Fears come back to haunt you (Tears Roll Down - Greatest Hits 1982 - 1992 - Tears For Fears)

Member Name: danielse

Product:	Tears Roll Down - Greatest Hits 1982 - 1992 - Tears For Fears
Date:	12/02/04 (233 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Comprehensive, Groovy, Poptastic

Disadvantages: Curt, Roland, Oleta

If there was going to be a soundtrack to my 1980s this could well be it. This Greatest Hits album plays around with the release chronology (something I shall attempt to rectify in this review) but it does well to cover all but one of TFF?s singles between 1982 and 1992.

With hindsight, Tears for Fears were a band that should never have had the success they did. Rising to prominence in 1982-1983, Curt Smith and Roland Orzabel seemed way too earnest to make it in a world dominated by the pop foppery of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Culture Club. They were always meant to be also-rans neither good-looking nor musically talented enough to make a lasting impression. And yet with a succession of appealingly crafted singles they eschewed contemporary trends and maintained a steady impact on the UK charts as well as the traditionally harder nut -- America?s AOR heartland.

Leading off the first album, The Hurting, Tears for Fears released ?Mad World? in Autumn 1982. Arthur Janov has been an unlikely pop influence over several decades. Anyone who has listened to John Lennon?s harrowing screeches on ?Mother? from his Plastic Ono Band record will have heard the redemptive harshness of the Primal Scream. Tears for Fears named their first full length release after a phrase from Janov?s book Primal Scream and filled it with songs such as ?Suffer the Children?, ?Watch Me Bleed? and ?Start of the Breakdown?. In a chart filled with ?Hungry Like the Wolf?, ?True? and ?Church of the Poison Mind? these were never going to be floor fillers at the school disco. Even the album?s artwork ? a young child sitting head in hands against a stark white background ? distinguished Tears for Fea
rs from their chart contemporaries. Mad World was a surprise top 3 hit much in the same way its cover version was a surprise Xmas No. 1 at the end of last year. ?The dreams in which I?m dying are the best I?ve ever had? was shocking enough when appended to the cult masterpiece Donnie Darko, try to imagine it in a Sunday afternoon chart rundown sandwiched between ?Heartbreaker? and ?Starmaker? (Dionne Warwick and the Kids from ?Fame? trivia fans).

The second single from the album was ?Change?. Another synthesizer driven hit with Curt and his rat-tails on vocals and Roland looking chubby in the background. ?Where does the end of me become the start of you?? More unusually literate lyrics for a top 5 band and yet it was undeniably catchy. Tears for Fears were too pop for the NME and too ugly for Smash Hits ? no wonder we identified with them so readily.

?Pale Shelter? had been the band?s second single release after ?Suffer the Children? failed to chart in late 1981. In May 1983 it was remixed and became the third top 5 single for Tears for Fears. ?You don?t give me love, you give me cold hands? didn?t mean much to me as a callow teen but it?s a lyric that has come back to haunt me after 11 years of marriage to a woman with unbearably poor circulation.

Bridging the gap until their next full length release was the single ?The Way You Are?. This is the one track from this period not included on this album and as its lyric suggests it seemed at the time the band was ?going far, getting nowhere?.

It was almost another year until August 1984 when we heard from Curt and Roland again. It wasn?t an auspicious comeback. Mother?s Talk had an unnerving stop-start rhythm and a vocal from Roland that did not bode well for the forthcomi
ng album release.

Fortunately, when Songs from the Big Chair arrived it surfed into the nation?s consciousness on the wave of an entirely different single. ?Shout? was the result of Curt and Roland?s first attempt to write a tune to help them break America. Orzabel?s gruff vocal delivery coupled with Smith?s maturing work on the bass guitar made this a compelling single. The lyric is filled with anger and self-loathing as in ?They gave you life and in return you gave them hell? and yet the song works as classic 80s, Jonathan-King-on-No-Limits, Top-Gun-at-the-movies, power pop.

The single returned Tears for Fears to the top 5 in early 1985 and the album hit No. 1 soon after. There can?t be many multi-platinum pop records that take their name from a TV mini series starring Sally Field as an extreme schizophrenic, but, if there are others, I?ll bet this is the best.

