Tears for Fears: Songs from the Big Chair (Mercury, 1985)

Ten aperçus:

1. Gawd, this album is boring!

2. And I claim this with "Pale Shelter" as my 94th fave single of the 1980s. 

3. Average song length = 5:19. That merits a "tsk-tsk" from a popist perspective.

4. Best song = "Mothers Talk" cuz it's the most disco

5. Worst Song = definitely the ironically titled "Listen," although "I Believe" runs a close second in unlistenability. They're both water-logged, excrescent ballads. Blech!!!! And that's over a quarter of the album right there!

6. If "Shout" were a package, it would cost hundreds of dollars to send. And that's just the single version. The album version would have to spend a week in a shipping container and get held up at customs for another week. 

7. They had big mouths...physically big mouths, especially in the "Shout" video. 

8. The Seeds of Love is even worse. Who the hell needed ever more Pepperisms in 1989? I wisely stopped listening to them after that and given such Rick Wakeman-like titles as Raoul and the Kings of Spain and Saturnine Martial & Lunatic, it was not a moment too soon.

9. They were the INXS of the 1980s.

10. Oh wait a minute - we already had an INXS in the 1980s. Ok the Procol Harum of the 1980s. 

Grade: C+