure, sometimes that was the case, but the song came to mean so much more to me. It was the middle finger that I couldn’t bring myself to flip, the “fuck you” that I often left unsaid. It was the anthem for every life or work situation where I wasn’t valued, an expression of the anger and frustration that I tried to contain and a reminder that I had to assert myself.

In the early years of my own adulthood, that (still sorely under-appreciated) recording of “Tainted Love” became a sort of surrogate voice as I was trying to find my own. With age, I’ve relied on it less, but it’s still there for me to turn up loudly whenever I need it.

ONLY NOISE: Don’t Take Your Guns To Town

Last Saturday, while performing at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, Marilyn Manson was crushed by a falling stage prop. The assailing object was not a steel cage, nor a neon pentagram, but a sculpture of two massive handguns affixed to scaffolding. Manson was rushed to the hospital with undisclosed injuries.

Though it was a frightening incident (and one that led him to eventually cancel several upcoming tour dates), the knowledge that Manson was not in critical condition allowed a bit of black humor to creep into the scenario. Not 10 days prior, Manson pulled a toy gun on The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis during an interview, and later told him that, “the Columbine era destroyed my entire career at the time.”

Manson was of course referring to the 1999 Columbine High School shooting at the hands of teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. The post-Columbine news media, eager to blame the violence on anything but America’s lax firearms policies and clueless approach toward disaffected youth, found a horned scapegoat in Manson. Countless pundits and members of the religious right made reference to his devil-worshipping ways, as well as his messages of “hate, violence, suicide, death, drug use, and Columbine-like behavior.” In the late ‘90s, Manson became an even greater pariah than he already was. If, before Columbine, his name evoked satanic orgies and platform shoes, it was now irrevocably linked with one of the most terrifying acts of gun violence in American history.

Knowing all of this, it’s hard to imagine Manson – whose wry and dark sense of humor infiltrates most of his interviews – didn’t at least smirk at the irony of two giant handguns pummeling him onstage. I must admit that after learning Manson did not suffer any serious wounds, I smirked, too. Until Sunday, that is.

The very next evening, across the nation from The Hammerstein Ballroom, a lone gunman opened fire on a country music festival in Las Vegas, murdering at least 59 people, and injuring over 500 others. I paraphrase The New Yorker journalist Adam Gopnik when I say that, the word “injured” is not commensurate with the scope of physical harm and psychological scars inflicted on those 500. Acknowledging the dead dozens doesn’t mend the phantom limbs nursed by their families.

Suddenly, one catastrophic weekend fanned the ever-burning flame of America’s gun control debate, and this time, the music world felt the heat. Country artist Rosanne Cash came forward with a powerful op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday, imploring musicians – especially country musicians, who are so heavily burdened with the identity of the gun-toting American – to stand up against the N.R.A. and the armed culture of this nation:

“I encourage more artists in country and American roots music to end your silence,” Cash wrote. “It is no longer enough to separate yourself quietly. The laws the N.R.A. would pass are a threat to you, your fans, and to the concerts and festivals we enjoy.”

She went on, “This is a moment in American history that can’t be met with silence. According to PolitiFact, from 2005 to 2015, some 300,000 people in the US were killed by gun violence. That’s roughly the population of Pittsburgh.”

Fellow country guitarist Caleb Keeter, who was playing at the Las Vegas festival that weekend, met Cash’s challenge of squelching silence; the artist’s opinion on the second amendment is now altered forever.

“A small group (or one man) laid waste to a city with dedicated, fearless police officers desperately trying to help, because of access to an insane amount of firepower,” Keeter wrote. “Enough is enough.” In another sick twist of irony, the shooter, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, bought most of his artillery at a shop so innocuously named, “Guns & Guitars.”

One might think that the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history – as the Las Vegas massacre has now been classified – would move N.R.A. lobbyists and politicians to the same extent as Mr. Keeter. Instead, the N.R.A. is silent, and President Trump claims that the gun control conversation is, “not for now.”

