Songs from the Big Chair [Remaster] (CD - 1985)

Tears For Fears: Roland Orzabal (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); Curt Smith (vocals, bass); Ian Stanley (keyboards); Manny Elias (drums).

Additional personnel includes: Neil Taylor (guitar); William Taylor, Mel Collins (saxophone); Andy Davis (piano); Chris Hughes, Jerry Marotta (drums); Marilyn Davis, Annie McCaig, Sandy McLelland (background vocals).

Producers: Chris Hughes, Ian Stanley, Tears For Fears.

Compilation producer: Mike Gill.

Includes liner notes by Sean Egan.

Digitally remastered by Jon Astley and Chris Hughes (1999 Close To The Edge).

All tracks have been digitally remastered.

Tears For Fears: Roland Orzabal (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); Curt Smith (vocals, bass); Ian Stanley (keyboards); Manny Elias (drums).

Additional personnel includes: Neil Taylor (guitar); William Taylor, Mel Collins (saxophone); Andy Davis (piano); Chris Hughes, Jerry Marotta (drums); Marilyn Davis, Annie McCaig, Sandy McLelland (background vocals).

Producers: Chris Hughes, Ian Stanley, Tears For Fears.

Compilation producer: Mike Gill.

Includes liner notes by Sean Egan.

Digitally remastered by Jon Astley and Chris Hughes (1999 Close To The Edge).

If The Hurting was mental anguish, Songs from the Big Chair marks the progression towards emotional healing, a particularly bold sort of catharsis culled from Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith's shared attraction to primal scream therapy. The album also heralded a dramatic maturation in the band's music, away from the synth-pop brand with which it was (unjustly) seared following the debut, and towards a complex, enveloping pop sophistication. The songwriting of Orzabal, Smith, and keyboardist Ian Stanley took a huge leap forward, drawing on reserves of palpable emotion and lovely, protracted melodies that draw just as much on soul and R&B music as they do on immediate pop hooks. The album could almost be called pseudo-conceptual, as each song holds its place and each is integral to the overall tapestry, a single-minded resolve that is easy to overlook when an album is as commercially successful as Songs from the Big Chair. And commercially successful it was, containing no less than three huge commercial radio hits, including the dramatic and insistent march, "Shout" and the shimmering, cascading "Head Over Heels," which, tellingly, is actually part of a song suite on the album. Orzabal and Smith's penchant for theorizing with steely-eyed austerity was mistaken for harsh bombasticism in some quarters, but separated from its era, the album only seems earnestly passionate and immediate, and each song has the same driven intent and the same glistening remoteness. It is not only a commercial triumph, it is an artistic tour de force. And in the loping, percolating "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," Tears for Fears perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the mid-'80s while impossibly managing to also create a dreamy, timeless pop classic. Songs from the Big Chair is one of the finest statements of the decade. ~ Stanton Swihart

Although the opening track, "Shout," takes on the theme of catharsis that dominated THE HURTING two years earlier, the progression evident from that debut to SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR is manifest in every other facet. While many of the band's synth-pop peers continued to develop along a linear route, Tears For Fears vaulted into the potentially insipid world of '80s MOR.

Curt Smith sings on the radio-friendly "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," but Roland Orzabal's stronger voice takes center-stage for much of the album, including the spirited single "Mother's Talk" and a falsetto on the stadium-sized "Head Over Heels." "The Working Hour" is the perfect realization of the new sound: a smooth six-minute arrangement of saxophone, piano, and guitar that's marked by a restrained sense of drama. SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR is an excellent album and, shading Simple Minds' ONCE UPON A TIME, arguably the finest example of epic '80s pop. The 1998 remastered edition includes seven bonus tracks.

Although the opening track, "Shout," takes on the theme of catharsis that dominated THE HURTING two years earlier, the progression evident from that debut to SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR is manifest in every other facet. While many of the band's synth-pop peers continued to develop along a linear route, Tears For Fears vaulted into the potentially insipid world of '80s MOR.

Curt Smith sings on the radio-friendly "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," but Roland Orzabal's stronger voice takes center-stage for much of the album, including the spirited single "Mother's Talk" and a falsetto on the stadium-sized "Head Over Heels." "The Working Hour" is the perfect realization of the new sound: a smooth six-minute arrangement of saxophone, piano, and guitar that's marked by a restrained sense of drama. SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR is an excellent album and, shading Simple Minds' ONCE UPON A TIME, arguably the finest example of epic '80s pop. The 1998 remastered edition includes seven bonus tracks. minimize