Universal Music Catalogue and Virgin/EMI have announced the release of Tears for Fears’ 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of The Hurting, with live sessions, B-sides and remixes in a unique box set. It will be available on October 21 (October 22 in North America). Thirty years ago, in March 1983, Tears for Fears released their influential synth-pop debut The Hurting. The critical acclaim and commercial success that greeted the album was the culmination of 18 months of hard work. The birthplace of Tears for Fears was the City of Bath in Somerset, South West England. It was there that Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith met as teenagers in the late seventies, and a friendship evolved into a musical alliance that endures to this day. They briefly called themselves History of Headaches but soon changed to Tears for Fears. The chosen name was a reference to the work of American psychologist Arthur Janov, who in the late 1960s developed Primal Therapy – a trauma-based psychotherapy that attempts to resolve repressed childhood pain. By 1981 they were set to begin their evolution through music, and Roland set to work writing. But it took some time for the band to discover their sound. Virtually all of the tracks on The Hurting were written by Roland on an acoustic guitar, despite being regarded as a new wave, synth-based classic. “Writing the title track was a strange piece of psychic osmosis,” says Roland. “Curt had been to see a band from Bristol called Electric Guitars and was describing their sound to me; I had an acoustic guitar in my hand at the time and played him what he was describing: that’s how ‘The Hurting’ was written, and we knew for a long time it was the right name for our first album.” Tears for Fears’ sonic ambitions were realised by keyboard player Ian Stanley, who helped them to fulfil their sound. Roland has no doubts how important he was, saying “Without Ian’s eight-track studio, his Roland JP4, his CR78 drum machine and MXR Pitch Transposer, we wouldn’t be where we are now??? He gave us the opportunity to demo, at his home studio, songs such as ‘Pale Shelter’, ‘Change’ and ‘Mad World’.” The hard work was rewarded when ‘Mad World’ was released in September 1982 and peaked at number three in the UK singles chart in November. The success of ‘Mad World’ – at one point earmarked as a B-side for ‘Pale Shelter’ – banished any commercial doubts the record company may have been harbouring. A few months later in January 1983, ‘Change’ was issued as a follow-up single, reaching number four in the UK charts. Tears for Fears were riding the crest of a wave and on March7, 1983, The Hurting hit the shops, a full 16 months after ‘Suffer The Children’. Two weeks later the LP hit number one, displacing Michael Jackson’s Thriller. A month later, ‘Pale Shelter’ was re-released and became their third big hit. Tears for Fears went on to make a further two albums in the eighties. Their second long-player – the mega-selling, global, pop tour-de-force that was 1985s Songs from the Big Chair – is undoubtedly the world’s favourite Tears for Fears album. The sophisticated grown-up stylings of 1989s The Seeds of Love contains ‘Sowing the Seeds of Love’, arguably the best six minutes of pop music the band ever produced. This 30th Anniversary edition of The Hurting is the first serious re-examination of the album and its attendant singles. Comprehensively remastered at Abbey Road studios and overseen by Roland and Curt, it contains nuggets of the past that will have you reminiscing with the band.
 | 