But the President and the gun lobbyists weren’t at the Route 91 Harvest Festival. They didn’t spend Sunday night dodging hundreds of rounds of ammunition fired from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel by Paddock. They weren’t there to suffer the carnage, and yet they continue to uphold laws which legalize the very implements that allowed Paddock to fire so relentlessly; namely, the easily acquired bump stock, which makes rapid-fire rifles out of semi-automatic ones, and can be purchased for $99.

Considering the coincidence that Marilyn Manson was once again in the news at the same time as a domestic mass shooting (though this time, not as a scapegoat), I couldn’t help but revisit Bowling For Columbine, Michael Moore’s 2002 documentary about America’s relationship with gun violence, in which Manson is interviewed.

When Bowling For Columbine hit theaters, I was 13. It was the first time I’d seen Marilyn Manson portrayed as a human being; sitting patiently in a chair and not writhing in fake blood or riding a potbellied pig. I was struck by his intelligence – by how articulate and gentle this agent of Satan could be. When Manson sat down with Moore, he spoke of Columbine and the media’s subsequent blame game.

“The two byproducts of that whole tragedy were violence in entertainment, and gun control,” he said, “and how perfect that those were the two things that we were going to talk about in the upcoming election. And also, then we forgot about Monica Lewinsky, and then we forgot about: the President was shooting bombs overseas, and yet I’m a bad guy because I sing some rock n’ roll songs,” he continued. “And who’s the bigger influence, the President? Or Marilyn Manson?”

Manson’s 15-year-old point is particularly sharp today, as conservatives strive to foist the responsibility for Las Vegas upon anything but the true culprit: the ease with which almost any American can waltz into a Walmart, and walk out with assault rifles, ammunition, and accoutrements that were never intended to hunt deer, but rather, humans. And for what?

Ask any Libertarian, member of the N.R.A., or gun-owning uncle why they need their AK-47s and TEC-9s, and they will all say the same thing: “for self defense!” But there are many flaws in that answer. First, look at the cold, hard facts about home invasion and “self defense.” Last year, the FBI released its 2015 crime stats, which proved a 7.8% decline in burglaries nationwide. Moreover, in 2010, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released data that in only 7% of household burglaries did a household member experience some form of violent victimization. That 7% is not to be scoffed at, but it also begs a few questions: 1) wouldn’t it be more difficult for burglars to victimize household members if they too, could not readily access firearms? And 2) Does having guns in the home ever truly make you safer?

According to figures from Aftermath.com, no. From 2005-2010, almost 3,800 people in the U.S. died from unintentional shootings. Over 1,300 victims those shootings were under 25 years of age. Additionally, a 2001 study by Miller, Azrael, and Hemenway reported that regardless of age, people are significantly more likely to die from unintentional firearm injuries when they live in states with more guns, as opposed to states with fewer guns. On average, states with the highest gun levels had nine times the rate of unintentional firearms deaths compared to states with the lowest gun levels.

3,800 doesn’t seem like such a high number for a five year period…when you compare it to the 30,000 gun deaths this country witnesses annually. In 2010, 20,000 of those gun deaths were suicides  – suicides committed by people who didn’t have too much trouble procuring a gun.

I wonder if gun enthusiasts could use their “self-defense” logic on the victims of Mandalay Bay: could the concertgoers have protected themselves if each and every one of them was packing? No. When someone is shooting from the 32nd floor of a high-rise building, there is nothing you can do except run and duck for cover. Shooting back would do no good from the festival grounds – the man in the tower will always have the advantage. And yet, according to the logic of a Michigan Militiaman who was interviewed early in Bowling For Columbine, Paddock’s victims were ‘neglecting their obligation to be armed.’

“It’s an American responsibility to be armed. If you’re not armed, you’re not responsible,” he said in the film, struggling to buckle his belt. “It’s your job to defend you and yours,” he continued. “If you don’t do it, you’re in dereliction of duty as an American, period.” I wonder if that Militiaman could bear to accuse the Mandalay Bay victims of being “in dereliction of duty” as Americans,” today.

To me, passing legislation that allows citizens to purchase assault weapons and their vicious accessories; passively arming millions, and silently watching this happen again, and again, and again, is far more derelict of American duty than not owning an assault rifle. Raising our children in a culture that applauds and abets the “recreational” use of firearms is far more psychologically questionable, than going to town without your guns.

