Tainted Love

Gloria Jones recorded the song in 1964 in Los Angeles for her Champion single "My Bad Boy's Comin' Home" / "Tainted Love." Ed Cobb produced the session and Lincoln Mayorga handled the arrangement; Glen Campbell played lead guitar. Released in 1965 as the B-side, it initially sold poorly but became a prized Northern soul record in Britain. Its driving arrangement and Jones’s vocal made it stand out from the original Motown-era release context. The track became best known after Soft Cell’s 1981 cover, but Gloria Jones’s original remains a staple of soul and northern soul collections. It has been widely covered and is now treated as the definitive first recording of Ed Cobb’s song.