From the earliest beginnings of 1983’s The Hurting to the band’s huge 1985 LP Songs From The Big Chair, Tears For Fears songs captured sadness, ambition, pain - confessional levels of emotional honesty. All this conveyed with the magic touch of songwriters who were also not afraid to get weird.
But as the 80s music scene spun out of control so did Tears For Fears, famously making one of the longest, most tortuous and expensive albums in history in The Seeds Of Love. The aim was flawlessness but the result was a flawed masterpiece, an album that literally exhausted the band (at least as a duo) until a reformation 15 years later. When they came back in 2004 with Everyone Loves a Happy Ending. Roland Orzabal describes that record as “Seeds Of Love’s little brother…it was lighter but the songs lacked the emotional honesty”.
But now Tears For Fears are back. In this streaming age of always-on music, when most artists are terrified to take a month off, let alone a year, let alone 18 years, Tears For Fears return with brand new album The Tipping Point. It comes at a time when their music is back in vogue (a gentle groundswell has seen more than 140 versions of Everybody Wants To Rule The World dropped onto streaming services in the past decade or so, urging the song towards one billion streams).
The duo has always navigated an intriguing relationship, often distanced from each other. Yet the two troubled souls that grew up together have come to accept each other as brothers, musically speaking. In the band’s early years, it was Curt who sang the hits and appeared to be the frontman and pop star of the band, with Roland the “backroom boy” (his words). Yet Roland stepped forth to dominate on The Seeds Of Love, his “musical Tourette's” allowed to run amok.
But a recent revelation is how Roland has learned to listen to Curt again. "When I saw were he was coming from the process of making the record became a joy. I felt the wind was blowing in our favour". It is Curt’s self-critical leanings that stepped-in on The Tipping Point, firstly to throw out most of a batch of songs written in a ‘songwriting camp’ (a fascinating and tragicomic scenario in a way given the songs written as a duo). Second, to step forward once again as co-lead singer and a co-writer in Tears For Fears as a duo, not a committee of songwriters. The band is even enjoying their time in the music industry’s fickle spotlight together once again - from Zoom calls to accepting the Ivor's lifetime award. “Curt and I have both got something to say and they are very different things”.
And here’s the rub. Tears For Fears are back into the culture at a time when many of their 80s peers, from Duran Duran to Gary Numan to Aha, are in fine form, making great records and sounding fabulous live too. After the two years we’ve spent at home, the contagion we now need is to see legends playing truly great pop songs with smiles on their faces.
Forget 2004, the happy ending is happening right now and long may it last.
Get more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/