Tears for Fears The Seeds of Love released

The Seeds of Love Tears for Fears

Released: September 25, 1989 Peak: 8 US, 11 UK, 5 CN, 18 AU, 15 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.3 UK, 4.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: new wave

Tracks: Click on a song titled for more details. Woman in Chains [6:31] Badman’s Song [8:32] Sowing the Seeds of Love [6:19] Advice for the Young at Heart [4:50] Standing on the Corner of the Third World [5:33] Swords and Knives [6:12] Year of the Knife [7:08] Famous Last Words [4:26] Total Running Time: 49:40 The Players: Roland Orzabal (vocals, guitar, keyboards, etc.) Curt Smith (vocals, bass) Ian Stanley (keyboards)

Rating: 4.239 out of 5.00 (average of 21 ratings) Quotable: “Dynamic, poignant pop [that] took Tears For Fears to new levels of artistry.” – Eric Aaron, OpenUpAndSay.com Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album “The Seeds of Love completes a trilogy familiar to many careers: the tentative debut, the fully realized follow-up, and the grandiose third album.” HE The album, which took more than four years to make, and “reportedly cost over $250,000 to produce,” WK “bears all the scars of struggle and indecision” HE of a band in limbo. “The musical landscape had changed…so there are a few differences here.” AD “The songs feature expansive melodies instead of blatant hooks” AM and “the pounding drum patterns that were a feature of both their ‘synth’ albums are gone.” AD Instead, the band “dramatically extended their range of musical textures, shying away from the dark rock edges of prior albums and embracing richly layered elements of jazz, soul” OU and even gospel. The album’s “dynamic, poignant pop…took Tears For Fears to new levels of artistry.” OU The Seeds of Love “shows [their] soulful pop glory in its fullest bloom;” OU “the songs stick in the listener's head in almost subliminal fashion.” RS While this album lacks “the compelling immediacy of Songs from the Big Chair, The Seeds of Love was an ambitious attempt to establish themselves as pop craftsmen of the highest order, and it succeeded brilliantly.” OU There is an “unspoken assertion that popular music can also be outstanding music. That's something this remarkable record proves over and over again.” RS “Like their other albums, The Seeds of Love continues the concept of moving from hurting to healing to beginning anew (the hit “Sowing the Seeds of Love”) to growing apart.” AM Each of the “eight sprawling tracks” RS “is a five-minute-plus mini-drama with moments of delicacy and discomfort, restraint and excess, inspiration and creative exhaustion.” AM “Curt Smith and Roland Orzabel are clearly perfectionists – the record is heavily produced, but not to the point that all the life is produced right out of it.” RS “As the last album to feature…Smith, it is a fitting end to an era.” HE Tears for Fears was becoming “more a platform for…Orzabal than a true band.” AM “Ian Stanley was replaced by Nicky Holland as a keyboardist and Orzabal's songwriting partner” AM while Smith only gets co-writing credit on “Sowing the Seeds of Love.” Even guest “vocalist, Oleta Adams…gets more parts than Curt does.” AD Not surprisingly, “Orzabal and Smith…parted on bad terms during the album, ensuring yet another change in the band’s direction thereafter.” AM Reissue A 1999 reissue of the album added “Tears Roll Down,” “Always in the Past,” “Music for Tables,” and “Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams.” The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Woman in Chains Tears for Fears with Oleta Adams

