Tears+for+fears

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…

Wonderful offering from the Tears for Fears camp! Not only you get a live CD (accompanied by the same show on DVD, on this particular version) but also two unreleased studio tracks which should have been included in the Everybody Loves a Happy Ending release…

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…

The Hurting would have been a daring debut for a pop-oriented band in any era, but it was an unexpected success in England in 1983, mostly by virtue of its makers' ability to package an unpleasant subject – the psychologically wretched family histories of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith – in an attractive and sellable musical format…

Seventeen years is a long time between albums. It's even longer when you consider the magnitude of how much life happens during that interval. Tears for Fears had experienced mega pop successes (and loads of industry pressure) with Songs from the Big Chair and The Seeds of Love. Curt Smith, sick of paying fame's price, quit in 1991. Roland Orzabal carried on the name for two more lackluster albums. The lads reunited for 2004's Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, but it was short-lived. They planned to record again shortly thereafter, but Orzabal's wife Caroline became gravely ill. Further, their record company tried pairing them with contemporary hitmaking songwriters. They scuttled the sessions. Caroline died in 2017, and a bereft Orzabal turned to his old friend Smith for community and solace; the duo began touring and writing together again in a room with two acoustic guitars. The Tipping Point was eventually completed during the pandemic…

Among the benefits of picking up the new Tears for Fears album–the band's first since 1989–maybe the least obvious is looking cool in front of friends. Flick it on over cocktails, say, and brows will furrow: Few would think to match the heaving, synth-heavy boys who lit up the '80s with "Head Over Heels" to this new material. Which is mostly a good thing…

The second Tears for Fears album following Curt Smith's departure finds Roland Orzabal treading water (and self-consciously deep water at that). Long removed from the simple, melodic melancholy of the band's early work and abandoning the mid-period Beatles-influenced pop, Raoul and the Kings of Spain often borders on progressive rock. There's some genuinely pretty music, like the piano-driven ballad "Secrets," with its soaring guitar line, and the gentle "Sketches of Pain." …

The natural inclination is to compare this 2003 compilation, released in the U.K., to 2001's U.S.-released Shout: The Very Best of Tears for Fears. Both compilations have a similar scope (others have either unjustly ignored 1983's The Hurting or cut off at a certain point) and contain the same number of tracks…

Along with Songs from the Big Chair, The Seeds of Love was part of a one-two artistic punch in the late '80s that situated Tears for Fears as one of the decade's more ambitious pop groups…

Along with Songs from the Big Chair, The Seeds of Love was part of a one-two artistic punch in the late '80s that situated Tears for Fears as one of the decade's more ambitious pop groups…