Countless upgrades in scale and daring signalled Tears For Fears’ new, more progressive direction on Songs From The Big Chair. It’s also famously home to I Believe, the plush, jazz-tinged ballad Roland Orzabal dedicated to Soft Machine’s Robert Wyatt.
Even circa their 1983 debut The Hurting there was more going on beneath the bonnet than simple tags such as “synthpop” or “new wave” suggested. If you knew your prog, it was easy to draw a connecting line between the pulsing marimba pattern that opened key single Change and the same sound underpinning No Self Control, a track from 1980’s Peter Gabriel.
By the time they turned their attention to Songs From The Big Chair, Orzabal and Curt Smith’s confidence had grown exponentially. Trusted foils such as keyboardist Ian Stanley and producer-drummer Chris Hughes helped them harness the full potential of evolving LinnDrum and Fairlight CMI synthesiser technology.
In 1985 perhaps only Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love and Scritti Politti’s Cupid & Psyche 85 pressed machine-based kit into such similarly spectacular, inherently musical service.
But Tears For Fears had a trump card in the single Everybody Wants To Rule The World. A song that Hughes had been gunning for all along until Orzabal penned it at the 11th hour, it was the group’s first US No.1 single before the equally anthemic Shout followed suit. Those two songs made superstars of the duo who’d formed in Somerset four years earlier.
Though the B-sides, alternative mixes, edits and rarities on the three-CD incarnation of this box set have all seen daylight before, it’s fascinating to revisit The Way You Are – the tricksy misfire that would make Orzabal and Smith think again before commencing work on Big Chair.
The Blu-ray features various 2025 remixes of the original album by Steven Wilson. In whichever sonic incarnation, the album remains a perfect distillation of 80s alienation and ambition, its tunes sublime.
Songs From The Big Chair – 40th Anniversary Edition is on sale now via UMR.
