Tears For Fears, The Hurting was their first album, which was released eventually in March 1983. “Mad World”, which is the bands third single reached the UK charts 3rd position in November 1982; this song is included in the album as well. Drummer Manny Elias and composer and keyboard player Ian Stanley were also known as the bands full members; though Orzabal and Smith were still in essence the bands public face and front men
The Hurting producers Ross Cullum and Chris Hughes showcased synthesizer-based songs with its lyrics pertaining to Orzabal’s upbringing and bitter childhood. The Hurting is possibly known as Tears for Fears’ only true concept album, in reference to primal scream therapy and emotional distress, which is found in almost all of their song. The Hurting made a huge success in the music industry and had quite a long 65 weeks in the UK charts, where it also came up to no. 1 –in other countries it reached the Top 20 and gained the international hit singles “Mad World”, which was placed at no. 5 in South Africa, “Change” also gained a position in the Top 40 in South Africa, Australia, The Netherlands, Canada, Ireland, and in Italy, and “Pale Shelter” had a re-recorded version that came out after. All of these three singles reached the UK chart in the top 5 positions.
During the last phase of 1983 a new, somewhat more trial single was released by the record company entitled “The Way You Are”, to maintain the bands presence in the public eye while they are working on their second album. The single was a top 30 hit in the UK; it didn’t come near matching the success of their previous three hits, in spite of a national concert tour in December of that year which was taken on the “In My Mind’s Eye” live release of the video. The single, which a great deal had programmed rhythms and sampling, led to the disappearance in Tears for Fears’ approach to the musical scene. In the liner notes to their 1996 B-sides album Saturnine Martial & Lunatic they stated that “this was the point we realized we had to change direction”, although the rather trial approach of the single reflected continuously to some extent in their forthcoming B-sides.
Roland Orzabal Talks About the Hurting – 1985
