Tears For Fears’ The Hurting to be remastered for 40th anniversary
By Classic Pop | March 8, 2023
The Hurting, the debut studio album by Tears for Fears, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.
To celebrate, it will be reissued on 12 May as an Abbey Road Half Speed Mastered vinyl and as a newly created Dolby Atmos mix by renowned artist and mixer, Steven Wilson. You can pre-order it here.
The Dolby Atmos mix, along with a 5.1 mix, an instrumental mix, the original album master and two previously unheard tracks, will also be released as a limited edition standalone blu-ray disc exclusively via www.superdeluxeedition.com
Initially released on 7th March 1983, The Hurting featured three Top Five hit singles: Mad World, Change and Pale Shelter.
The album peaked at No.1 on the UK Albums Chart in its second week of release and was certified Gold by the BPI within three weeks, staying in the charts for over a year and reaching Platinum status in early 1985.
The album also entered the Top 40 in several countries, including Canada, Germany, and Australia. The Hurting was an incredibly influential album in America, and its influence can be felt in the work of The Weeknd, Nine Inch Nails, Arcade Fire, Smashing Pumpkins, and the massive hit version of Mad World by Michael Andrews & Gary Jules from the cult movie Donnie Darko.
The Hurting, written solely by band member Roland Orzabal is a loose concept album focusing on themes of childhood psychological trauma and Arthur Janov’s Primal Scream therapy, the theories behind which gave the band their name. Despite its dark subject matter, the album was a huge commercial success and continues to resonate with younger audiences.
- Read more: Making The Hurting
Speaking last year, Tears For Fears’ Curt Smith said: “We only noticed it in the last couple years, when we played Bonnaroo, which is ostensibly a far younger festival. We expected maybe a thousand people if we were lucky, and it was stretched past the tent overhang and went all the way back. I’m looking at the front of the audience and they’re all far younger than me and they’re all singing all the lyrics to every song from The Hurting. It was shocking to me.
“When you look at it retrospectively, it makes sense, because we wrote it when we were that age. Those lyrics resonate with a younger audience. But that was when I noticed a shift, when we started playing festivals and noticed there was a younger audience we were gaining in America.”
The new Half Speed Remaster of The Hurting was done by audio engineer Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios using a half-speed mastering technique which produces a superior vinyl cut.
The Dolby Atmos mix, which remixes the album into spatial, three-dimensional audio, has been created by the artist Steven Wilson who has previously remixed Tears For Fears Songs From The Big Chair, The Seeds Of Love and The Tipping Point into spatial audio formats.
As well as streaming, the Dolby Atmos mix will be available as a standalone blu-ray disc featuring Wilson’s Atmos Mix, his 5.1 mix and his stereo instrumental mix as well the original 1985 stereo master and two recently rediscovered unreleased versions of Mad World and Watch Me Bleed produced by Mike Howlett.
TEARS FOR FEARS THE HURTING
HALF SPEED MASTER LP
Side One
The Hurting
Mad World
Pale Shelter
Ideas As Opiates
Memories Fade
Side Two
Suffer The Children
Watch Me Bleed
Change
The Prisoner
Start Of The Breakdown
TEARS FOR FEARS THE HURTING
DOLBY ATMOS MIX BY STEVEN WILSON
The Hurting
Mad World
Pale Shelter
Ideas As Opiates
Memories Fade
Suffer The Children
Watch Me Bleed
Change
The Prisoner
Start Of The Breakdown
TEARS FOR FEARS THE HURTING
LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SUPERDELUXEEDITION.COM EXCLUSIVE
Dolby Atmos Mix by Steven Wilson
5.1 Mix by Steven Wilson
Instrumental Mix by Steven Wilson (Stereo)
Original 1983 Stereo Mix
The Hurting
Mad World
Pale Shelter
Ideas As Opiates
Memories Fade
Suffer The Children
Watch Me Bleed
Change
The Prisoner
Start Of The Breakdown
Bonus Tracks (Previously Unreleased)
Mad World (Mike Howlett Version)
Watch Me Bleed (Mike Howlett Version)
TEARS FOR FEARS
THE HURTING
HALF SPEED MASTER LP
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER HERE:
https://tearsforfears.lnk.to/TheHurting
PRE-ORDER THE EXCLUSIVE BLU-RAY HERE:
https://www.thesdeshop.com/collections/tears-for-fears
RELEASED 12th MAY ON VIRGIN/UMR
