Why Does Everyone Hate Tears For Fears?

I litterally like all kinds of music from the past 40 years, but the core of my tastes are loud rock and hip-hop. Surprisingly, who would have thought the great 90s experiment of combining the two into Nu-metal would have turned out so badly.

Anyhow I digress.

While I like the Tears For Fears singles everyone likes, mostly for nostalgia reasons, I can see why they might be disliked. Tears For Fears falls in with the group of 80s new wave pop rock bands that include Duran Duran, Ah Ha, Flock of Seaguls, Mister Mister, Spandau Ballet, Cory Hart and others. These bands can be characterized by having spiky haircuts, skinny ties, sythesizers and maybe a sax. Stylistically pretty freakin gay. Like 80s gay.(Jay & Silent Bob reference) Especially if you are into metal and real punk.

Yes, the same way I’m really Harpo Marx.

That never happened. Search for the threads. It’s a lie, I tell you. A lie!

Oh, and kidneyfailure.

Whoosh.

:slight_smile:

Like a lot of bands in the 80’s with a bit of ‘different’ sound and a video they were massively overplayed. I didn’t come to hate them later, I hated them in the 80’s. I joke that back then I would have one band a year to absolutely hate, they were that years target. ‘Shout’ was the song that did it for me, mostly. The other songs were mopey, mostly, but could be improved (the cover of ‘Mad World’ is good, IMO), but Shout was was irredeemable and painfully repetitive, even by pop standards.

I just watched the video for “Head Over Heels,” and their image wasn’t much different than the dork rock, emo, and mall punk of today, minus the arms sleeved with tattoos. The video itself goes from a kind of surreal/creepy/depressing/pathetic feeling, to a happy mood. The music itself has a kind of depressed cadence to it (extremely 80s), but the overall aesthetic of the band isn’t all that different from today’s groups.

I don’t know. If you’re going to like Flock of Seagulls, even ironically, why draw the line at Tears for Fears?

I liked 'em, didn’t really know anybody who hated them at the time aside from metalheads - even most punks I hung out with listened to synth stuff in the 80s. They had some great songs, and more depth than they were given credit for, but I think in the end they just didn’t matter enough to make it into the canon of Great Rock/Pop Artists. They didn’t really change anything, which is not necessarily a deal-breaker, but they weren’t very influential, either - plenty of bands over the past decade have adopted the sound of earlier post-punk bands - Joy Division, Gang Of Four, The Jesus & Mary Chain, New Order - but it seems like no one starting a band in the recent past has been a big fan of TFF, which is how bands like the Pixies or the Minutemen or The Replacements have become historically “important” even if they didn’t sell many albums during their initial runs (also, most aspiring bands read a lot of rock criticism). In my opinion, they were good but not great, and lacked a commanding vocalist, just like hundreds of others, which is why they’re not bigger with young audiences. Hating them, though - I don’t really get that. It seems they should at least get credit for writing a few truly worthwhile pop songs.

Possible 90’s equivalent: The Smashing Pumpkins?

Heh. Check what Lemmy has to say around 1:30 in this interview :smiley:

I absolutely love complex rock (huge Rush fan, enjoy the likes of Yes, Iron Maiden, etc.), and I enjoyed a lot of ‘80s pop as well (I was totally entranced by The Fixx, enjoyed Thomas Dolby, and some others), but I absolutely could not stand Tears for Fears’ music. I won’t say they “suck” - as a lifelong musician myself I reserve that term for actual bad musicians, not for music I simply don’t like. There are plenty of talented musicians out there making music that simply isn’t to my taste and I don’t enjoy it, but my lack of appreciation for it doesn’t diminish the skill and/or talent of those musicians.

That said, I always thought “Shout” was simply one of the most boring, repetitive songs I’d ever heard. I thought the singer sounded just like a dozen other English '80s pop singers. I didn’t get any “emotional” vibe from the song, rather the opposite, though maybe it was an intentional incongruity of using a flat, emotionless tone of voice to tell people to “shout, shout, let it all out”. OTOH, I rather enjoyed what Disturbed did with the song. Their version has an underlying tension and excitement to it that I feel the original lacks.

I don’t know why anyone would hate Tears for Fears. Their popular hits were a cut above the rest and their catalogue is a bit more deep than say, Flock of Seagulls. Under-appreciated in my opinion.

