TEARS FOR FEARS - SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR (1985) POLL

i'm sure i voted for 'head over heels' and would probably do so again, but man 'everybody wants to rule the world' is just perfect

Same.

^^yes

This is fun...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsjhSm4YCfw

thanks, i enjoyed the hell out of that.

Bbc Classic Albums documentary this Friday! First new episode of Classic Albums for a while.

https://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/tears-for-fears-celebrate-35-years-of-songs-with-classic-album-doc/

^ Will have to find that somewhere.

Sometimes this seems like the best record I liked as a 9-year-old. The tracks receiving no votes definitely feel like the least best, but I dig them all.

I'm old enough to remember when this came out. "Shout" was the first single and it sounded very cool to me at the time, not like anything else on the radio. Nowadays I'd go for "Everyone Wants to Rule the World", which has somehow managed not to become overplayed.

All of the singles on this album rank among the best songs ever written.

I like everything on this album, and especially in context. Never have a problem just throwing it on start to finish.

DJP extremely OTM

sometimes i think Head Over Heels is the absolute pinnacle of '80s new wave pop music

Listen is almost 7 minutes long and still seems far too short

Really, the entire second side of this album is perfect

"Shout" was the first single and it sounded very cool to me at the time, not like anything else on the radio. Nowadays I'd go for "Everyone Wants to Rule the World", which has somehow managed not to become overplayed.

My experience is the opposite - "EWTRTW" is way way overplayed and "Shout" still retains its primal power.

Also note that "Mothers Talk" was the first single released in August 1984 and it caused a sensation at my college radio station. TFF were still quite underground in the US at the time, I viewed their stadium climb with bemusement.

I remember them suddenly bursting fully-formed into the US pop scene with "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" and knowing they had a previous album but not knowing much about it at the time; decades later, when I went back to The Hurting, I discovered I already knew half the songs on it (I have conscious memory of my first encounter with "Mad World" but I knew "Pale Shelter" and "Change" almost by heart and never knew they were Tears For Fears songs until some time in the 00s, the first time I played the album).

Then it got that single remix in spring 1986.

xpost

I don't think I knew they had a previous album until I saw some live broadcast of a Knebworth concert, when they played "Change."

When the album hit "Change" I actually shouted "WAIT THAT WAS THEM??? I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS SONG FOR YEARS"

I place SFTBC in the category of Big British Summer Crossover Album, as [Dare/i] did in 1982 and So would in 1986

I enjoyed that, it really is one of the most 'classic album-y' docs I've seen for a while, it has nearly all the hallmarks.

What a wonderful documentary. I'm not sure what it did differently from many of the others, but at least tonight it felt like one of the better ones. Not just nuts and bolts and pulling away the curtain, but telling a good story. And I never would have guessed that the album was so influenced by Talking Heads, let alone Ryuichi Sakamoto or Robert Wyatt. And never knew (or noticed) that Chris Hughes was "Merrick," the drummer/producer for Adam and the Ants. Good (er) talking heads, too. Sylvie Simmons and even the dude from Disturbed.

aaaaa i NEED to SEE this

It can be found easily if you f/w torrents

I was thinking wow Roland Beelzebub is looking quite old all of a sudden then a friend pointed out that he lost his wife suddenly a couple of years ago, poor guy :(

thank u for putting me on the path maresnest

it's on YouTube.

watching now while air drumming to "The Working Hour."

No mention of The Way You Are, oddly, a very definite nod to Japan and stepping stone between the first two records, perhaps they just didn't have time to fit it in.

boy, Roland and Curt always boasted regrettable hair, eh

they were among the few 80s stars who had even worse hair in the 00s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9Z1zZkSpQk

I never would have guessed that the album was so influenced by Talking Heads, let alone Ryuichi Sakamoto or Robert Wyatt

'i believe' proudly wears the wyatt influence on its sleeves imo.

omigod just heard Oleta Adams' live version of "I Believe."

I never get tired of the Oleta Adams story. Just think about that, a huge pop band hears a singer in a lounge in Kansas, then has her not only sing lead on the first song on the next album, but more or less get a solo showcase to open the subsequent tour.

'i believe' proudly wears the wyatt influence on its sleeves imo.

Absolutely. I just never made the connection, honestly, given I always listened to this album in a different context.

I love the tales of collaboration in the doc, who contributed or encouraged what. Songs that would have been discarded or ignored had someone not stepped in, often independently, with a good idea.

"Sea Song" is one of the B-sides iirc

Despite 'Sea Song', I never made the connection either, I don't really hear much of Wyatt in the vocal, unlike the producers.

I think the chunky knitwear is a bigger crime than the hair, it's almost its own genre.

Also, Roland (and others in the doc) OTM that one reason the album has stood the test of time, despite being so "'80s," is the depth of his lyrics. As he says, it's pretty remarkable that at 57 he isn't embarrassed singing songs written by his 20-year old self 35 (!) years earlier.

The use of grand piano + synths was striking at the time too, and the sax solos aren't grueling.

wold love a Seeds of Love doc too tbh

the production on this album is pretty absurd in the best sense, you could tell they just went in and wanted to make it sound expansive and ocean deep.

The intro to the album version of "Mother's Talk has always sounded to me as if TFF were mimicking a Trevor Horn production.

I remember in the liner notes to the deluxe edition they mention Steely Dan being an influence. I can’t really hear it, apart from maybe a comparable yearning in the vocals. And maybe “everybody wants to rule the world” was influenced a little by “I.G.Y.”?

not that influences have to be necessarily audible/perceivable

it’s funny how Depeche Mode were like “um we need to sound like this NOW” and got the same producer to make music for the masses

They always seem to ignore a track in these documentaries. Poor "Broken". The way it book-ends and extends "HOH" (and binds the whole of side two together) is a little bit brilliant in context, IMHO.

I was thinking wow Roland Beelzebub is looking quite old all of a sudden then a friend pointed out that he lost his wife suddenly a couple of years ago, poor guy :(

Yeah, sometime around late July of 2017, as far as I can remember? But don't worry, he's found a new love in a young woman named Emily and they're ENGAGED!

Back to the topic of this discussion, I'm glad a lot of y'all caught the Classic Albums episode. I've been meaning to catch the uploads of it available online but am suffering from a severe case of "too much to watch and too little time to watch it all"-itis right now and cannot watch it in its entirety yet, but the intro looked super promising. The fan community has been abuzz about them omitting Manny Elias from the discussion while also including Ian Stanley, and it was nice that they included Oleta Adams.

BTW, "Mothers Talk" is insanely good and I don't get why it didn't get any votes in the original poll.

Why wouldn't Ian Stanley be there? He co wrote almost every song, and played on every track.

Manny Elias missing is a better question. Sounds like the drums were a mixture of programmed and real playing, but the documentary (misleadingly?) implied Chris Hughes did a lot of the playing himself.

Oleta Adams looked fabulous.

Where is this doc? I can’t find it online.

It was this one if that helps:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f8xc

Not on iPlayer anymore but you might be able to find a torrent