Customer Reviews

Saturnine Martial & Lunatic

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Tears For Fears are a great band. Their talent wasn't just on their regular records. This CD shows an even broader perspective of the great music they,ve made over the years. Some of the songs contain synth, guitar samples from their hit songs.There are others that did not make it onto their albums. Some are quirky instrumentals that only devoted fans of TFF like me will enjoy. Her's how I grade the songs.

JOHNNY PANIC AND THE BIBLE OF DREAMS B+ This songs as I said earlier sample the chord structure of Shout. It's a trippy dance song with the lyrics of Sowing The Seeds Of Love sung in a rap chorus. I usually hate rap but whoever sung the lyrics did a good job.

THE BIG CHAIR B+ This song is strange. It has a light beat with sword sound effects and a distraught woman talking in the background. There is a pause in the middle of the track with a ambient humming sound almost like the sound of an airplane propellor along with dripping sounds. The man screaming is kind of disturbing. This song is good.

SCHRODINGERS CAT A+ This is a great song. The song pauses in the middle with just the piano playing. It then srats back up and fades out. The rock guitars are fun to listen to.

MY LIFE IN THE SUICIDE RANKS A+ This is one of my favorites on this CD. It's a very underproduced, simple song. Roland is a genius on here. Rolands creaming on here is funny as well as his high pitch singing.

WHEN IN LOVE WITH A BLIND MAN A+ This song is the primitive version of The Working Hour from the Big Chair LP. It far less intense and more laid with pan flutes and different lyrics. Gotta give this song a listen.

PHARAOHS A+ Absolutely stunning! This is the most beautiful song TFF have ever written. It's haunting, ambient almost new agey. It has the drum loop of Everybody Wants To Rule The World. It also has the synth guitar licks from it as well. This song is a must hear. I still get chills listening to it even now three years after first hearing it. A+

DEJA VU AND THE SINS OF SCIENCE A+ Man do I love this song. It's a trippy` ambient masterpiece kinda like Pharaohs but more danceable. This is another one of my favorites.

THE MAURAUDERS B- This is porbably my least favorite song on this CD but I still like it. It's a rather mellow song with some quirky keyboards. The keyboards toward the ending sound way ahead of its time sounding almost like those you'd hear in Peter Gabriel's Red Rain. A nice instrumental.

TEARS ROLL DOWN A+ This is probably my second favorite of this CD. It's the primitive version of Laid So Low from their Greatest Hit compilation. It's dark and a bit scary. It builds up over the first two minutes with discordant chants and blows up into an ambient rock time with the chorus of Laid So Low. This album gets a five just for this song alone.

NEW STAR A+ AAAAWWWWW RRRRRRYYYYYTTTTEEEE!!!! This is the winner on this album. Some real rock and roll. This is the best song TFF have made during the 1990s. The guitar playing is great. This song rocks. This should have been a number one hit. This song is the best song on this CD. This album gets a five star just for this song alone as well.

THE BODY WAH A+ This song is an Orb like instrumental. It's kind of a stormy track accompanied with the sounds of jets flying. It also has the sound of someone saying "Because she has power" repeatedly in parts of this song along with chain sound effects for a few seconds. I love this song. Give this song a listen.

LORD OF KARMA A+ This song is an underrated gem. It similar to New Star but more pop sounding. This is another favorite

BLOODLETTING GO A This is a strange but pop sounding song. It's a bit hard to explain how it sounds like but I at least can say it's a great song.

ALWAYS IN THE PAST A+ A very well done track. Fast paced, complex, this song is great. The heavy rock in the middle is paradise to my ears. There are also hornis playing throughout this song.

SEA SONG A+ This is a beautiful song. It is a piano song at the beginning but it's becomes a new age pop song. The last minute is breathtaking with the voices chanting.

ASHES TO ASHES B- This is a cover of the original David Bowie classic. I haven't heard the original but I,ve heard that this version almost sound exactly like the original. This version is good though.

EMPIRE BUILDING A+ LOL! I though this was The Art Of Noise. It's mainly a bunch of sound effects with a metallic beat. It's almost like something you'd hear in some action movie. The guitar bell at 0:42 gives me the chills. This is the weirdest track TFF have ever written. Roland must have been listen to too much Art Of Noise.

THE WAY YOU ARE A- This is a nice early 80s new wave song. A little repetative but great. A nice closer to this masterpiece CD.

As a whole there is not one bad track on this CD. It's so rare that I have 70+ minute CDs that have no weak tracks. Theres a lot more great things to say about this marvelous CD. I highly recommend that you get this CD. In fact even the 78 plus minutes doesn't contain all of their rare tracks. Music For Tables is a jazzy instrumental that couldn't fit on here. The Conflict is another that couldn't make it on here. But that doesn't make this CD less than perfect. Go out and buy this CD. It will be an excellent CD in your collection. Well I,m now out of words. Good Bye.

