(Paris) Unexpected after 18 years without an album: Tears For Fears overcomes drama and dissension to sign a pop jewel, chiseled with questions around threatened democracies or a necessary gender parity.
Posted at 10:50 a.m.
But why nearly two decades without releasing a new record? All the keys are in The Tipping Point which comes out on Friday.
In the song Staythe two brains of the group, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, do not hide the fact that they have not always been on the same wavelength in 40 years of career (first disc, The Hurting1983).
” The Tipping Point is a powerful album, because honest. Our destinies were not always linked, we needed to grow spiritually separately before finding each other, having reached the same maturity, ”explains to AFP Roland Orzabal, met in Paris alongside his sidekick.
“We know now that we need each other”, establishes Curt Smith, close-cropped hair, small diamond in his ear and figure maintained at the gym.
“A kind of brotherly bond”, blows his friend, beard and long white hair, psychedelic jacket, sixty years old like his alter ego.
It’s a classic trajectory in pop: two English teenagers sympathize, found a group and then have to manage the whirlwind of success (in the mid-1980s with the songs Shout and Everybody wants to rule the world). Curt will experience it badly, attempting the first solo adventure in the 1990s before going back and forth in TFF.
” Depth “
But, more surprisingly, it is their former manager who has slowed down their desire for a new album in recent years, contenting himself with wanting to make them tour with their old successes.
“He lived in the distrust of artists, a little manipulative, but we regained power”, summarizes Roland. It’s the subject of the song Master plan.
“Our ex-manager rejected everything, told me: “You have to tell a story”. What a story ? My wife died, I did two detox cures, I want to talk about that, ”continues the artist.
SCREENSHOT
The Tipping Point by Tears For Fears
These torments nourish the plots of The Tipping Point and Please be happy. “We want to work on the depth, not stay in the superficial”, adds Curt Smith. “We are good at going into the shadows, but there is always optimism and hope in our songs”, explains Roland Orzabal.
The duo has lost none of its science of silky melodies to wrap strong messages. As on their success Woman in Chains (1989) which evoked domestic violence. “What my father did physically and morally to my mother,” says Roland.
” Shocked “
Putting an end to toxic virility and building real male-female parity are this time at the center of Break the Manon the new album.
Curt Smith originated it. He who now lives in the United States was horrified by all the paraphernalia of male domination put forward by Donald Trump to conquer power.
“This ‘my b… is bigger than yours’ aspect, I never understood that; and I also ask myself questions, because I have two daughters”, he continues.
The current political upheavals also challenge the two men. Rivers of Mercy opens with the sounds of rioting and police sirens. Curt was in the United States the day the Capitol was attacked by conspirators and Trump supporters.
“I was in shock, but it’s not over, be careful. Trump wants to return to power, democracy can be broken at any time,” he begins. “Democracy is also weakened with everything that is being played out behind the scenes at the tech giants and which can change the face of an election”, unfolds Roland.
Master plan can also be read as a denunciation of the authoritarianism embodied by figures like Trump or Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. But always with this light at the end of the tunnel: the people can regain control, as the Tears For Fears duo did by changing managers to express themselves with new songs.