Tears For Fears’ Curt Smith says if you’re in a band and you stay around long enough, eventually you'll come back into fashion. Smith should know. Tears For Fears were one of the biggest bands in the 80s, although their yearning new wave pop anthems never really got the critical acclaim they deserved at the time. But lately, the duo who formed in Bath in 1981 have been able to savour the best of both worlds. They play arenas around the world and, more pertinently, the sound of their first two records, 1983’s The Hurting and their 1985 follow-up Songs From The Big Chair, can be heard everywhere in modern music. Whether it’s their layered, propulsive grooves, gripping melodicism, the linear guitar lines, the strobing synth hooks, the sense of pop grandeur or the lyricism that painted contemplative reflections onto a grand scale, the duo crafted a sound that has become a go-to for artists right across the musical spectrum. It's hard to think for another band who came after the initial burst of 60s rock’n’roll trailblazers who have influenced such a dazzlingly wide array of acts.
There are some flipsides to being a band in their position, though. Speaking to this writer a few years ago, Smith explained the awkward moment when his children's nanny assumed the band were doing a Kanye cover when they were actually playing the original song that Kanye sampled. “She came to see us play because she was looking after the kids,” he said. “We played Memories Fade and it was one of the first times we’d introduced it back into the set and she came up to me afterwards and said, ‘You did that version of the Kanye song, that’s fantastic!’. I was like, ‘Well, actually…’.”
