The band’s second studio album gets a BBC4 documentary, limited edition picture disc release and boxset reissue to mark its 35th birthday

Tears For Fears Songs From The Big Chair

Tears For Fears have announced a flurry of activity of mark the 35th anniversary of the release of Songs From The Big Chair. A limited edition picture disc of the album is set to be released, as well as a reissue of the sought-after deluxe 4CD/2DVD boxset. The boxset features a multitude of remixes, live tracks, BBC sessions, B-sides, previously unreleased tracks and 5.1 surround sound and stereo mixes of the album by four-time Grammy nominee, Steven Wilson.

BBC4 also marks the anniversary with a ‘Classic Album’ documentary on 14 February at 9.30pm, featuring all-new interviews with the band and collaborators who worked on the record, including producer Chris Hughes, engineer Dave Bascombe, Ian Stanley, artist John Grant and the band’s then A&R man Dave Bates.

Looking back at the album, Roland Orzabal commented: “Pop music was still a growth industry. It hadn’t sort of stagnated, stalled, diversified into streaming like it is nowadays. We were young, we were both good-looking and we had the right music. As we move further and further from that decade and you keep hearing Everybody Wants To Rule The World in various forms, I do think it is an era-defining album.”

Curt Smith added: “You would never normally get three songs that strong in an album. But balance that out with tracks like Listen, The Working Hour; all those things that give it air and give it time to breathe I think is what makes it something more than just the sum of its parts. I think the album had a lot more depth than a lot of those other albums of that time. And albums of more depth tend to stick around longer.”

The Songs From The Big Chair boxset will be available from 13 March. Click here to pre-oder your copy now.