Secret world (Tears For Fears) (LP 4096 - 4099)

Tears For Fears  Secret World Live in Paris (CD, XIII Bis Records, 2006) ***  

Tears For Fears  Songs for a Nervous Planet (CD, Concord Records, 2024) ****

Tears For Fears  Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits '82 - '92) (CD, Mercury Records, 1992) *****

Tears For Fears  Saturnine Martial & Lunatic (Vinyl, Mercury Records, 1996) ***

Genre: Pop rock, alt pop

Places I remember: Fopp, Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Advice for the Young at Heart (Tears Roll Down)

Gear costume: Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears Roll Down)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6

Active compensatory factors: Live is an interesting proposition for Tears For Fears. Their studio records are crafted together using a variety of instruments and overdubs so, how can they perform those songs on stage? Secret World is from a concert at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris during their 2005 world tour provides an answer... 

Which is - it's difficult and it's different in that the songs take on a rougher, more rugged personality in a live setting.  The live band is Roland (vocals, guitar), Curt (vocals, bass), Doug Petty (keyboards), Charlton Pettus (lead guitar), Nick D'Virgilio (drums). The guitars and keyboards carry the musical burden.

The three studio songs tacked on to the end of the CD show how glaring the split between studio and live is. So, it's nice to have this CD but it's of curiosity value for the most part.

Songs for a Nervous Planet is a double album of mostly live material from a concert at the FirstBank Amphitheater in Franklin, Tennessee on 11 July 2023, while on their Tipping Point World Tour. The album also includes some new studio tracks (my vinyl addition has five studio tracks but leaves off a couple of songs that are on the 2CD set).

This is a much better presentation of TFF songs with basically the same musicians as Secret World (a new drummer and the addition of three backing vocalists are the only changes). The new studio tracks are on side one and they are excellent, then the three sides live dives into The Tipping Point and past glories. It deserved to sell and it did - becoming a top ten album in the UK and elsewhere.

On to the compilations: Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits '82 - '92) collects all the hits and big moments from their first ten years together.

Saturnine Martial & Lunatic is a compilation covering roughly the same period as Tears Roll Down, but rather than hits, this is a collection of B sides and rare tracks. It's obviously inconsistent given that premise but it does include the non-LP U.K. hit single The Way You Are and a cover of David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes.

Where do they all belong? As I said in my previous post - I hope they are not done. I love what they create together.