Tears For Fears’ ‘The Seeds Of Love’ Back in Super deluxe Edition and Box

Norman van den Wildenberg | August 20, 2020 | Release | No Comments

Over thirty years on from its original release, Tears For Fears’ third long-player ‘The Seeds Of Love’ has taken on mythical status for its scope, ambition, timeless musicality, and the fact that it took over four years to record.

For music fans and audiophiles the world over, the album continues to astound with its depth and sheer audacity, which is why three decades on it, has barely aged a day. As Roland Orzabal puts it, “Out of all our albums, I’d probably rank it highest. I think it surprised a lot of people, a lot of our peers as well, people who maybe we were being compared to in the mid-Eighties.” Curt Smith “The tracks I liked then, I still like now. ‘Woman in Chains,’ ‘Badman’s Song,’ ‘Sowing the Seeds of Love,’ and ‘Advice For The Young At Heart’ have all stuck around. We still play those live.”

Tear For Fears – Roland Orzabal (vocals, guitar, keyboards) and Curt Smith (vocals, bass, keyboards) formed in Bath, England 1981. Beyond selling 30 million albums worldwide, performing to countless sold-out audiences, and winning various awards, the duo’s DNA remains embedded within three generations of artists on both subtle and overt levels.

Quietly casting a shadow over rock, hip-hop, electronic dance music, indie, and beyond, Kanye West interpolated ‘Memories Fade’ on ‘The Coldest Winter’ from the seminal 808s & Heartbreak, The Weekend infused ‘Pale Shelter’ into Starboy’s ‘Secrets,’ David Guetta sampled ‘Change’ for ‘Always,’ and Drake utilized ‘Ideas as Opiates’ as the foundation for ‘Lust For Life,’ while Ally Brooke Hernandez, Adam Lambert, and Gary Jules recorded popular covers of ‘Mad World’ and Disturbed took on ‘Shout,’ to name a few. Lorde cut a haunting cover of ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ for the Soundtrack of the blockbuster ‘The Hunger Games – Catching Fire’, which Tears For Fears gleefully would use as intro music live and thus bring everything full circle.

Meanwhile, classic songs figure prominently everywhere from ‘The Wire’ and ‘Donnie Darko’ to ‘Straight Outta Compton’ and ‘Mr. Robot’. Long before, they became a cultural cornerstone Tears For Fears simply consisted of two school friends growing up in Bath, Somerset UK.

Representing an inimitable intersection of pop palatability, clever and cognizant lyricism, guitar bombast, and new wave innovation, their 1983 debut ‘The Hurting’ yielded anthems such as ‘Mad World,’ ‘Change,’ and ‘Pale Shelter,’ reaching RIAA Gold status in the United States. 1985’s ‘Songs from the Big Chair’ became a watershed moment for the group and music at large. Boasting the signature BRIT Award-winning ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World,’ ‘Shout,’ ‘Head over Heels,’ ‘Mothers Talk,’ and ‘I Believe (A Soulful Re-Recording),’ it went quintuple-platinum and captured #1 on the Billboard Top 200. Slant dubbed it one of “The Best Albums of the 1980s,” it featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, and Consequence of Sound awarded it a rare A+ rating in a 20-year retrospective.

1989’s ‘Seeds of Love’ proved to be Roland and Curt’s last collaboration together until ‘Everybody Loves A Happy Ending’ in 2004, which rekindled the creative fire between them.

The super deluxe box set consists of four CDs and one Blu-Ray, which fully tells the story of how this extraordinary album came to be. The box set includes 22 unreleased tracks from demo sessions, live jams, studio sessions along with a definitive set of b-sides, and rare mixes. Highlights include demos of ‘Advice For The Young At Heart’ with Roland Orzabal singing lead vocal and ‘Rhythm of Life,’ which didn’t make it onto ‘The Seeds of Love’ and was later given to Oleta Adams for her ‘Circle of One’ album. The Blu-ray also features a stunning 5.1 mix by Grammy-nominated artist Steven Wilson.

Coming off the back of the ten million-selling ‘Songs From The Big Chair’, the first writing sessions for ‘The Seeds Of Love’ started when the band was touring in 1985, making use of soundchecks to sketch the outlines of new songs. Over the next four years, Roland and Curt would work with several producers, engineers, and many musicians before finally deciding to produce the album themselves with assistance from their ‘Songs From The Big Chair’ engineer Dave Bascombe.

A key person in the making of the album was pianist and singer Oleta Adams, who Roland and Curt had seen play in the bar of their hotel while touring in 1985. She joined the recording sessions in early 1988 along with world-class session players such as drummer Manu Katché and bass player Pino Palladino and would play a massive part in songs such as ‘Woman In Chains’ and ‘Badman’s Song.’ These sessions in 1988 are perhaps the most fascinating tapes unearthed for the boxset. These jams took place at London’s Townhouse studio, and disc four contains around 30 minutes edited down from over 24 hours of unadulterated in-the-studio live performance, exactly as it was performed at the time, complete with chatter, some laughter, and no overdubs. These jams include very different versions of ‘Woman in Chains,’ ‘Badman’s Song,’ ‘Standing On The Corner Of The Third World,’ and ‘Rhythm of Life.’

While the band was pleased with these sessions, there was still at least another year of further recording, overdubbing, editing, mixing, tweaking and discussion, before the final mix was finished in New York in the summer of 1989.

