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Tears for Fears' 1983 debut The Hurting, home of "Mad World," in a Half-Speed Master edition cut by Miles Showell.
A half-speed mastered edition with a remaster by Miles Showell. The Hurting reached No. 1 in the UK in its second week, hit No. 7 in Canada and put three singles into the UK top five.
Few debuts owe this much to a psychology book. Tears for Fears took their name from a phrase in Arthur Janov's Prisoners of Pain, and much of The Hurting draws on his primal therapy ideas, which sounds like a recipe for something heavy going and somehow turned into one of the great synth-pop records of the 80s. Produced by Chris Hughes and Ross Cullum and out on Mercury on March 7, 1983, it's an album about childhood, anxiety and growing up, set to cool, crisp electronics and some of the most memorable melodies of the decade.
"Mad World" came first, then "Change," then "Pale Shelter," and the album went Platinum both in the UK and here in Canada, plus gold in the U.S. and France. "Mad World" got a second life in 2001 when Michael Andrews and Gary Jules slowed it down for Donnie Darko and took it all the way to the top of the UK singles chart, sending a whole new generation back to the original. The bigger hits came later with Songs from the Big Chair, but this is where the heart of the band lives, and the half-speed cut makes those textures shine.
On Mercury, a reissue of the 1983 album.
