Harriet Gibsone 

Tears for Fears: Songs from the Big Chair box set review – beefy, bizarre preposterous pop

The bombastic sheen of Tears for Fears’ big hits is stripped back on this box set’s extra outtakes and demos, and to intriguing effect, writes Harriet Gibsone
  
  

Tears for Fears, AKA Curt Smith (left) and Roland Orzabal
Mullet bonus … Tears for Fears, AKA Curt Smith (left) and Roland Orzabal. Photograph: Peter Noble/Redferns Photograph: Peter Noble/Redferns

In the liner notes here, Curt Smith of Tears for Fears outlines the pop duo’s ambitions for their second album: “We wanted to get bigger … big guitars … big drums,” he writes, “a little more bombastic and a little more proud.” To celebrate its 30th anniversary, this 6CD box set (plus a picture book featuring bonus permed mullets) strips away some of that pomposity to reveal unreleased sessions, rarities and early mixes that contrast with the robust originals. Some of the B-sides – Empire Building, The Conflict – are industrial, metallic constructs that clang like a drum pad trapped in a washing machine, while an a cappella take of Shout is naturally odd and God-like, and a BBC session of Head Over Heels shows it in more vulnerable light. Some of the extra material is self-consciously experimental, but all of it celebrates a time when two blokes from Somerset made beefy, bizarre, sometimes preposterous pop and sold more than 30m records. Mission accomplished.

 

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