Marc Almond's writing - verse and prose - concentrates on the city, the night, red light and low life, the same scenes which appear in his lyrics. 'Prostitutes, hustlers, porn stars, strippers, gangsters, pimps, dominatrixes, transsexuals, madams, sub-culture celebrities, superstars...' He burst into prominence in the early 1980s with Dave Ball with the first successful British electro-duo - Soft Cell. They mixed disco and northern soul with lyrics of melancholy stories of low-life characters, bedsit life and city survival, and thus set the blueprint for groups such as The Pet Shop Boys, Blur, Pulp and Suede. Marc spent the 1980s producing a range of albums, always surprising and taking his audience in new directions. Dirt and glitter continue to be common themes in his work, as are the love and romance and loneliness of city life and the hopes, dreams and unfulfilled aspirations of the city's inhabitants, from the bordello to the high-rise.