TEARS FOR FEARS: Songs From The Big Chair (POP): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Here is the album of the consecration for Tears For Fears. It was an immediate success, all over the world. Its successive re-releases having revived its brilliance and prolonged its career, the sales are now close to 12 million copies... Rarely a project will have been so pampered, both by the public and by its creators. One does not count any more the versions that its singles will have known, adapted with the wire of the opportunities.

However, if the commercial success exceeded all the hopes, the quality of conception, by some aspects at least, turns out to be very slightly less than that of the first album. "Songs From The Big Chair", in its form, is freer than "The Hurting", but also a little less coherent. Not much to say about the sound (and even... nothing at all!), which proves to be as deep, ample and multicolored as the first production. The instrumentation is always as generous, testifying of a real will to renovate the pop music of the moment: the new-wave is in the honor of course (what a delight, this keyboard introducing 'Everybody Wants To Rule The World'!) but it lets breathe and blossom the guitar, the horns, the piano, the choirs...

The enormous 'Shout', unforgettable planetary success, opens the march of its peremptory mid-tempo and its sententious vocalizations, a staggering performance of Roland Orzabal. This is the band's hit song, which very few ears in the world could claim not to have heard (perhaps the youngest?). Right after, the talented 'The Working Hour' will gradually reveal its dreamy potential, very slightly (and skilfully) tinged with atony; but in fact, it already changes the direction of the opus and the most impatient listeners will find that the track drags a bit. 'Everybody Wants To Rule The World' certainly has what it takes to reconcile everyone, revealing a melody as simple as it is beautiful, and displaying its luminous rhythmic, tonal and vocal relaxation. A success among successes, which risks, here again, to modify the emotional lighting of the album. 'Mothers Talk', another deserved success, takes different narrative turns on the same rhythmic framework, via sometimes introspective, sometimes accusing convolutions, before giving way to the evanescent and soaring melancholy of 'I Believe'. Finally, the theme of 'Head Over Heels' will be cleverly advanced (and diluted) through the flashy 'Broken', then enthroned by the next track. Here, the album returns appreciably to the impulses of 'Everybody Wants To Rule The World', by affirming already a certain taste for the expressiveness of the scenic anthems, a taste confirmed by the parenthesis of 'Broken', in live cover. Finally, the interminable conclusion of 'Listen', with its light and carefree tone, steals the honors of the finale from 'Head Over Heels', which certainly deserved them more.

In the end, "Songs From The Big Chair" is a succession of hits giving back to pop music its letters of nobility and is obviously warmly recommended! - Official website

TEARS FOR FEARS

SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR

MERCURY

POP