On a more serious note: though I have no connection to the real RO, I feel I owe this thread the benefit of a thought-out response (not every day someone starts a thread to defend your favorites), but this is probably the singular worst couple days for it.
I didn’t have time for anything but the one-liner last night, and now I don’t have time for anything but this explanatory post, but I will be back, dammit. You may now await my prose with bated breath, as it so clearly warrants.
Hate is a strong word. I never much hated them, and sort of like their hits. EW2RTW rises to the level of a song I would not turn off if it came on the radio. In fact, it is one of the more radio friendly songs I have ever heard, in that it is one of the few songs I like but not enough to actually purchase (if I did purchase it, I wouldn’t want to hear it on the radio because I could listen to it any time I want, dammit!) Their other songs rise to the level of “would change the channel if it came on when I was by myself, but wouldn’t complain if others wanted to listen to the channel.”
I just never got into them, and a little of them goes a long way.
I love them. I love most bands from the '80s except punk and metal. I have more greatest hits of the '80s compilations than you would believe and I play them all. I like Berlin, Big Country, The Fixx, Pet Shop Boys, and Men Without Hats. I actually am unfamiliar with any music produced after 1990 and am, apparently, living in a time warp. So be it.
They just played “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” this morning on WROR, but they prefaced it with their “Here’s another song you’ve been trying to forget” jingle. Obviously, even the local radio station specializing in 60s, 70s, and 80s music doesn’t think much of them.
I gotta admit that “Shout” is my least favorite of their hits. It never occurred to me that song defined them, though. I always assumed it was “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and not just because it’s one of my all-time favorites. You hear it as background in a million movies and of course Dennis Miller had it for his theme music before he turned into a 9/11 freak.
So here’s a question. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” had a really stupid video. Did that make a difference? Would people like them better or remember them better if the video had been cool? I put it in the same department as Big Country’s “In a Big Country,” another truly great song that should have made their careers but got stuck into a really stupid video. Each time I see it, I want to turn up the music and turn off the picture.
Does the quality of the music video - something obviously far more important in the 1980s than it is today - make a difference in the way people think of songs or of bands?
Not aware of them as a particularly hated band, but I agree with Ximenean that they do have an earnestness / lack of any discernible sense of humour that is not appealing. You think of bands of that era like Duran Duran, ABC, Spandau Ballet etc and there’s a lot of theatre, performance etc - they’re making an effort, basically, to be pop stars. With TFF there’s two blokes who’ve undergone highly successful charisma-bypass operations dishing up pleasant-sounding MOR pop, with an added taking-themselves-too-seriously vibe.
So nothing against them myself, but they seem a bit dreary when compared to their contemporaries in British pop music of the 80s.
To me, the group Tears For Fears, smacked of effort. They sounded and looked totally manufactured for the sake of producing hits, not for making music
Now certainly there are other acts, basically anyone produced by Stock Aitken Waterman sounded like that as well.
I just went back and watched the Shout video, and found myself confused by the way the visuals kept alternating between two different guys singing, with, apparently, exactly the same voice.
I was always pretty meh about them back in the '80s but have since looked a bit deeper and was pleasantly surprised with their depth. Everybody Loves a Happy Ending has some really good songs on it, if you haven’t had the pleasure.
Still don’t ever need to hear any of the Big Hits again, but that’s true for a lot of artists.
and a Duran Duran song for Pepto Bismol…
The Reflux -flux -flux -flux -flux -flux
I always thought It Can Happen by Yes would be great for an insurance ad.
It can happen to you
It can happen to me
It can happen to everyone eventually
As you happen to say
It can happen today
As it happens, it happens, in every way.
(BTW… Did Dr. Seuss write those lyrics?)
I usually don’t hear anything worse than “meh” about them.
They were one of my favorite bands in the 80’s and into the 90’s, and have written some great songs that I love to this day. “The Working Hour”, “Tears Roll Down”, “Ideas as Opiates”, and “Swords and Knives” are some of my favorites. I stopped buying their stuff after their big break-up.
There aren’t a lot of bands from the 80’s that you can admit you like without ridicule, and for me, at least, TFF is one of them.
No one in this day in age would say “Hey! I really like Tears for Fears or Men at Work!” You say, “I’m going to go listen to my Big-80s Mix on my iPod!” (which of course consists of dozens of the 80s bands no one would say they like in this day and age."
Oh, that group.
Aside from their being an '80s version of Bread (which defined '70s wuss rock suckitude) I have no feelings at all about TFF.
I hate most typical 80s music. Like, hate. The song “Come On, Eileen” fills me with irrational, seething rage. No reason; it just annoys the crap out of me. My taste in music that does come from that period. . .well, I like REM from then. I like Minor Threat. I like the Dead Kennedys. I like Bad Religion. I like Bad Brains.
And, for some reason, I like Tears for Fears. I have ever since I was 14 (this was in 1997, for those of you playing the at-home game), and I first heard “Shout” on Pop-Up Video. I really just sat there watching and thinking, “man, this is a good song.” Hell; this was before I was really very good with the computer, and I didn’t know what MP3s were. So I downloaded a freakin’ MIDI of the song to listen to.
This hasn’t changed at all since then. I like their singles. Oddly enough, I also ended up liking Information Society and Pet Shop Boys. Everything else left me fairly cold. Of course, I don’t really remember the 80s; I was six when they ended, so I never really got into things. And my mom had things like Pink Floyd and REM and 10,000 Maniacs and the Moody Blues on in the car, so I never got saturated in the culture.