Tears for Fears bugged me. I don't know if it was the way the two guys who ran the group (Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith) looked. Maybe it was their first hit single in the US, Shout, which I didn't like then or now. Whatever it was I never warmed up to them. Even though I liked the two followups to Shout, Everybody Wants to Rule the World and Head Over Heels, - not that I ever purchased any of their records!
1985 was a good year for the band. Their album, Songs from the Big Chair, unleashed three hit singles - Shout was one of the biggest records in the world that year, Everybody hit #1 in the U.S. and Head reached #3.
Their videos for all of these songs were pretty lousy and I didn't like their singing voices. But they wrote great melodies and whoever did the arranging was pretty clever. Everybody also has that sparkling lyric couplet:
I can't stand this indecision
Married with a lack of vision
I was surprised to find that Tears for Fears sold 25 million albums in their career.
Another 80s song was suggested to me by dedicated THC reader, LDC, and yes, it was a song I refused to admit I liked at the time - Harden My Heart by Quarterflash. Released in late 1981 it hit #3 in early 1982 and spawned a truly awful music video which is embedded below. I urge you to watch the whole thing - it even has a guy with a flamethrower! Quarterflash was formed by Rindy and Marv Ross who met and married while at Western Oregon University in the 1970s. Rindy sang and played saxophone and Marv wrote the songs and played guitar.
Harden My Heart was their only big hit but Rindy and Marv are still together and touring as Quarterflash. Below the 1981 video you'll find a YouTube of them playing the same song in 2011.
The original video (complete with flamethrower guy and lead singer looking awkward in a leotard):
And this is Quarterflash 2011:
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