My listening history with Tears for Fears is one that is rivaled only by The Police, but to be clear, TFF were my first "absolute favorite band of all time". Despite not being as regular of a listen as they used to be, TFF set the gears in motion for my later taste in music: a healthy fascination with gloomy synthpop and quasi-post-punk music with their debut The Hurting, and introduced a seamless fusion of drum and synth programming with live "arena-sized" instrumentation on Songs From the Big Chair.
Among the innovations that TFF brought into their sound with Songs From the Big Chair, they subtly tapped into jazz flourishes (most notably on "The Working Hour" and "I Believe") and organic, almost post-rock sounds ("Listen"). These subtleties were something that TFF would explore further on their following 1989 record, The Seeds of Love.
The record contains multiple elements of jazz, organic textures, and use of "widescreen" ambiance throughout its running time. Whether it be in "Standing in the Corner of the Third World"'s use of heavy dynamic shifts between its sleepy verses to explosive chorus, the bluesy piano and rattling drum patterns on "Badman's Song", or the sophisticated and expensively arranged pop sounds on "Swords and Knives", it was obvious that TFF shifted to a paradoxical raw but cleanly produced sound.
Many consider it to be the poorest of the group's releases under their first phase, before Curt Smith departed, and it is not hard to see why. While TFF definitely shifted their sound into new territory, it is arguable that many moments are overproduced, pretentious, or at worst, boring (the almost two-minute guitar solo on "Swords and Knives", the sheer length of "Third World", the veering on annoying sentimentality of "Famous Last Words", among other things).
I actually love the record though, and when the mood is correct, The Seeds Of Love comes off as an overly ambitious pop record that has an interesting mixture of psychedelia, jazz, and blues within its roots. Not to mention how damned inspiring some of the production is since TFF spent over a million pounds on this record, and it shows, for better or worse (I am of the former).
But even if you think the whole record is a bombastic mess, I find it hard to believe anyone who does not think "Advice for the Young at Heart" is a brilliantly arranged and produced piece of romantic pop. A song that pleads "Soon we will be older/When we gonna make it work?" and "Love is a promise/Love is a souvenir/Once given never forgotten/Never let it disappear", it is a melancholic masterpiece of romantic territory that many do not attempt today.
With its salsa influenced piano chords, ghostly synths that fill empty space, a rising and falling timpani, wailing organ, and the propulsive chorus, it all comes together to create a really beautiful track. By the end, a downtrodden Smith sings a quiet melody with the sole descending piano, and are treated to a final bit of "Advice."
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