Chart entered : 2 October 1982
Chart peak : 3
Number of hits : 19
One of the pluses of this period for me was the success of this lot.
Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith met as teenagers in Bath. Roland was in a covers band with two other guys . He invited Curt into an expanded line up to play bass in 1978 and they named the new band Graduate after the Dustin Hoffman film. In July 1979 they made a Faustian bargain with an eccentric local businessman whereby he'd pay for a recording session as long as the song was about him. Roland duly wrote "Mad One" after the guy's personalised number plate. A few dozen copies were pressed and were mostly given away as promotional items at the guy's premises. Roland is rumoured to have later hunted them down for destruction.
Nevertheless the recording sessions led to a deal with Tony Hatch's Precision label. They were a new wave band influenced by Squeeze and Elvis Costello but Roland became annoyed by an interview where the latter derided ska bands as one hit wonders despite him producing the debut Specials LP. He responded with the song "Elvis Should Play Ska" , a sarky riposte played and sung in true Attractions fashion. It's amusing that whoever first put the lyrics up on the net seems to have no knowledge of Costello and mistranslates every reference that Roland put in there - detectives = "dead tattoos" , armed forces = "applauses" red shoes = " issues" Oliver's = our love is and so on. The song has a great tune and so became their first single. It didn't get much attention here but was more successful in Germany and Spain leading to gigs and a TV appearance there. It also led to the record company insisting they wear suits and be promoted as a mod / ska band.
After a tour supporting Judie Tzuke they released their debut album "Acting My Age" in May 1980 including second single "Ever Met A Day". It's by far the best track with a morose lyric set to a strong tune with a disco beat, synth washes ( c/o Curt ) and flute flourishes. Elsewhere apart from the previous single and the execrable "Shut Up" it's competent but average new wave pop that wasn't going to break down any doors.
Their final single was "Ambition" in October 1980 where the synths are more prominent over a Northern Soul stomp ( very similar to The Look's I Am The Beat released around the same time ). It was to be the title track to the group's second album which was never completed. With the label losing faith in them the group split up around the beginning of 1981. Eight more tracks were unearthed for release on the CD of Acting My Age in 2001 which show the band leaning in a more soft rock direction though there was nothing that was likely to storm the charts.
Roland and Curt decided to stay together as a duo initially named White Papers and record songs based on their shared interest in primal therapy, first mentioned in rock a decade earlier when John Lennon became an advocate for it. Promulgated by psychiatrist Arthur Janov it basically said that we all carry pain from the non-satisfaction of wants from our earliest years and if we induce a regression to our primal state and let loose our emotions from that time we'll be happier more balanced individuals. ( When the guys eventually met Janov they found him uncomfortably materialistic and self-promoting ).
Before releasing anything they went in the studio to help out a local synth pop act , Neon, and it seems to have been this experience that persuaded them to pursue a more electronic direction. Some of the guys on the session later joined Tears For Fears while the others formed the second rate synth duo Naked Eyes and later the tenth rate pop duo Climie Fisher.
Roland and Curt came out of the sessions as Tears For Fears and got a deal with Mercury to release the debut single "Suffer The Children" in November 1981. The dense synth work and ragged vocal immediately bring OMD to mind and there's a melodic similarity in the "Hold him , tell him that you love him" refrain to Supertramp's Dreamer . The song deals with the pain of neglect in childhood with the aforementioned refrain sung by Curt in counterpoint to Roland's maudlin verses. It got a bit of play on David Jensen's show but didn't break through. It was re-recorded with Curt's refrain excised and real drums for their debut album then the original single was a minor hit on re-release in 1985.
Their second single in March 1982 was "Pale Shelter", also re-recorded for the album ( reviwed here ) but then released as a single to become their third hit in May 1983. The original version was a minor hit in 1983.
Here for convenience is the review of "Mad World " :
The familiar syn-drum intro tells us that their breakthrough hit "Mad World" is next , here taken at a slightly faster pace than the single. This is a hurt person looking out at the world and seeing others in the same boat - echoes of "Message In A Bottle" here. You have to understand Janov a little to realise that the devastating "Dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had" is actually the most optimistic part of the song, Orzabal celebrating the cathartic value of nightmares rather than entertaining suicidal thoughts. The second verse recalls his own unhappy childhood with the sardonic synthetic brass fills that punctuate each line one of many unexpected musical touches that give this album extra power.
I'm a big fan of their first two albums (goes rapidly downhill from there, though their "Goodbye" post 20 odd years down the line will show what I thought was a storming return), though it strikes me as odd how this song was such a huge hit. Was it the teenyboppers buying it alongside the more obvious raincoat brigade?
ReplyDeleteI also feel Tears for Fears have been somewhat whitewashed out of pop history in this country, despite how huge they were. I suppose they lacked the credibility of New Order, for example - not helped by coming from somewhere as unhip as Bath.
I think it helped that every jock on R1 was playing it from Mike Read through to Peel ( see also Wah's "Story of the Blues" and Lotus Eaters' "The First Picture of You" for other examples of this ). Curt's looks assisted a bit I guess.
DeleteI think they suffered somewhat from breaking through at the same time as some real crap which we'll unfortunately be discussing in the near future.