When the “self defense” argument doesn’t add up, gun-loving Americans turn to the Bill of Rights. “The Second Amendment says: I have the right to bear arms!” they shout. Well friends, there’s a big fucking difference between a musket and an AR-15. The fact of the matter is, most of the weaponry sold today didn’t exist when the Bill of Rights was written in 1789, and therefore should not be protected by it.

It is a nonsensical argument veiled in false patriotism and practicality, as if these trigger-happy citizens need their M16s for Fourth of July marches and weekend pheasant hunting. Their entitled cry that it’s “my right” to own an assault rifle bears the same insipid selfishness as a teenager trying to overthrow their parent’s household rules because they just turned 18. “Yes, legally, you may be an ‘adult,’ but you’re still in my house, eating my pot roast,” that parent might say. It seems that clinging to these weapons like toys and brandishing an irrelevant emblem of “freedom,” is more important to anti-gun control lobbyists than human life.

When Bowling For Columbine was first released, the wound opened by Harris and Klebold was still fresh and bleeding. The atrocity of Americans shooting scores of innocent people seemed at the time like a societal outlier. Now, it has become the hideous norm. And while Marilyn Manson will recover from his gun-inflicted wounds, I sometimes wonder if this country ever can.

ONLY NOISE: Fall Preview

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Benjamin Clementine’s I Tell A Fly arrives October 2.

Tomorrow marks the first day of autumn. You might not believe it given these muggy 80-degree days, but Fall is upon us nevertheless. Fall is the best for multiple reasons, including turtlenecks, Halloween, and mock-necks; but it is also a time when things die. Leaves. Bar backyards. Your summer tan. All gone. Looking back on this time last year, I was writing about the death (or at least prolonged hibernation) of CMJ. Now I could add the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and potentially The Deli Magazine to that obituary. Sure, the Voice is only going out of print, Rolling Stone is only up for sale, and The Deli Magazine is only half the size it used to be – maybe “death” is too harsh a word – but that’s what it feels like.

Today I happened upon one of those familiar red boxes and snatched up the last copy of The Village Voice I will ever hold. The cover was nearly text free, save for the paper’s logo and the words “Final Edition” in tiny print at the top. A black and white photo of Bob Dylan giving a salute filled the page. It is a somber image, and almost made my knees buckle on West Broadway. I could only think: “what next?”

And then, in rare moment of attempted optimism, I asked myself again: “yes, what next?” This time, instead of asking with dread, I asked it with the expectation of wonderful things. New York may be missing some iconic music venues, festivals, and print publications, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a wealth of great music coming our way regardless. So rather than mourn the lost, let’s look forward to the season’s best musical happenings, shall we? We shall. Here are the Fall 2017 record releases I am most looking forward to.

9/22/17

Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Luciferian Towers

The difficult-to-define, experimental Canadians Godspeed You! Black Emperor will drop their sixth LP tomorrow – the much anticipated Luciferian Towers. Fortunately we don’t have to wait another second to check it out, as the group shared the album in full with NPR last week. In keeping with GY!BE fashion, this record is dense, sprawling, and frenetic. Now we can only hope the band will accompany its release with a US tour sometime soon!

9/29/17

Protomartyr, Relatives In Descent

Next week, Detroit post-punks Protomartyr will release Relatives In Descent – their debut LP for Domino Records. After seeing Protomartyr play a dynamite set at Basilica Soundscape last weekend, I’m especially thrilled for this new album, which according to the band’s Greg Ahee, was inspired by Mica Levi and the Raincoats’ Odyshape. Relatives In Descent was co-produced and recorded with Sonny DiPerri, who has worked with the likes of Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective. What’s not to love?

