Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith started the band as teenage friends in the late-70′s and worked for 18 months on their debut album.
Despite The Hurting being regarded as a new wave, synth-based classic, virtually all the tracks on the album were written by Roland on an acoustic guitar, including the song that gave the record its name. “Writing the title track was a strange piece of psychic osmosis,” says Roland. “Curt had been to see a band from Bristol called ‘Electric Guitars’ and was describing their sound to me; I had an acoustic guitar in my hand at the time and played him what he was describing: That’s how The Hurting was written, and we knew for a long time it was the right name for our first album.”
It was keyboard player Ian Stanley who brought technology to the table and helped Tears For Fears fulfill their sonic ambitions. Roland has no doubts how important he was. “Without Ian’s eight-track studio, his Roland JP4, his CR78 drum machine and MXR Pitch Transposer, we wouldn’t be where we are now…. He gave us the opportunity to demo, at his home studio, songs such as Pale Shelter, Change and Mad World.” The hard work was rewarded when Mad World was released in September 1982, and peaked at number three in the UK singles chart in November.
Work on the album continued, and it was the success of Mad World – at one point earmarked as a B-side for Pale Shelter – that banished any commercial doubts the record company may have been harboring. A few months later in January 1983, Change was issued as a follow-up single, reaching number four in the UK charts and number 22 in the US. Tears For Fears were now riding the crest of a wave and the time had come to finally release the album. The Hurting hit the shops on March 7, 1983, a full 16 months after Suffer The Children. Two weeks later the LP hit number one in the UK, displacing Michael Jackson’s Thriller. One final single, a reissued (and re-recorded) Pale Shelter, was released a month later and became the album’s third big hit.
The new edition of The Hurting was remastered at Abbey Road Studios and overseen by Orzabal and Smith. The new release adds the 1981 version of Suffer The Children in four versions: 7” single, 12” remix, instrumental, and a unique version that only came to light in 1999 (issued on a promotional-only CD). Likewise, the first March 1982 release of Pale Shelter also makes an appearance on CD 2 of this set, in both original 7” and 12” versions. Because Suffer The Children and Pale Shelter were later re-recorded for the album (with Chris Hughes and Ross Cullum producing), these early cuts were unique to the vinyl singles issued at the time, and the new deluxe edition marks their CD debut.
Other alternates featured on this 30th anniversary celebration of The Hurting include Change (New Version). Roland says, “I remember trying to convince everyone that we’d recorded Change at too fast a tempo. We had another crack at it slower, but it lost something in the process.” Tape fans might recall this track being appended to the original UK cassette. Like much of the bonus material on this deluxe edition, it has never before been issued on CD.
Different recordings of album tracks The Prisoner and Ideas As Opiates (originally issued on the B-sides of some of the early singles) bring the total number songs on The Hurting available in alternate form to five (half of the album).
The deluxe box set also includes all the 12” remixes and B-sides, including Wino, another track previously unissued on CD, as well as the 1984 In My Mind’s Eye Hammersmith Odeon concert film, which makes its DVD debut with this release. The 2-CD and digital package includes all of the audio from the larger set’s Discs 1 and 2.
Tears For Fears have also recorded a new cover version of Arcade Fire’s Ready To Start, which is streaming on tearsforfears.com. The band says, “Having appreciated artists like Kanye West, Katy Perry, Kimbra, Nas, Gary Jules/Michael Andrews, Adam Lambert and Dizzee Rascal covering and sampling our songs over the past years, we agreed that some reciprocal cross-generational love was in order. We decided to give Arcade Fire a twist of Tears For Fears. Enjoy.”
Track List:Disc One – The Original Album
The Hurting
Mad World
Pale Shelter
Ideas As Opiates
Memories Fade
Suffer The Children
Watch Me Bleed
Change
The Prisoner
Start Of The Breakdown
Disc Two – Singles, B-Sides, Mixes & Rarities
Suffer The Children (original 7″)
Pale Shelter (original 7″)
The Prisoner (original version)
Ideas As Opiates
Change (new version)
Suffer The Children (remix)
Pale Shelter (original 12″)
Mad World (world remix)
Change (extended version)
Pale Shelter (reissue 12″)
Suffer The Children (instrumental)
Change (7″ edit)
Wino (B-side)
The Conflict (B-side)
We Are Broken (B-side)
Suffer The Children (promo CD)
Disc Three – The BBC Sessions
Ideas As Opiates (Peel Session)
Suffer The Children (Peel Session)
The Prisoner (Peel Session)
The Hurting (Peel Session)
Memories Fade (Jensen Session)
The Prisoner (Jensen Session)
The Start Of The Breakdown (Jensen Session)
The Hurting (Jensen Session)
Start Of The Breakdown (Live)
Change (Jensen Session)
Disc 4 (DVD) – In My Mind’s Eye – Live at the Hammersmith Odeon, 1984
Start Of The Breakdown
Mothers Talk
Pale Shelter
The Working Hour
The Prisoner
Ideas As Opiates
Mad World
We Are Broken
Head Over Heels
Suffer The Children
The Hurting
Memories Fade
Change
First heard these guys when i moved to the UK, eighties electro pop hadn't hit Adelaide at the time. These guys were a revelation. Pale Shelter is still an all time favourite.
oddly enough, this was the one of my least favorites by Tears For Fears (right alongside “Everybody loves a happy ending”). “Songs from the big chair” is where I believe the Tears For Fears magic truly began.