Danceteria

The final album is both a love letter to early 80s New York and a tribute to the late, great Dave Ball.

Electronic music legends Soft Cell, aka singer and frontman Marc Almond and multi-instrumentalist and producer Dave Ball, are set to release ‘Danceteria’, their sixth and final studio album.
‘Danceteria’ the album is a big, classy and playful farewell to 47 years of Marc and Dave making music as Soft Cell and features career-defining performances from our electronic pop legends. Reminiscent of Sparks and Pet Shop Boys and with lyrics Lady Gaga would kill for, the album takes you on a vivid journey through a day in early 80s New York, bouncing round the clock from night to bleary daybreak and headlong back into the club.

Marc provides an initial snapshot into the album:

“Danceteria is a love letter to New York in the early 80’s.  The time we spent in New York – where we recorded our first 3 albums – shaped us both as artists and people. To celebrate this period is a fitting farewell to Dave Ball and the final Soft Cell studio album.”

‘Danceteria’ is equally a tribute to the late, great Dave Ball. The final album is one of the last bodies of work Ball co-wrote and produced before his sad, untimely passing on the 22nd of October 2025. Almond led the obituaries, describing Dave as a “brilliant musical genius”. The world’s media followed, hailing him as an electronic music pioneer, plus music stars including Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe from the Pet Shop Boys, Mute Records’ Daniel Miller, Cabaret Voltaire and Richard Norris from Dave’s techno duo The Grid contributing an outpouring of elegiac praise. Dave finished ‘Danceteria’ two days before he passed away and it is in full tribute to him that the album release went ahead as planned.

It is also because of Dave’s passing that ‘Danceteria’ simply has to be the last Soft Cell album, as Marc explains:

‘There can be no more recordings of Soft Cell without Dave, it would not be possible. The sad reality is that Dave Ball was half of Soft Cell, and live work aside, I can’t write Soft Cell songs without him.”