Customer Reviews

Shout: The Very Best of Tears for Fears

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Although this CD was released in 2001, it is simply a recycled "Tears Roll Down: Greatest Hits '82-'92 CD with new packaging and added tracks.

All content on this CD exists in remastered form on the individual, content-expanded UK-import TFF CD's, also released in 2001:

The Hurting
Songs From The Big Chair
Seeds Of Love

This CD is a great collection of songs, but from an audio standpoint, the difference is not subtle: The remasters sound like a heavy cloth removed from the speakers, compared to the older masters on this CD.

Universal obviously wanted to pilot-fish the momentum off the import remastered releases by tossing this re-packaged, non-remastered package into the market at the same time: By releasing this set in the same calandar year as the remasters, a lot of buyers would be fooled into thinking they were getting the remastered content in a greatest hits package.

This seems to be a disturbing trend on the part of Universal: Re-packaging pre-existing, sonically inferior, greatest hits CD's with new artwork and a few added tracks.

In the 1980's, there were just so many different amazing groups that really did deliver to what pop music should really have, feeling. Yet, today, I honestly don't even come close to seeing that with acts like Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, and Ciara to name a few. When it ame to acts that put the boldness into the music, Tears For Fears really did bring it out plenty of times. Back in 1992, the British pop group had a highly successful hits package, Tears Roll Down, in what made them a gre group. Unfortunately, awhile ago, the record was no longer issued to the public, and a substitute was conjured.

Shout: The Very Best Of Tears For Fears, replaces the Tears Roll Down package for longtime fans of the 80's group, but nevertheless, it also does deliver. The compilation seems more like a extended version of Tears Roll Down, and it does deliver as well. The compilation includes all of their big hits like the peppy 80's hit Everybody Wants To Rule The World, Shout, and the epic pop ballad Sowing The Seeds Of Love. The collection also does add a little bit more, with tracks like the overshadowed Break It Down Again, which was during the post Curt Smith era record Elemental. The album is fairly compiled, but could've been remastered a bit better.

All in all, for anybody who hasn't heard these great pop gems and guilty pleasures, Tears For Fears had a whole lot to say for advice for the young at heart. Shout: The Very Best Of Tears For Fears is a great compilation for anybody who doesn't own a Tears For Fears record. That is something to shout about.

Album Cover: C

Songs: B

Price: B+

Mastering: B-

Overall: B 1/2-

Tears For Fears were definitely one of the best bands of the 80's decade. This album has all the hits (yes, most of all these songs were hits) in America and the UK. The sound is superior. The liner notes say that the songs were 96k/24 bit mastered. This brings out the highlights in the layering of the instruments and vocals. It also includes the hard to find US remix of "Mother's Talk", which I've been looking for quite some time.

Maybe a couple songs could be considered "filler", but even these songs bring a diverse sound to this collection. This is a band that should be given more credit than they usually get!

Tears For Fears is the duo who crafted intelligent, tuneful pop songs back in the 1980's, riding the "new wave" sound of that era. The duo parted ways in the early 90's, and this is the first hits album to include Roland Orzabal's post breakup material recorded under the TFF name. Curt Smith has the more impressive voice, but Orzabal is also a solid vocalist, with his solo hit Break It Down Again a memorable track. This album fails to include anything from the 2nd Orzabal TFF solo album Raoul and The Kings of Spain, which had a few memorable tracks but was a commercial and chart flop. If you like Tears For Fears you might also want to get the last album and Elemental in addition to the hits collection.

Tears For Fears was all over the airwaves in the 80's. With hits like "Shout," "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and "Sowing the Seeds of Love," you couldn't keep from hearing them if you tried. The core members of the band, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith went their separate ways after the excellent Seeds of Love album, and while Orzabal continued under the Tears For Fears name, it just wasn't the same without Smith's vocals in the mix.

Though it didn't make any headlines, one of the most encouraging bits of musical news of 2000 was that the duo reconciled their differences and began writing material together again, with the hope of recording a new album. In the meantime, Mercury released Shout - The Very Best of Tears For Fears. Yes, this is the band's third greatest hits collection, but it's the first to include tracks from the Smith-less era.

As with any album like this, there are always songs that should be here that aren't, and vice-versa. To these ears, there are too many tracks from The Hurting, and not enough from Songs From the Big Chair and The Seeds of Love. It may not be perfect, but it's a full 79 minutes of music. You can't ask for much more than that.

As with other reviewers I noticed the audio not being as crisp as one would expect for a supposed remastered edition but I was very pleased with the track list. I owned the previous "best of" collection, "Tears Roll Down," and I felt that my favorite TFF album "The Hurting" was neglected on that release. This album includes all of the popular US singles from "The Hurting"-"Mad World," "Change," and "Pale Shelter." It also includes the song "Suffer the Children" and the single "The Way You Are" which was released in between "The Hurting" and "Songs from the Big Chair." It also includes another one of my favorites, "Break It Down Again," from the album "Elemental." All of the classics are here, and a few extras. I feel like I got my money's worth.

This is just an absolutely fantastic collection of music. Tears For Fears wrote some of the most beautuful tunes I've ever heard and this compilation puts all my favorites in one place. It is still a stunner to hear these tracks and I will never tire of songs like "Mad World", "I Believe", or "Shout".
...and the best part is, Roland and Curt are back! I found out recently that they have a new record coming (9/14/04) called "Everybody Loves A Happy Ending". Damn Right! Their 1st record back in like 15 years! It's a great to be a TFF Fan again.