All of the efforts that went into the making of ‘The Seeds Of Love’ certainly paid off as it is now hailed as a classic of the time, alongside albums such as Talk Talk’s ‘Spirit Of Eden’. ‘The Seeds Of Love’ was released in the ’80’s, but it remains anything but an “80’s album.”

THE SEEDS OF LOVE SUPER DELUXE EDITION TRACKLISTING

CD 1 – ORIGINAL ALBUM

NEW REMASTER BY ANDREW WALTER AT ABBEY ROAD

01. Woman In Chains: 6:31

02. Badman’s Song: 8:32

03. Sowing The Seeds Of Love: 6:19

04. Advice For The Young At Heart: 4:50

05. Standing On The Corner Of The Third World: 5:33

06. Swords And Knives: 6:12

07. Year Of The Knife: 7:08

08. Famous Last Words: 4:26

CD 2 – THE SUN

45’s AND B-SIDES

01. Sowing The Seeds Of Love – 7″ Version: 5:43

02. Tears Roll Down: 3:16

03. Woman In Chains – 7″ Version: 5:28

04. Always In The Past: 4:38

05. My Life In The Suicide Ranks: 4:32

06. Woman In Chains – Instrumental: 6:30

07. Advice For The Young At Heart – 7″ Version: 4:49

08. Johnny Panic And The Bible Of Dreams Instrumental: 4:18

09. Music For Tables: 3:32

10. Johnny Panic And The Bible Of Dreams Mix One: 6:22

11. Johnny Panic And The Bible Of Dreams Mix Two: 5:55

12. Sowing The Seeds Of Love – US Radio Edit: 4:04

13. Woman In Chains – US Radio Edit 1: 4:42

14. Advice For The Young At Heart – Italian Radio Edit: 3:40

15. Year Of The Knife – Canadian Single Version: 5:40

16. Johnny Panic And The Bible Of Dreams: 4:17

CD 3 – THE MOON

RADIO EDITS AND EARLY MIXES

01. Year Of The Knife – Overture: 1:47

02. Year Of The Knife – Early Mix – Instrumental: 8:50

03. Sowing The Seeds Of Love – Alternate Mix: 7:22

04. Tears Roll Down – Alternate Mix: 4:07

05. Year Of The Knife – Steve Chase 7″ Remix: 4.29

06. Badman’s Song – Early Mix: 7:56

07. Advice For The Young At Heart – Instrumental: 4:56

08. Year Of The Knife – The Mix: 06:55

09. Johnny Panic And The Bible Of Dreams – Mix One Edit: 3:43

10. Sowing The Seeds Of Love – Early Mix – Instrumental: 6:40

11. Woman In Chains – US Radio Edit 2: 4:19

12. Year Of The Knife – Canadian Single Version – Instrumental: 5:40

13. Famous Last Words – French Radio Edit: 3:07

14. Woman In Chains – Reprise: 6:39

CD 4 – THE WIND

DEMOS, DIVERSIONS AND JAMS

01. Rhythm Of Life – Demo: 5:12

02. Advice For The Young At Heart – Demo: 4:52

03. Swords And Knives – Demo: 3:51

04. Famous Last Words – Demo: 4:12

05. Sowing The Seeds Of Love – Demo – Instrumental: 6:06

06. Badman’s Song – Langer / Winstanley Version – Instrumental: 7:30

07. Woman In Chains – Townhouse Jam: 7:06

08. Broken – Townhouse Jam: 1:37 Tears For Fears

09. Rhythm Of Life – Townhouse Jam: 3:09

10. Badman’s Song – Townhouse Jam: 8:17

11. Badman’s Song – Reprise – Townhouse Jam: 2:50

12. Standing On The Corner Of The Third World – Townhouse Jam: 9:09

BLU RAY – THE RAIN

ORIGINAL ALBUM MIX, NEW REMASTER & STEVEN WILSON 5.1 MIX

01. Woman In Chains: 6:31 (Original album master)

02. Badman’s Song: 8:32 (Original album master)

03. Sowing The Seeds Of Love: 6:19 (Original album master)

04. Advice For The Young At Heart: 4:50 (Original album master)

05. Standing On The Corner Of The Third World: 5:33 (Original album master)

06. Swords And Knives: 6:12 (Original album master)

07. Year Of The Knife: 7:08 (Original album master)

08. Famous Last Words: 4:26 (Original album master)

09. Woman In Chains: 6:30 (New remaster)

10. Badman’s Song: 8:32 (New remaster)

11. Sowing The Seeds Of Love: 6:19 (New remaster)

12. Advice For The Young At Heart: 4:55 (New remaster)

13. Standing On The Corner Of The Third World: 5:33 (New remaster)

14. Swords And Knives: 6:20 (New remaster)

15. Year Of The Knife: 6:55 (New remaster)

16. Famous Last Words: 4:11 (New remaster)

STEVEN WILSON 5.1 MIX

01. Woman In Chains: 6:30

02. Badman’s Song: 8:32

03. Sowing The Seeds Of Love: 6:19

04. Advice For The Young At Heart: 4:55

05. Standing On The Corner Of The Third World: 5:33

06. Swords And Knives: 6:20

07. Year Of The Knife: 6:55

08. Famous Last Words: 4:11

THE SEEDS OF LOVE DELUXE 2CD TRACKLISTING

CD 1 – ORIGINAL ALBUM

NEW REMASTER BY ANDREW WALTER AT ABBEY ROAD

CD 2 – THE SUN

45’s AND B-SIDES