Tears for Fears: The singles

Shout is a tuff jam

At one time this would clearly have been "Head Over Heels" for me, too. Nowadays, I have a hard time choosing between:

Pale Shelter
Mad World
Shout
Head Over Heels
Advice For The Young At Heart
Woman In Chains

youtube request: Zig & Zag on the Big Breakfast singing 'Raoul And The Kings Of Spain'

great lol college moment -- driving to The Big Football Game in a rental car with assorted scrubs while listening to extended heavy-drum remix of "Shout" over and over again until we got sick of it and then emerged on the other side of "THIS IS GENIUS"

Kick out the Council, bring back The Jam

Sowing the steez of love?

I like many of these, but the winner was the most obvious: "Everybody Wants To Rule The World". It's pretty unfuckwitable, and it's both a predictable and a credible Top 5 single of the 80s. "Mad World" was very close, though.

That said, while I like the single version of "Mother's Talk", the crazy dance remix with the Keith LeBlanc drum sounds and the Galaga samples is just off the hook.

The 12" versions of the singles are waaay underrated, like almost Soft-Cell-12"-version good.

And to reissue my dan, I really like the Sowing The Seeds album, although it wasn't until recently that I purchased it. Nothing stands out as a single on it for me though, which may(?) have been the intention.

i heard their cover of 'Ashes To Ashes' on Spotify

well aside from "Sowing the Seeds Of Love" song itself, haha

xpost

hahax2, to reassure my dan.

I don't think Dan needs to be reissued.

The special edition would come with bonus tracks, though. And liner notes!

"We have remastered this Dan to provide maximum entertainment value."

Went for "Pale Shelter", too. ("You don't give me love, you give me cold hands.")

Disappointed that they haven't released a decent DVD collection of their videos. Or have they?

There's the 20th Century Masters (?) collection, but that's a ripoff for an incomplete handful of videos.

Watching their dance gestures in "Change" and "Mad World" makes me very, very happy.

"Pharaohs" on the b-side of "Rule the World" is incredible.

It's a toss-up between "Head Over Heels" and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," but I went with the former.

i heard their cover of 'Ashes To Ashes' on Spotify

― O Supermanchiros (blueski), Friday, 6 February 2009 16:50 (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It's only when you get to the line "I'm happy, hope you're happy too" you realise it's Not David Bowie!

HI DERE cld you explain to me why I should not skip 'Woman in Chains' every single time.

This is the comp of theirs that I own:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2084/2084883745_393be4473d.jpg

and then the Hurting & Big Chair, so like half of this stuff I don't know!

Always wondered if Orzabal was Basque, he's got the right kind of surname. Always wanted my basquo friend to marry him so their last name could be Orzabal-Oyarzabal.

Also they defs made the only good songs inspired by Janovian scream therapy (I'm eying you with contempt here, John Lennon).

Definitely Iberian in background, it's why the one album/song was called "Raoul and the Kings of Spain."

easily head over heels

then i'd like to say either elemental or break it down again but would feel bad doing so as that's when dudes broke up and the one went off with an entirely new band

When I was a little girl, I thought "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was about the fall of the Berlin wall.

Also "Head Over Heels" has my favorite guitar solo ever.

HI DERE cld you explain to me why I should not skip 'Woman in Chains' every single time.

1. The woman singing with them is sublime on this song.
2. The "So FREEEEEEE her..." coda is breathtaking.
3. It's mellow burbling prettiness that somehow manages to expand into a wall of awesome by the end.
4. I just like the restatement of the phrase "woman in chains, simultaneously beautiful and crepey.

Okay now why is "Suffer the Children" not on yr list?

"woman in chains, simultaneously beautiful and crepey"

song would be 500% better if those were the lyrics

The woman singing with them is sublime on this song

Said woman = Oleta Adams.

HI DERE cld you explain to me why I should not skip 'Woman in Chains' every single time.

I'm not hi dere, but I love the "men of stone" with the rippling guitar and how Orzabal and Oleta Adams' vocals weave around each other without getting cheesy. Normally her intonations are too plummy for me, but she's beautifully suited for the song.

I used to own a promo of Adams' Orzabal-produced debut album.

I haven't listened to "Woman in Chains" for over 8 years fwiw. I should give it another go.

IIRC my dad's an Adams fan.

It's a world gone crazy keeps a woman in chains.

I'd forgotten that that was Oleta Adams! She's fantastic.

Okay now why is "Suffer the Children" not on yr list?

Because I don't remember how it goes!

Hahaha awesome.

I'd forgotten that that was Oleta Adams! She's fantastic.

Yeah, I was going, "Wait, Dan *does* know who she is, surely..."

I voted 'everbody wants to rule the world' but I probably like it exactly as much as 'head over heels'.

I also want to rep for that semi-recent album that had "Closest Thing to Heaven" on it. It's actually pretty good.

creating this poll has made me want to go to the store and buy all of their albums

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

early singles >>> everything else!

Clearly, the winner should be Mad World.

Torn between Pale Shelter, Change and Mad World.

Voted "Mad World".

head over heels narrowly over pale shelter.

