Tears For Fears 4: Tears Roll Down

It’s a little presumptuous for a band with only three albums to put out a hits collection, and even more so when one of the songs on said collection is brand new, not having even earned its stripes as a hit. But in the case of Tears For Fears, the hits from those three albums were so good that they sound great together.

Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 82-92) shuffles five songs from Songs From The Big Chair and three from the other two very well. The earliest songs don’t arrive until halfway through, but they fit just fine. “Mother’s Talk” is our least favorite single here, and ending with “Advice For The Young At Heart” makes it all kinda depressing, but “Laid So Low (Tears Roll Down)”, that one new song, gives lyrics to an earlier, instrumental B-side, and provides something of a link to the band’s future.

This was not the only hits collection, as the band’s association with PolyGram worldwide meant that the millennium would ensure several repackagings of the same pile of songs at budget prices and higher. Tears Roll Down itself reappeared in other ways overseas: in tandem with a DVD of their videos plus another disc of lesser hit singles, and in a two-disc version that added eleven remixes. But in summing up the fruits of the band’s first decade, this simple hour of ‘80s pop is satisfying.

Tears For Fears Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 82-92) (1992)—4