Thursday, January 28, 2016

themusicaddict's Almost Greatest CDs of All-Time: Tears For Fears "Song From The Big Chair" (Part 1) (Updated February 1, 2016)

Hello,

Sometimes after a long day of work at a call center I let out a big shout. It usually helps me feel better. Rock music and journal writing are also great therapy. Whatever works for you!

Primal therapy is a trauma-based psychotherapy created by Arthur Janov, who argues that neurosis is caused by the repressed pain of childhood trauma. Janov argues that repressed pain can be sequentially brought to conscious awareness and resolved through re-experiencing the incident and fully expressing the resulting pain during therapy. Primal therapy was developed as a means of eliciting the repressed pain; the term Pain is capitalized in discussions of primal therapy when referring to any repressed emotional distress and its purported long-lasting psychological effects. Janov criticizes the talking therapies as they deal primarily with the cerebral cortex and higher-reasoning areas and do not access the source of Pain within the more basic parts of the central nervous system.
Primal therapy is used to re-experience childhood pain—i.e., felt rather than conceptual memories—in an attempt to resolve the pain through complete processing and integration, becoming real. An intended objective of the therapy is to lessen or eliminate the hold early trauma exerts on adult life.
Primal therapy became very influential during a brief period in the early 1970s, after the publication of Janov's first book, The Primal Scream. It inspired hundreds of spin-off clinics worldwide and served as an inspiration for many popular cultural icons. John Lennon, actor James Earl Jones, and pianist Roger Williams were prominent advocates of primal therapy.[1] Primal therapy has since declined in popularity, partly because Janov has not demonstrated in research the outcomes necessary to convince research-oriented psychotherapists of its effectiveness. Janov and others continue to advocate and practice the therapy or various developments of it. 
(Thanks, as always, to Wikipedia.org, this is copied directly from the Primal Scream entry.)

This blog is about Tears For Fears "Songs From The Big Chair". What started out as a 8 song CD has now become a multi CD reissue. On this blog I will post the original 8 songs from this CD, on my next blog I will post my favorite songs from all the reissues.

"Songs From The Big Chair" is Tears For Fears second CD. It was released in 1985, right in the middle of the most fertile decade for music ever. The early 80's was also when MTV was really when it was making it's impact felt. People used to spend hour upon hour just watching videos, Kurt Loder and those veejays. (Bring back the real MTV and I still love me some Martha Quinn.) Can you imagine anyone spending hours in front of MTV now? Either can I. Anyway "Big Chair" came out two years after their debut CD "The Hurting"- which didn't have much impact on me in 1983. "Pale Shelter" is known for "Mad World", "Pale Shelter" and "Change". As you can see, this CD has plenty of great songs on it.

Even with those great songs, "The Hurting" still didn't make a big impact on pop culture. I listened to "The Hurting" (thanks Google Play) this morning and it's a good CD. Still I was surprised that "The Hurting" finished 16th on 1983 bestalbumsever.com rankings, I didn't realize it would have finished that high. Although it only finished 168 place on their list of the 80's best CDs. It was right behind Morrissey's "Viva Hate" (#respect) and right before David Sylvian's "Secrets of the Beehive" (#um, what?). 1983 was about the middle of the New Wave era. bestalbumsever.com's Top 3 1983 CDs were 1) R.E.M.'s "Murmur", 2) Violent Femmes' self-titled, amazing debut and 3) The Police's "Synchronicity". 1983 was the early to middle stages of the heavy metal movement, which is why CDs from Def Leppard and Metallica and also Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut".

I picked a random website for the rankings I've mentioned. I disagree with bestalbumsever.com rankings more than I agree with them. However for comparison's sake I'll stay with them. They only have "Songs From The Big Chair" listed as the tenth best CD of 1985. Their top CDs for that year, um no. I've never been a Tom Waits fan and Kate Bush is okay. I probably would have put their third choice CD at #1. Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms", featuring "Money For Nothing", was also over the radio and MTV in 1985. But putting "Big Chair" behind Marillion and The Fall is nothing but a travesty. But it is what it is.

Following the modest success of "The Hurting" Roland Orzabal, Curt Smith, Manny Elias and Ian Stanley started work on "Songs From The Big Chair". With the help of producer Chris Hughes, and others, they created a compact, 8 song suite of songs. It's definitely a very memorable CD, but I wouldn't call it a themusicaddict Greatest CD of All-Time. To meet that requirement I just have to hear a CD's title and know immediately it's a Greatest CD of All-Time. For instance, when I saw the self-titled Violent Femmes CD, I thought Greatest CD of All-Time.

From wikipedia.org: "The album title was derived from the 1976 television film Sybil about a woman with multiple personality disorder who only feels safe when she is sitting in her analyst's "big chair".

"Big Chair" was released on February 25th, 1985. It has sold over 5 million copies in the USA. It was to be Tears For Fears peak. It was followed 4 years later by "The Seeds of Love", which is a perfectly fine CD. Thanks for bringing Oleta Adams to our attention, "Woman In Chains" is an amazing song. Also "Sowing The Seeds Of Love",  "Advice For The Young At Heart", "Year Of The Knife", "Always In The Past" and "Johnny Panic and The Bible of Dreams" are from good to great songs.

"Songs From The Big Chair":

1) "Shout":



"Shout" (Live In Belgium):



2) "The Working Hour":



3) "Everybody Wants To Rule The World":



4) "Mother's Talk":



"Mother's Talk" (Live):



5) "I Believe":



6) "Broken":



7) "Head Over Heels/ Broken":



"Head Over Heels" (Live):



8) "Listen":


themusicaddict

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