Tears For Fears - Songs From The Big Chair


I loved the most recent Tears For Fears album so much, i happily snatched up a copy of their big hit sophomore album when i stumbled across it. Who doesn't love Tears For Fears? Jerks, that's who. 

And yet, having now heard it (it's pretty great), i am still no closer to an answer to my real question. That question is of course what is the big chair? Is it one of those actual humungous chairs people have their photos taken in? Did they climb up in it to sing these songs? Is it just a weird euphamism for a throne? Are these toilet songs? I don't mean are the songs flushworthy, i mean are these the kind of porcelain postulations of philosophical purport one pondered in the pre-portable phone era when reading material was equally non-available? 

Like i said, i still don't know. Maybe it's just like growing up and you don't have to sit at the little kids table anymore. What i do know is Broken is a literally weird/fractured prelude to Head Over Heels (which is definitely the recommended physical orientation if you're in a bathroom, i know i don't want my head below my heels in that particular situation). 

Roland's right though, time flies, i better get on with the reviewing. Oh, the title is a reference to the mostly fictional TV movie Sybil. I don't remember What About Bob? well enough to scrap this review and start all over (i never liked Richard Dreyfuss), so we'll just leave it as the actual therapy session after The Hurting. 

That's literally the concept, you do the primal screaming, you issue the topics, you tell the secretly sexy librarian how you really feel with an impromptu synthesizer serenade, and then after she shushes you you cap the whole thing off with a weird wandering electrofestive Great Gig In The Sky style space jam. Did i mention this album is delightful? 

No, not every song is big hit single type stuff, but then again we are peeking behind the doctor/patient confidentiality curtain so you get what they've got to get off their chests and you enjoy it for what it is; a spectacular Random Crap 80s Synthpop album. I guess technically it's the Synthpop side of New Wave, so maybe tomorrow we'll listen to the Punk side. Not Punk like you're thinking, the pre-New Wave Punk Punk that was Punk before Punk. Ponder that one with your heels firmly planted on the linoleum.

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