OMG, Roland is the r0x0r! The way he enunciates makes me go all wobbly. "Woman in Chains" is simply the greatest song ever written, it's the story of my life. And sometimes I do want to shout, shout, and let it all out! So come on! Buy this album! I'm talking to you, so come on!

This 2001 collection is a definite improvement over the 1992 "Tears Roll Down: Greatest Hits 1982-1992" to such an extent that it makes the old hits collection almost irreverent. While a vast majority of their hit songs came before the old collection, that album left out one hit and that was "Break It Down Again" which peaked at a surprisingly high number 25 during the summer of 1993 and would be their last top-40 hit (as of writing this review). The previous collection sometimes would jump too much between styles ("Sowing The Seeds of Love" jumping to "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" goes into totally different styles) but the "Shout: The Very Best of" CD corrects the problem of that collection and arranges the songs in a more chronological order starting with their 1983 debut and running all the way through 1993.

Their first hit single was the primitive but highly addictive "The Way You Are" which fits more into the typical 1981-84 music trends of that time but still a very good song and the blueprint of what they would do later on. Their debut album "The Hurting" stands out amongst the extremely dated music that came out around that time, incorporating musically light but yet lyrically dark and apocalyptic music to create one of 1983's greatest albums. It was this album that TFF had their first hit single although much of their success was in Europe at this point but this CD was a major success and yielded the minor hits "Mad World", and "Pale Shelter". This album in my opinion stands out among the endless river of the synth-pop music of the early 1980s.

It was late in 1984, that Tears For Fears saw their breakthrough success in the United State with the ominous single "Shout" which is their best song that they did during this period in their career. It begins with deep, angry lyrics and a mechanical beat against a menacing keyboard backdrop and ultimately blasting into a hard-edged rock number that still remains a popular classic today nearly 2 full decades later. The other number one song was their highly danceable and mysterious "Everybody Wants To Rule The World". I have very faint memories of hearing this song when I was just a toddler but have enjoyed this song for almost my whole life. This is another song that remains highly popular today on the radio. "Songs From The Big Chair" saw it's sales deserved bolstered up through the roof from these two songs and also from a third major hit called "Head Over Heals" which is a very passionate mid-tempo number with haunting synthesizers and a slightly eerie melody. These three songs are their biggest hits to date and made 1985 a year to never forget. "I Believe" and "Mother's Talk" were minor hits.

However, their third album, 1989's "The Seeds Of Love" is the greatest artistic endeavor that any band has ever taken, must I say even greater than what U2 did on "Achtung Baby" two years later. This album saw this amazing band go through a radical change in sound from an ominous synth-pop into a rock/soul band and the synthesizers would make way for a more natural, soulful sound in their music. The main hit off that album was the colorful "Sowing The Seeds of Love" which is just beyond amazing. The song has a very Beatle-esqe sound. Unfortunately, while the album is perfect, it was the album that caused the Orzabal/Smith duo to eventually break up due to the excessive strain from the making of the album and Smith's limited role on the album. Out of the ashes of that tumultuous era in the bands history came the greatest album of all time which was "The Seeds of Love". Quite frankly, I don't think any other group I know of has ever made such a rich, complex, and creative album on such a scale as this one. If you were to choose one of Tears For Fears `proper' studio albums, it's this one. Sure the Big Chair may be their highest selling album but "The Seeds of Love" is by far their best album without a doubt. "Advice For The Young At Heart" is a mix of happiness and sadness all in one song. The song has a very jazzy but rich pop/soul spice to it and moving lyrics. Even now, I still wonder why this wasn't a top 40 hit. I will always adore this album as long as I live and this album doesn't sound a bit dated.

Their 1992 compilation, which "Shout: The Very Best of" replaces, has in my opinion, been rendered irrevelent and/or obsolete. That album at least had one `new' (at the time) song called "Tears Roll Down" which is a very intense yet rich song with a mix of the styles of "The Big Chair" and "Seeds of Love" sounds. That album also is marred because the minor hits "Mother's Talk" and "I Believe" were different from the versions on that compilation. The hit version of "Mother's Talk" has a lighter, slightly jazzier sound than the album version. The version of "I Believe" is different too in a way I can't explain. The 2001 collection improves the mistakes on the 1992 collection.

Their first album without Smith "Elemental" was a big endeavor in a lot of major ways. While not on the greatness of "The Seeds of Love" this album proved that Tears For Fears could survive the departure of Smith and the result was a fabulous and bleak album. The sole hit on that album was "Break It Down Again" which is an excellent song. The closing song on that album "Goodnight Song" is also the closing track on this collection and with good merits. This is TFF's best `closing track'. A very bittersweet classic.

Sadly, this album completely ignores "Raoul and the Kings of Spain" which is very underrated. This album on the other hand, has a non-album track called "New Star" which is a very high-energy rocking number with a very rich mix of grunge rock and some trance elements too.

This is a great CD! The sound is great, and the number of hits on this CD is amazing. I just pop it into my CD player and the hits just keep coming! On most CD's you get 3 maybe 4 songs that you know and like, but most people don't realize how many great songs TFF created. Anybody who doesn't like this just doesn't understand the 80's. I wish every 'Best Of' was this good.