Love love love "Head Over Heels" and it gets my vote. But I especially love its original demo version when it was called "We Are Broken" and was the b-side to the "Pale Shelter" single. In that version, the classic riff sounds a lot like a "Computer Love" homage/ripoff.

Lots that I love here - and I hope "Everybody Loves a Happy Ending" gets a vote - but "Sowing the Seeds of Love" is one of my favorite songs ever. I'm a sucker for every manipulative conceit they pull out of their hat there.

i had to vote for "Pale Shelter" though, at the time, it would have gone to "Change" or the obvious "Head Over Heels."

They never managed to top "Mad World", although "Sowing The Seeds Of Love" was a great single from a somewhat less great (except great sounding) album.

HAAAAAAAAAAAATED this band when they were around but it took Donnie Darkos usage of Head Over Heels me relise it was actually a good song, damn nostalgia caught myself singing along to Wham the other day :((

creating this poll has made me want to go to the store and buy all of their albums

I bought The Hurting and The Seeds of Love. Both are fucking awesome and I'm kind of shocked at how much of The Hurting Kenna has ripped off in terms of song construction/feel.

Hahah. Alex, I need you to stick up for the good fight, here. There's not many left of us now who will.

What happened to Stewart Osbourne? The Damned fan? Remember him?

Colonel Poo is our ally, though, make no mistake, he is cool as shit. I just don't get to chat with him as much as I'd like.

I have no idea. I vanished from ILX for a while and now come back sporadically. Lots of folks I remember have left or changed their names to something silly.

xpost

Anyway, thank you to this wonderful person who introduced me to the demo version of Tears For Fears' "Broken" called "We Are Broken" (single version), thank you to him, I doubt I shall ever cross his path again, but anyway, life goes on

Tears For Fears "Change" now come on, is that quality 80's music or what?

Anyway, thanks for your posts, Alex. I'm just trying to tell the young ones about real punk and post-punk and goth and maybe they're young and they don't know what we know, you know?

There are no excuses for ignorance.

hahha how bold are you! I admire it. I'm not a New Yorker, hell I'm not even a northeaster east coaster type person. But I adore you for carrying the true punk rock torch when no one else wanted to carry it :) Also I did finally visit New York last year in October and I felt a lot of peace out of it, in the end. I was surprised.

But who can hope to understand new wave if they don't understand punk? Sigh...

I was in a lot of pain in NYC in October, but I played some Lou Reed, and he got me through it. I felt peace because of him. I was only into the Coney Island Baby album then.

Sorry, Alex. I know you don't like Lou much.

Rock & Roll Heart is my fave album of his. But I can't even think about playing him now. I'm not even in the right mood for him.

TEARS FOR FEARS

tears for fears are playing a winery here in No Cal next month. I'm sure the tickets are $100 a pop; is there any reason at all to go, or will it be painful?

I was about to poll Tears For Fears singles thanks to the 89/90 Modern Rock #1s poll and went "wait, didn't someone do this before...?"

the more we change, etc

also these guys are still awesome

er 88/89, ykwim

you kick with it, man

I still can't believe we forgot to put Tears for Fears on the Best of the 20th century poll

tempted to repoll all the zero vote songs

I'd only vote for "Woman in Chains" though.

Can't wait for Adam Levine's remake of that.

"Woman in chains, because I'm a sensitive and non-sexist guy and because they asked me to"

so taaaaaaalk to herrrrrrrr

Inspired by the re-emergence of this thread I played "Woman in chains" for the first time in years, and once the song kicked in around the 40 seconds mark I thought "This sounds like..." and dashed off to the link piece between "What you want" and "Soon" and they do sound kind of similar.

man I consistently underrate how great "Woman In Chains" is

MEN OF STONE

"Woman In Chains" is good but you know, "Goodnight Song" is a stellar album closer.

I wanted to buy Seeds Of Love when I was a kid, but my mom didn't like the sound of titles like "Woman In Chains" "Badman's Song" and two numbers about knives so I had to settle for a cassingle of the title track.

so free her
so free her

^ A brilliant moment in a great song.

Would have voted for 'Advice For The Young At Heart', which has become my favourite TFF song ever.

yeah it's amazing that one. the story of the making of that album is incredible/nuts.

there was a Guardian piece a while back that posited the notion that Seeds Of Love was at points referencing this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ht5we3qzY

Yeah, it's the kind of studio perfectionism that I don't really hear about so much anymore. Which is kinda strange in a way, given that more people are able to make great recordings with home studios, but understandable in another - not everyone has access to the calibre of players on The Seeds of Love!

saw TFF this year live at camp bestival.
f*cking hell they are a boring live act.
i mean really really boring.
clearly a studio only band ..

i loath predictable poll results...

I heard Break It Down Again the other day & I seriously love it. Has a little bit of a Simple Mindsian thing goong on that I can't describe properly

^ That song is awesome. TFF were my first ever favourite band when I was a child, and "Elemental" was the first album I seriously loved.

I'm cranking The Seeds of Love now. It's pretty much my favourite TFF LP these days and is their masterpiece in my mind.

Elemental is pretty underrated. There's a few excellent songs on it besides Break It Down Again, that would not be out of place on a greatest hits album

yeah it's a good album. I prefer it to the albums that followed however more 'legitimate' they are by having Curt Smith involved