I Want To Smack Tears For Fears

[djcraig]

[quote][i]Originally posted by InvisibleMan[/i]
<br>[quote]Originally posted by djcraig
[br]After initially putting out some compelling songs on "The Hurting" album ("Mad World", "Change", "Pale Shelter"), the duo's music quickly devolved into easy listening, radio friendly schlock.
[/quote]

Mad World wasn't "radio-friendly"?
[/quote]
In the conservative world of Top 40 programming, this song never saw the light of day... in the US anyway. And it was too "alternative" for the mainstream rock stations to touch.

Anybody remember hearing this back in the day outside of alt/punk stations like KROQ?

We considered it a victory when something as "risky" as Culture Club broke through to Hit radio- LOL!




<a href="http://www.djcraig.net/los_angeles_dj">DJ Craig</a>

[empyrean]

TFF is considered one of the new wave gods in our country. The first video is aw of them is The Way You Are and immediately caught my attention. Got their first 2 albums and yes, The Hurting is their best with songs like Suffer The Children and Ideas As Opiates. Mad World is overplayed here.

Songs From The Big Chair is more commercial. Shout is annoying to my ears now having heard them a thousand times. So is Head Over Heels. But The Working Hour is a Masterpiece.

Never bought The Seeds Of Love because to me they are getting Pop. But i knda admit i like Woman In Chains.

Bought Roland's solo and love Goodnight Song but thats it. Dissapointed somewhat. But still, at least in our country, they are pioneers in New Wave scene here.

Cheers!

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[bigwavedave]

Both The Hurting and Seeds Of Love have great deep album tracks.

For example, "Start Of The Breakdown" on The Hurting is one of their very best, and side two of "Sowing..." sounds nothing like the gimmicky title track and is actually quite good.

[AstroZon]

Songs From the Big Chair is an excellent album. I know that it gets played now on demographically programmed FM radio (where it really doesn't fit IMO,) but it was quite the cutting edge new wave album when it came out.

As for The Seeds of Love, I think you have to understand Orzabal to know why he didn't take the easy path and do Song From the Big Chair II. He's an excellent musician and songwriter but has to move in challenging directions to be creative (rather like Miles Davis.) Seeds of Love is an excellent album with a huge soundstage and overt homages to the Beatles and Motown - but its not new wave.

Still, it was released in 1989 and new wave had already run its course. I think that it's also telling that it became popular again 10 years after its release.

[morgan1098]

Big TFF fan here. As someone else said, the "Seeds of Love" album has a ton of great deep tracks. I'd say it's their best album by far, but I agree that the first single quickly gets annoying. But the other singles, "Woman in Chains," "Advice for the Young at Heart" and "Famous Last Words" are top notch. Good b-sides from that era, too.

Actually, I'd say the three-album arc from "Seeds of Love" to "Elemental" to "Raoul and the Kings of Spain" is TFF at its peak. So yeah, I'm more of a Roland fan than a Curt fan, since Curt was only marginally involved with one of those albums. Roland's solo album "Tomcats Screaming Outside" has some good moments as well.

[uofsc93]

Totally disagree on TFF- but actually feel the same about Thompson Twins (sp) Doctor Doctor? Yeesh and they had such great early synth pop songs -bonus points for sampling themselves on Love On Your Side.

[quote]Originally posted by djcraig
[br]After initially putting out some compelling songs on "The Hurting" album ("Mad World", "Change", "Pale Shelter"), the duo's music quickly devolved into easy listening, radio friendly schlock.

The follow up album, "Songs from the Big Chair", featured "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"- a big hit on Adult Contemporary radio. It fit right in the playlist between The Pointer Sisters and Kenny Rogers. The grating video from "Head Over Heels" was played ad nauseum on MTV, to the point of exhaustion. Nothing on the album approached the promise of their previous material.

By the time "The Seeds Of Love" album came out in 89, Orzabal and Smith were reduced to what amounts to Beatles parody. Their music now a painful reminder that the excitement of the 80s was over.

I can still listen to the early stuff but if "Head Over Heels" comes on I go into anaphylactic shock.



<a href="http://www.djcraig.net/los_angeles_dj">DJ Craig</a>


[/quote]

[DougMash]

Wait, you did a whole datribe on Tears for Fears and didn't mention the grating overplayed mess known as "Shout" once?

[Frank_Chickens]

[quote][i]Originally posted by DougMash[/i]
<br>Wait, you did a whole datribe on Tears for Fears and didn't mention the grating overplayed mess known as "Shout" once?
[/quote]

The only good thing to say about 'Shout' is that it's not the dreary 'Everybody Wants To Run The World'.

[djcraig]

[quote][i]Originally posted by DougMash[/i]
<br>Wait, you did a whole datribe on Tears for Fears and didn't mention the grating overplayed mess known as "Shout" once?
[/quote]
As if we needed any more evidence of TFFs crimes against music. I had any memory of that song surgically removed from my hippocampus long ago but thanks for reminding me.



<a href="http://www.djcraig.net/los_angeles_dj">DJ Craig</a>

[WoodlandParkPunk]

NEVER heard of TFF until I saw them on MTV. I am pretty sure a lot of Americans had the same exposure to them. Love all the radio stuff.

"You just pick a chord, go twang, and you've got music." ~ Sid Vicious

[BigManRestless]

The Hurting was much more to my taste than Songs From The Big Chair, but for such a "commercial" album, it still has some experimental edge (Broken and Listen most obviously).

I never cared for the Seeds Of Love album at the time, and still find it pretty unlistenable now

But I'd agree with morgan1098 - the Elemental album is incredibly good, easily my second favourite behind The Hurting.

[simonsghost]

Raoul and the Kings of Spain came on my Last.FM some time ago. Thought it was terrific.

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[SonicBoom]

The Hurting remains their very best but still there's not many bad things that one can say about TFF. Maybe they didn't impress new wave fans the same way as Depeche Mode, Cure, Human League etc. but they were just as good in terms of songwriting. The Seeds Of Love was an interesting sound for them IMO. Solo offerings like Laid So Low, Elemental, Fish Out Of Water, and Break It Down reminded me of classic TFF. As for the hit songs off SFTBC, I still enjoy them but only in small doses. Overall a good band.

[Doctor Doctor]

Complete bollocks. Plenty of good stuff on all of their albums.

[b]"Let's take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight In Suburbia"[/b]

[djcraig]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Doctor Doctor[/i]
<br>Complete bollocks. Plenty of good stuff on all of their albums.
[/quote]

Quite the erudite argument. The precipitous drop in quality from TFFs breakthrough album is evident to many here. As is the nagging embarrassment we feel when realizing how actually lame what we were once convinced was cool, their later music was.

There is certainly room for some subjective disagreement about their later albums. But I think it would be foolish to suggest that any of their post 1983 work came close to eclipsing "The Hurting".

For me I can't help but wonder how a band that turned out such a shiny jewel could then go on to drop so many stinky turds.


<a href="http://www.djcraig.net/los_angeles_dj">DJ Craig</a>