“We started Tears for Fears so we could get money to go into therapy,” admitted Roland Orzabal to Creem’s Laura Fissinger in 1983. Listening to the group’s debut album, The Hurting, and it’s straightforward to listen to. The report was a message of psychological solidarity to numerous equally disconsolate souls. That mentioned, it was additionally a hell of a variety of enjoyable.
Sure, Tears for Fears might have gotten their grief on with the goths and post-punks, however, crucially, they had been additionally one of many period’s most tantalizing digital dream factories. They had been solely of their early twenties, however Orzabal and his confederate Curt Smith had been bursting with compositional craft, mature musicianship, and an outside-the-box sensibility that might discover them leaning more and more into art-rock territory years later.
Check out the half-speed grasp of Tears For Fears’ The Hurting now.
In brief, it was melancholy you could possibly dance to. For all the interior turmoil on the heart of “Pale Shelter” and “Change,” the previous’s Eurodisco-in-amber vibe and the latter’s polyrhythmic kaleidoscope make entry irresistible no matter emotional make-up.
Like John Lennon earlier than them, Tears For Fears had been fascinated by American psychologist Arthur Janov’s “primal therapy” idea of unburdening your psyche by means of varied visceral means. The concept was the supply of the band’s title, a number of music titles, and the complete lyrical agenda of their first couple of albums.
Indeed, whereas “Mad World”’s chorus “The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had” could strike some naysayers as overdone, keep in mind that bleeding one’s interior monsters through dreamtime drama is a part of the Janov system. And, as Orzabal wryly defined to Smash Hits’ Johnny Black, “dreams in which you’re skipping won’t do much for you at all.”
The truth that every one three of the aforementioned singles reached the U.Okay. Top 5 is testomony to Orzabal and Smith’s knack for mixing the traumatic with the tuneful. And 20 years later, Gary Jules’ model of “Mad World” from the Donnie Darko soundtrack proved it as soon as extra, connecting the music to a complete new alienation technology.
By the time of 1984’s Songs from the Big Chair, the remainder of the world had gotten on board and made Tears for Fears worldwide stars. But earlier than that album’s smashes “Shout,” “Head over Heels,” and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” ever noticed the sunshine of day, The Hurting confirmed that hook-festooned high-sheen pop may very well be private, poignant, and highly effective.