This match is getting absolutely no love, so I will take a stab at it.
Soft Cell = One Hit Wonder. Simple as that.
No, it's not as simple as that. Because A) Tainted Love was not their only hit (they had several others including "Bedsitter" and "Torch" among others) and B) Soft Cell were an amazing group. Atleast for their first two albums they were.
Soft Cell's first album is a classic of the synthpop/new-wave genre that stands right up there alongside anything Depeche Mode or Erasure ever put out. Tainted Love isn't even their best song.
Tesla was a band (and still is) that transcended their era. Tesla essentially hit it big in the mainstream when Hair Metal was the rage, and because of their look and loud sound, Tesla was lumped into a category with the likes of Quiet Riot and Poison.
So why are we criticizing Soft Cell for being a "one hit wonder" again, when Tesla was exactly the same thing?
This was an unfair classification, however, because Tesla was a step ahead of 99% of the hair metal bands out there because of their deeper lyrics and bluesy style. To be honest, the blues hard rock Tesla laid out on the 80's and 90's was really only done better by Aerosmith and maybe a handful of others. Tesla > Blues Traveler.
I agree that Blues Traveler is rather mediocre, but I disagree with a few things. First off I hope you weren't implying that Aerosmith has done anything remotely good in that last 2 decades. Second off, Tesla had only one good song IMO, and that was "Comin' Atcha Live", and even that's only good in small doses. Call it bluesy hard rock, I'll call it generic 80s hard rock/hair metal.
Songs like "Little Suzy" still have a great, fun beat and harmony to them. "Modern Day Cowboy" and "Love Song" were staples of 80's rock, and Tesla's cover of "Baby It's a Wild World" may have been the best rendition of the song.
Not only does Tesla take this match EASILY, but they should make noise for a few rounds before running into a mammoth they cannot handle.
As always we disagree strongly IC25. Tesla was garbage, pure garbage. Their right up there with Winger & Cinderella when I think of "Worst Bands of the 80s". Maybe I'm biased because of my love for synthpop and new-wave, but Soft Cell's first few albums easily outdid anything Tesla ever did in my book.
But you very unfairly labeled them a "one hit wonder" when it just isn't true. Obviously "Tainted Love" was their biggest hit, but they still scored 4 more top 5 hits in the next few years after that song, and still remained HUGE in the UK. Plus is jumpstarted the career of Marc Almond, who has remained a strong force in the British music scene for coming on three decades now.