In terms of what? A band that many people unfairly think was terrible? I’d say probably. Alot of people don’t like The Smashing Pumpkins because they think Billy Corrigan is an egomaniacal asshole, which he may be, but that isn’t a good reason to dismiss a band’s body of work. It’s certainly unfair, just like it’s unfair to write Tears for Fears off as “wuss rock” or “horrible” because they sang about emotional subject matter.

I respect TFF more in retropspect than I did at the time. In the 80’s, I was a pretty hardcore metalhead, and I saw them as punk-pop lite. The song, “Shout” was also absurdly overplayed when it was a hit.

These days, I can appreciate them as songwriters, even though I still think their actual execution was still overproduced and “sweet.” It took hearing that Donnie Darko song played simply on an accoustic guitar before I realized it was a pretty damn good song as written, and made me reevaluate their catalogue. . I think they’re a little like Dylan, a lot of their songs sound better to me when done by others than their own recordings. I do respect them, though, as I respect anybody that can actually write.

From what I remember of the 80’s, a lot of the hostility was from backlash over their commercial success (and the fact that “shout” played constantly on MTV and FM radio) than anything else.

Funny you should say that. I remember years ago reading an interview with Roland Orzabal about songwriting. He said that all the songs were written on just acoustic guitar and the arrangements put together by jamming with the studio musicians who played on the albums.

“Head Over Heels” is my all-time favorite song. I’ve never known anyone who showed any kind of dislike for Tears for Fears. Even people who weren’t into pop music in the 80s had some appreciation for Tears for Fears.

As even Jesus admitted the problem of being a prophet in ones home town, they are from a burb a couple burbs over and I met Billy Corgan’s brother/cousin/we never really got into it. Then Kohl’s ran a campaign featuring the Plain White Tees as “urban.” Kohl’s is from Wisconsin, explaining the misunderstanding, but my eldest went to school with them and Villa Park, IL, ain’t the hood.

I only know Shout and Everybody Wants to Rule the World–from 80s compilation albums. I never knew of them as a sucky or wussy band–just associated them with kind of that 80s new wave pop sound. They were fun.

ETA: I like their version of Mad World, too, but I HATE that wussy emo Donnie Darko one.

I loved three singles off “The Hurting” (Pale Shelter, Mad World, and Change). “Songs from the Big Chair” (Shout, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Head Over Heels) didn’t do much for me. I actively disliked “The Seeds of Love” (“Sowing the Seeds of Love,” “Woman in Chains”). I lost track after that. But I’ll always remember them fondly for what they did in 1982-83.

This is how I tend to view them. I’m not a huge fan, but I generally like what I hear from them. And that Mad World cover kicks ass.

Epic.

I have to admit I’ve never heard the sentiment expressed by the OP. I was in the UK during TFF’s big climb. They were from a terribly unsexy town (Bath - not known for being a place that rawked), and yes, it was the time of a million synth-led bands. But The Hurting is a great album. “Change” and “Pale Shelter” are terrific tracks, and “Mad World” is a classic, if only for Mr. Orzabal’s manic dancing in the video.

The problem of course is Songs from the Big Chair, which is the album that ate America. I imagine the payday was great for them, but like so many UK bands, they came to be defined by one or two tracks. I think something similar happened to Simple Minds. But I love that album, but I have to skip “Shout” and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” I just heard them way too many times. But “Working Hour” and “Mothers Talk” are great. That album has a very jazzy feel to it but I think the singles convey a different image of the band.

I liked the psychedelia of “Sowing the Seeds of Love.” Orzabal and Smith are probably among the best co-vocalists from that era in my mind. I know they reuned a while ago but I didn’t check out the new stuff. But I’d say history has been kind to them, whereas the opposite is true of A Flock of Seagulls.

One can say that TFF was Emo band before there were Emo bands.

One can also say this is not really a good thing.

I don’t know anything of them besides their couple of hits, but they kind of lost me when I heard the line “Shout, shout, let it all out” being sung by a guy who sounded like he was about to fall asleep.

Not sure if that was meant to be ironic, but I always interpreted it as passionless and pretentious.

I always liked TFF, but it did become deeply uncool to admit that. I think it was because they came across as rather earnest and po-faced, and also Roland Orzabal just looked… odd in those videos (no offense to his namesake). And then they spent three years making an elaborately-produced almost-concept album, and obliterated any remnants of cool they still had. And yet, Seeds of Love does have some of their best material.