On March 7 of this year — 30 years to the day after the release of The Hurting — Tears For Fears launched a new website bearing that album’s cover photo and an inscription (“Thanks for an amazing 30 years. This year is going to be a big one. Get ready!”) that led some to speculate a long-overdue expanded reissue of that record finally would be released.
So far, we know that this “big” year already may include new Tears For Fears music (Curt Smith, who just released a new solo album, and Roland Orzabal are in the studio this summer), and now there’s the first evidence of that much-hoped-for expanded reissue of the band’s 1983 debut album.
The UK arm of Amazon.com currently features two bare-bones listings for The Hurting with no band name attached: a two-disc set on Mercury Records, the label that originally released the Tears For Fears debut, and a four-disc CD/DVD box set on Commercial Marketing, a reissue imprint of the Universal Music Group, Mercury’s parent company. Both versions are due out Oct. 7.
The Hurting — which came in at No. 4 on Slicing Up Eyeballs’ Top 100 Albums of 1983 list — has been reissued once, in 1999, and that was with just four bonus tracks (remixes and extended versions of “Pale Shelter,” “The Way You Are,” “Mad World” and “Change”). As our friends at The Second Disc pointed out earlier this year, there’s plenty of material to include on a proper expanded reissue.
Hopefully we’ll soon know what that includes, and we’ll update accordingly.
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Curt Smith preps new album ‘Deceptively Heavy’ as Tears For Fears return to the studio
- Vintage Video: Tears For Fears, ‘In My Mind’s Eye’ — watch out-of-print 1984 concert film
- Tears For Fears sets short West Coast tour this September; Latin America concerts in works
- Video: Tears For Fears’ Curt Smith on ‘Psych’
- Tears For Fears’ Roland Orzabal is 49 today; watch ‘Head Over Heels’ live in ‘83
- Tears for Fears set summer North American tour following Spandau Ballet trek
AMAZING! Can’t wait for the 4 disc set!
Glad to see this happening, but I still wish “The Seeds of Love” would get the deluxe reissue treatment.
I agree with you, Don. The Geek in me created my very own T4F deluxe editions on my iTunes playlist.
My deluxe edition of “The Seeds Of Love” is as follows:
Disc 1: Original Album
Disc 2: B-Sides & Rarities
Disc 3: Remixes
Disc 4: Live Recording: Brendan Byrne Arena, East Rutherford, NJ February 18, 1990
Disc 5: Live Recording: Brendan Byrne Arena, East Rutherford, NJ February 18, 1990 (unfortunately the encore of “The Hurting” is cut!)
agreed. More than a few songs that never got airplay are quite worthy!
One of my favorite albums. Can’t wait!
‘Bout darn time. My money is ready and waiting.
Where do I sign up?!?!?! I can’t wait!! It will make a GREAT addition to my TFF collection!!
The single version of the rarely bettered ‘Suffer the Children’ would be nice.
4-Discs?! Wow! That’s a lot of extra material! I wonder if they’ll include the In My Mind’s Eye video from 1983 in DVD quality? Did they have that many bonus tracks sitting there in the vaults? That’s definitely a completist’s collection. As usual, the Fall and Winter is the time for big gifting in Music. Get the checkbook ready!