They were the band who wanted to rule the world and darlings of the 80s pop scene, but their art rock opus The Seeds Of Love created a rift so great it nearly destroyed them. Now they’re back with an expanded re-release of that album, so we have to ask: How prog are Tears For Fears?

Words: Chris Roberts

Roland Orzabal is talking about his fondness for Genesis and King Crimson. “I was a big early Genesis fan - Foxtrot particularly. And Genesis Live was great. I loved King Crimson - especially Discipline, if you can call that prog? It depends what you define as prog. There used to be a lot of reverse snobbery - Genesis came from a public school so therefore they can’t be any good, they’re ‘not like us’. Okay, punk rock was a jolt and a Copernican inversion. We went from having long hair and playing eight-minute guitar solos in our teenage band to all of a sudden covering The Damned! Fashion is incredibly powerful in music, in the zeitgeist. You got to a certain point in the late 70s where you could not wear flares any more. And my platform shoes had to go. It was horrendous!”

After chuckling at the memories of his teenage wardrobe choices, and recalling the influence of Robert Wyatt and Pink Floyd, Orzabal becomes philosophical again.

“That’s the great thing about time passing. You see everything in its place, era-based: it’s fantastic. Yes, of course you can like both the Sex Pistols and Genesis!”

“That’s the great thing about time passing. You see everything in its place, era-based: it’s just fantastic. Yes, you can like both the Sex Pistols and Genesis - of course you can!”

Tears For Fears’ first three albums lit up the 80s with an extraordinary range of genre straddling, and while they delivered a stream of odd, epic and insanely catchy singles, they were much, much more than the ‘synth-pop duo’ they were sometimes tagged as. 1983’s The Hurting, inspired by their fascination with primal therapy, was existential doom with hooks. 1985’s multi-platinum Songs From The Big Chair ruled the world, let it all out and was head over heels with invention. Yet perhaps The Seeds Of Love, flowering in 1989, was their most ambitious of all. It took around four years and a million pounds to make, and effectively broke up the band - Orzabal continued with the name until he and Curt Smith reconciled in the early 21st century. It incorporated Beatles-esque psychedelia, pop, prog, soul, jazz, socialism and feminism, somehow stirring all these elements into an intoxicating cauldron of colour and catalysts. Now reissued with a bundle of diverse demos and out-takes (which reveal how varied the band’s playbook was), it remains a dazzling prism of sounds and styles.