The stirring success of ?Shout? still did not prepare anyone for the pop glory of their next single. Despite rarely appearing in anyone?s top 100 list, ?Everybody Wants to Rule the World? has one of the most recognizable openings of any song and remains a joy any time it comes on the radio. Still the lyrics were unremittingly gloomy ? ?Help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure, nothing ever lasts forever? ? but they were paired with some of the most uplifting white-boy soul singing of the decade. This was the record that conquered America for Curt and Roland, followed into the No. 1 spot there by ?Shout? and, for a brief moment in the long Summer of 1985, it looked like Tears for Fears really did rule the world.

The fourth single from the Big Chair album was ?Head over Heels?. Lyrically more obtuse that other releases, it is a great track and a personal fav
ourite from the Summer of O-levels, Live Aid and The Boss at Wembley Stadium.

The last single from the album would never have been released were it not for the huge success of the previous singles. I Believe is a gospel-influenced, cry from the depths that provides welcome closure to the first two albums and the first stage of Tears for Fears career: ?I believe that when the hurting and the pain are gone, we will be strong.?

Having missed the whole Band Aid bandwagon, there was some surprise when Curt and Roland agreed to rerecord their greatest hit in support of 1986?s Sport Aid. I remember pushing a temporarily injured friend six miles around Hyde Park in a wheelchair. As we crossed the finished line everyone was singing along to ?Everybody Wants to Run the World?. This charity version is not on this compilation but it?s a nice memory.

And then nothing. I did my A-levels, left school, left the country and heard nothing. In the time that passed, I saw Madonna at Wembley, Clapton in Jerusalem, mourned the demise of The Smiths, marveled at the rise of George Michael and started going out with my wife. There were a group of us who had been taken by surprise by the Big Chair album. We used to swap Tears for Fears rumours from time to time. I read my first issue of Q Magazine in the 40+ degree heat of the Bet Shean valley ? Curt and Roland were recording again.

I returned to the UK in Summer 1989 and Tears for Fears returned too. ?Sowing the Seeds of Love? is the second greatest ?popstar growing up? song ever recorded. Not afraid to reference their earlier songs (?if you?re a worried man then shout about it?), or openly criticize the government of the day (?Politician
granny with your high ideals, have you no idea how the majority feels?), Roland was a man reborn in love and crowing about it to anyone with ears to listen. ?The love train rides from coast to coast, every minute of every hour. I love a sunflower and I believe in love power.? It was a magnificent comeback, a soaring Beatle-y excess of flower-fueled, horn-backed psychedelia. And with it, Tears for Fears burned out.

Of course there was an album to go with the single and a couple more single releases from it. ?Woman in Chains? featured Oleta Adams, discovered as a lounge singer by the boys and brought to prominence. It?s not a bad song as such but there?s a heck of a difference between two sons of the 60s shielding their eyes against the blinding light of the ?love power? and two dorky white guys backing a talented black woman singing ?It?s a world gone crazy keeps a woman in chains.? Around this time I paid good money to see the band live at Wembley Arena. Never a great venue for intimacy, they seemed to be going through the motions having done all the hard work in the studio.

?Advice for the Young at Heart? was the final single release from The Seeds of Love. It is pedestrian mellow pop at best and dreary preaching at worst. Luckily it is the last track on the compilation and easily skipped.

The bonus track included on this record when it was originally released in 1992 was the obligatory new song ?Laid so Low (Tears Roll Down)?. It?s a classic Orzabel track entirely reminiscent of ?Shout? which is not a bad thing and a welcome inclusion.

After 1992, Curt formerly left the band while Roland continued to record under the name Tears for Fears. The best song to come from this era was 1993?s ?Break it Down Again? and could have been included on t
his re-released version of the Greatest Hits without hurting anyone and certainly at the expense of ?Advice??.

In conclusion.

Yes, Tears for Fears were literate in a way that is often irritating.

Yes they seemed to take themselves too seriously.

Yes Curt and Roland are two of the worst popstar names ever. Ever.

But, this compilation is a great reminder that sometimes things can work out even when they?re not supposed to. Sublime.

Available everywhere for around a tenner. Amazon has second hand copies in the Marketplace from around seven quid.

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