This is a GREAT cd for all Tears For Fears fans. One thing to remember is that this is an entire album of B-sides to singles and outtakes from other projects. Even so, while some tunes are very abstract, and some are re-writes or remixes of others that have appeared on other albums, the project as a whole is well executed. Containing material from both Orzabal as a solo TFF, or with Curt Smith, this is a valuable addition to your collection. Also, there are 18 cuts and Orzabal gives liner notes on each cut, along with history, and flashbacks about how each came to be - that's invaluable information for fans.

This album is a collection of B-sides and rarities spanning most of Tears for Fears' career, including Roland's solo years. It begins with the fun dance-pop-ish treatment of "Sowing the Seeds of Love" entitled "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams." TFF fans should recognize some synth licks in "Pharaohs" as being straight from "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." Other great tracks here include "Tears Roll Down", a modified version of which appears on the Greatest Hits album. There's also a worthwhile cover of David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" as well as the rocking "New Star" and the repetitive but catchy "The Way You Are." Overall, this may be one mostly for TFF's devoted fan base, but anyone can really enjoy these good songs.

I stumbled upon this CD not knowing any of the songs on here not long ago. I decided to buy it keeping my fingers crossed but it was far better than I thought it would be. Some songs sound mainstream enough to make a dent on the charts. Examples are Always In The Past, Sea Song, The Way You Are, and the rock driven New Star. There are some very simple abstract instruments like Marauders and The Big Chair that casual fans would not care for. But for the devoted fans this is a must have. I recommend it.

This album, although full of obscurities, is one of the finest examples of how Tears For Fears work. A mix up of everything in their career to date - big fans will spend hours picking up all the references in there. Not one for the purists, then!

Playful, excellently produced and worthevery penny.

Worth buying for the opener "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams", surely one of the best tunes ever, with a dance edge production from techno wizards Fluke.

Tears for Fears. what can i say about this album? it's definately not your cut and dry, ready for radio production. but that's what makes it so fantastic. every song on this CD is amazing....soothing....mind expanding. samples from well known T4F songs, linear notes on how each song was conceptualized.....excellent recording! anyone who doesn't understand this CD, anyone who doesn't appreciate this CD simply doesn't understand or appreciate Tears For Fears. and that's ok. the rest of us Tears for Fears fans can only feel sorry for you! go out and buy this CD, now!

This is a CD composed of B-Sides and rarities from 1983 to 1993. The songs are great and show a broad spectrum of TFFs talent. Some songs are a little weak but those negatives are offset by the super quality of New Star, Always In The Past, Sea Song, and Tears Roll Down. Go and buy this CD. It's great!

FINALLY, the killer b-sides of one of the greatest british bands in the world! saturnine, martial and lunatic indeed!

when this record came out in 1996, i REJOICED! the songs here are the ones missing in my entire TFF collection before. this is the collection of b-sides that are nowehere to be found. the songs here were even digitally remastered and - before the release of the remastered TFF albums - sounded even better than the original album releases.

each song here belongs to a previously commercially released single. for example, "the big chair" was the b-side of shout; "pharoahs" was the b-side of everybody wants...; "when in love with a blind man" was the b-side of head over heels, etc. all the songs here are TFF in their unguarded moments...without the thought of commercialism and just playing their own type of music.

buy it: if you are a hardcore TFF fan and wanna hear what they really sound like from 1983 to 1993 through their genuinely crafted b-side singles!

avoid it: if you are only a casual TFF fan looking for their commercially-released tracks!

this album actually completes your collection!

when you but the remastered first three albums of TFF, you will find additional tracks that could bery well fit in this cd, such as "broken revisited" (seems like the original version of broken), "the conflict" from their early years 1983-1985, and the original version of "johnny panic and the bible of dreams."

This album is one that had to be made. Absolutely an indispensible addition to any Tears for Fears fan. It is entirely comprised of singles they made from as far back as the early eighties to present, songs which never made it onto their albums. While most of the songs I like, there are a few so-so ones, but the good ones definitely outweigh them. One song that comes to mind that stood out as my favorite is "Sea Song", it's short but sweet with all that simple charm that could only come from them. I highly recommend this album, especially if you're as big of fan of Tears for Fears as I am.

I just love this CD. I'm a TFF fan so of course I am a little biased. But still, I love this one and am so inspired by it. What you have here are the shells, the early early beginnings of what evolved to be TFF's most memorable, classic work ever.
For example "Pharohs" has recognizable "Everybody wants to rule the world" in it, it was the starting point of this song, the one that launched TFF to stardom. Who would have thought that classic would evolve out of "Pharohs?" Or that "Sowing the Seeds of Love" started out as "Johnny panic and the bible of dreams?"

This CD is inspirational because I listen to it and I think about how all great things start out obscure, confused, and seldom representative of what they eventually become. The road to something great has to start somewhere and this CD and it's tracks are just reminders to keep pushing and rolling with an idea until it evolves into something beautiful and fantastic.