10/2/17

Benjamin Clementine, I Tell A Fly

Mercury Prize winner Benjamin Clementine is one of the more fascinating characters in contemporary music. While his debut album 2015’s At Least For Now was a sweeping affair between neo-classical and Nina Simone, I Tell A Fly promises theatrics and a bit of the political. The record’s leading single, “Phantom Of Aleppoville” is an album all its own, volleying from marching snares to parlor piano and soul harmonies. It’s a tour de force, and I imagine the whole LP will be nothing short of the same. Don’t miss Clementine when he plays Carnegie Hall on October 5th.

 10/6/17:

Kelela, Take Me Apart

Two very different records drop on October sixth, one being the long-awaited full-length debut from R&B artist Kelela. Take Me Apart (Warp Records) is the follow-up to Kelela’s 2014 EP Hallucinogen and her 2013 mixtape Cut 4 Me. According to the artist, the album is a blend of personal themes, politics, and genre. “Despite it being a personal record,” Kelela stated in a press release, “the politics of my identity informs how it sounds and how I choose to articulate my vulnerability and strength. I am a black woman, a second-generation Ethiopian-American, who grew up in the ‘burbs listening to R&B, Jazz and Björk. All of it comes out in one way or another.” Catch Kelela November 12th and 13th at Bowery Ballroom.

Marilyn Manson, Heaven Upside Down

On the other end of things, Antichrist Superstar Marilyn Manson is back with his first new track in two years. The garage-pop cut “KILL4ME” is Manson’s leading single off his forthcoming record Heaven Upside Down, and it’s far more catchy than disturbing. Perhaps all of Manson’s interactions with Justin Bieber have affected his sound? Manson will perform at the Hammerstein Ballroom on September 30th and The Paramount on October 3rd.

 10/13/17:

Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile, Lotta Sea Lice

 Mid-October treats include the debut duet Lotta Sea Lice from Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile, who make such a natural pair it’s amazing they didn’t cut a record together years ago. The record’s first single “Over Everything” is an expert blend of deadpan romanticism and tangy guitar riffs – elements both artists know their way around quite well. Kurt and Courtney (no, not that Kurt and Courtney!) will play The Beacon Theater on November 1st.

King Krule The Ooz

Archy Marshall is set to release his sophomore LP as King Krule. The Ooz is already garnering a lot of excitement from the music community, and if the entire record is half as good as its first single “Dum Surfer,” all the hype will be justified. For those of you who’ve yet to see King Krule live, he’ll be headlining Greenpoint’s Warsaw on October 24th and 25th. Get there early and eat some pierogies while you’re at it! 

10/20:

Destroyer, Ken

The first two singles from Destroyer’s forthcoming LP Ken sound completely different from one another. But then again, that’s the Destroyer sound: constantly morphing. Check out the frenetic and haunting “Tinseltown Swimming in Blood,” and keep an eye open for Destroyer’s 2018 US tour.

John Carpenter, Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998

Right in time for Halloween, Sacred Bones Records will release John Carpenter’s Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998. This collection of Carpenter’s film scores (that’s right, he directed the flicks and composed the music to cult classics like Escape From New York and Halloween) will be limited to 500 hand-numbered vinyl LPs, pressed on “Anti-God Green” wax, of course. Get your copy quick, and don’t miss Carpenter’s Terminal 5 set on November 16th.

If that list of killer music-to-come doesn’t dissolve your Autumn blues, then I don’t know what will. Perhaps this list of incredible Fall concerts, happening right here in NYC:

9/22:

 The Spits @Brooklyn Night Bazaar

Pill @Secret Project Robot

9/23:

Xiu Xiu @Union Pool

9/28:

Wild Yaks @The Safari Room at El Cortez

9/29:

Songhoy Blues @Bowery Ballroom

10/7:

Alex Cameron @Rough Trade

10/14:

Sean Nicholas Savage @Baby’s All Right

10/16:

Billy Bragg @City Winery

10/20:

Big Freedia @Brooklyn Bowl

10/21:

Sheer Mag @Villain

10/31:

Diamanda Galas @Co-Cathedral of Saint Joseph

11/1:

Ezra Furman @Baby’s All Right

11/2:

The Raincoats @The Kitchen

12/9:

Vagabon @Bowery Ballroom

12/10:

Perfume Genius @Bowery Ballroom

John Waters Christmas Show @City Winery[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]