Dave Ball, the digital musician who rose to fame as one half of the synth pop duo Mushy Cell, has died. Representatives for Ball instructed The Guardian that the musician “passed away peacefully in his sleep at his London home on Wednesday.” Ball was 66 years previous.
His Mushy Cell bandmate Marc Almond paid tribute to Ball on his Instagram web page Thursday morning, writing that Ball was “for a long while and his health had been in slow decline over recent years.” Remembering his colleague as a “wonderful brilliant musical genius,” Almond wrote, “He will always be loved by fans who loved his music. It’s a cliche to say, but it lives on and somewhere at any given time around the world someone listens to, plays, dances, and gets pleasure from a Soft Cell song.”
Born in Chester, England in 1959, Ball was adopted as a toddler and raised in Blackpool. Ball remembered Blackpool as “a great place to grow up, really, because you’ve got the beach and all the amusement arcades” in an interview with The Quietus, and took an curiosity in music early on. After being impressed by Kraftwerk’s 1975 album Autobahn, Ball ultimately studied at Leeds Polytechnic, the place he shortly met Almond. The 2 fashioned Mushy Cell in 1979.
Although their first couple singles weren’t main successes, their third turned a world hit. “Tainted Love,” a canopy of a 1964 music initially sung by Gloria Jones, shot the group to stardom and kicked off a string of hits in the UK, together with “Bedsitter,” “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye,” “Torch,” and “What.” Nevertheless, the success took a toll on the 2 musicians, they usually dissolved the group in 1984, although they ultimately reunited in 2000, and carried out collectively as Mushy Cell as not too long ago as 2023.
After the dissolution of Mushy Cell, Ball continued to make music, forming the duo The Grid with Richard Norris in 1988 and dabbling within the rave scene and the acid home style. Within the Nineteen Nineties, Ball produced music for different artists, together with “Breathe” from Kylie Minogue’s 1997 album Unattainable Princess, which turned a prime 20 hit within the U.Okay. Reflecting on his profession in 2020, Ball mentioned. “I’m quite pleased with what I’ve done.”
