Pleadings Without Tears

If The Hurting was mental anguish, Songs from the Big Chair marks the progression towards emotional healing, a particularly bold sort of catharsis culled from Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith's shared attraction to primal scream therapy. The album also heralded a dramatic maturation in the band's music, away from the synth-pop brand with which it was (unjustly) seared following the debut, and towards a complex, enveloping pop sophistication…

From their beginnings as an attempt at bold jazz-rock fusion in 1967 through a run as a high-powered R&B/soul-rock singles act with singer David Clayton-Thomas two years later, Blood, Sweat & Tears were always a kind of fascinating experiment, and a commercially successful one at that. The first album from the Clayton-Thomas-fronted band appeared in 1969, spawned four high chart hits, won a Grammy as Album of the Year, and went on to sell some three million units. The next two albums, Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 and 4, generated a few more hits, but the band was gradually running out of creative steam by this point, and when Clayton-Thomas left the group after the fourth album, well, that was the end of the line commercially for Blood, Sweat & Tears. A jazzier, but definitely not as commercial, version of Blood, Sweat & Tears showed up for two of the albums collected in this set, 1972's New Blood and 1973's No Sweat, with the third album here, 1976's More Than Ever, featuring the return of David Clayton-Thomas to the fold.

Tears for Fears' biggest-selling album, Songs from the Big Chair is now available in its most spectacular format. This six disc edition of the album includes newly remastered versions of classics songs like 'Everybody Wants To Rule the World,' 'Mother's Talk,' 'Shout' and 'Head over Heels,' plus a multitude of remixes and B-sides, plus a disc of nine previously unreleased tracks and a 5.1 surround sound version of the album mixed by renowned musician and audio engineer Steven Wilson…

After breaking up in 2002, releasing an album made only by Danniel Brennare ("The Neonai"), Lake of Tears returned in 2004 in top form with "Black Brick Road"!
The style of "Black Brick Road" is the typical Lake of Tears gothic metal mixed with a lot of 70's influences. But this time, maybe even darker than before, being the album not so depressive like "Forever Autumn", but with more sinister melodies (wiht the exception of Sister Sinister, a very animated rock track.) The using of keyboards and the dominance of hard riffs is what makes "Black Brick Road" similar to "A Crimson Cosmos". Nevertheless, the amazing track Dystopia could have been in "The Neonai", just like A Trip with the Moon… The dramatic and retro-gothic The Organ, has the style of "Forever Autumn". The rest of the tracks have the Lake of Tears typical that they have made since "A Crimson Cosmos".

A 32-track retrospective that'll make fans of this band's unique pop/jazz/rock sound so very happy! Every hit single is here- You've Made Me So Very Happy; And When I Die; Spinning Wheel; Hi-De-Ho; Lucretia MacEvil; Go Down Gamblin'; Lisa, Listen to Me; So Long Dixie; Got to Get You into My Life , etc.-plus key album tracks and two unreleased cuts that trace this band's career from the early Al Kooper days on. Notes, rare photos, complete discography and personnel info rounds out this long-overdue collection.

Ten previously unissued live recordings from 1970 recorded in Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland.

The difference between Blood, Sweat & Tears and the group's preceding long-player, Child Is Father to the Man, is the difference between a monumental seller and a record that was "merely" a huge critical success. Arguably, the Blood, Sweat & Tears that made this self-titled second album – consisting of five of the eight original members and four newcomers, including singer David Clayton-Thomas – was really a different group from the one that made Child Is Father to the Man, which was done largely under the direction of singer/songwriter/keyboard player/arranger Al Kooper…

Brand New Day is the tenth album by the band Blood, Sweat & Tears, released in November 1977. This was the band's only release on ABC Records. Brand New Day was produced by Roy Halee and former BS&T drummer Bobby Colomby. Colomby and Halee had also co-produced the group's fourth album, Blood, Sweat & Tears 4 in 1971…