Writer(s): Roland Orzabal (see lyrics here) Released: 11/6/1989 as a single, The Seeds of Love (1989) Peak: 36 BB, 32 CN, 37 AC, 27 MR, 26 UK, 11 CN, 39 AU, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 79.01 video, 161.55 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Tears for Fears came roaring out of the gate with the first single, “Sowing the Seeds of Love,” from their third album, The Seeds of Love. It went all the way to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving the British duo its fourth song to hit the top 3 in the United States. Alas, it would be their last trip to the upper echelon of the chart.The “lush, atmospheric” OU and “solemn” HE “Woman in Chains,” the follow-up single to “Sowing the Seeds of Love,” barely scraped the top 40, peaking at #36. The song “is about a woman who is trapped in a relationship with a bullying, possessive man.” SF Roland Orzabal explained that the song was about his mother, who was a stripper at one time. Orzabal’s father would send someone to spy on her and if she talked to another man, he would beat her up when she came home. WK On a grander scale, Orzabal says, “I’m singing about the oppression of women around the world.” SF In discussing feminist literature he was reading at the time, he explained “I discovered there are societies in the world…that are non-patriarchal. They don’t have the man at the top and the woman at the bottom. They’re matricentric – they have the woman at the centre and these societies are a lot less violent, a lot less greedy and there’s generally less animosity.” WK It’s also about “unearthing…the ‘feminine’ side of the male psyche and, by extension, an explanation of just why everybody wants to rule the world.” RS The song “demonstrated Orzabal’s affinity for melodic, moody soul” EO with guest singer Oleta Adams replacing Tears for Fears’ Curt Smith “as his vocal sparring partner.” EO “Orzabal's passionate vocals are well matched by Oleta Adams' fervent contributions.” AM She “informs the entire record with her soulful pipes, adding a human vibrancy barely present in the band's earlier, highly automated music.” RS The duo saw Adams perform in Kansas City. “We were both knocked out by her emotional power,” said Orzabal. It proved the catalyst for her to have a successful solo career. The song also featured Phil Collins on drums. He reported that “Tears for Fears just wanted me to do that big drum thing from ‘In the Air Tonight’…We want you to come in here in a big way.” WK

Badman’s Song Tears for Fears

Writer(s): Roland Orzabal, Nicky Holland Released: The Seeds of Love (1989) Peak: 4 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 10.47 streaming About the Song: The “eight-and-a-half-minute Badman's Song suggests a stylistic continuum from Little Feat to Weather Report.” RS The “polychromatic” OU song “opts for safety, reveling in a sophisticated lethargy.” HE There are some “good vocals and some…exciting musical parts [but they] almost gets lost by the time the song has finished. It ultimately tries your patience.” AD

Sowing the Seeds of Love Tears for Fears

Writer(s): Roland Orzabal, Curt Smith (see lyrics here) Released: 8/21/1989 as a single, The Seeds of Love (1989) Peak: 2 BB, 11 CB, 4 RR, 29 AC, 4 AR, 11 MR, 5 UK, 13 CN, 13 AU, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 51.25 video, 120.12 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Tears for Fears hit the big time with their 1985 sophomore album, Songs from the Big Chair. The #1 hits “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and “Shout” pushed the album to #1 and multi-platinum status in the U.S. When the duo waited four years – an eternity in the world of pop music – to release a follow-up album, it wouldn’t have surprised anyone if it flopped commercially. Instead, The Seeds of Love was another top-10 platinum release. Lead-off single Sowing the Seeds of Love “manages to be insanely intricate as well as catchy.” AM It made it all the way to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also topped the alternative chart, a feat new to a Tears for Fears song since the chart hadn’t existed during the last album. It is “carried by an over-the-top production that hauls out every last bell and whistle.” RS The song “is a throwback to ‘60s nostalgia” and Flower Power. SF It has been called “a pastiche of the Beatles” because it was “produced in a style reminiscent of their late 1960s output.” WK It has specifically been said that the song “updates the orchestral grandiosity” AM from the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour era” RS as well as “Sgt. Pepper’s and the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” EO “Despite a dalliance with Sixties naiveté, even the hippie-dippiest line, ‘Every minute of every hour, I love the sunflower,’ alludes to the Green party, leaving one to wonder whether the song's flower-power sentiments (and sound) are really as dated as they seem.” RS It is a “pop masterwork of…intricate interplay between Orzabal’s thicker, Lennon-esque voice, and Smith’s high, clear McCartney-like singing.” EO The song is “completely different from the polished, atmospheric soul that surrounds it, but paradoxically, it's also the album’s cornerstone.” AM “Full of arcane references, lovely turns of phrase, and perfectly matched suite-like parts” AM it “is a joyous call to activism.” RS It was inspired by a radio program about Cecil Sharp (1859-1924), a scholar and folk song collector. He overheard a gardner named John England singing a song called “The Seeds of Love.” It inspired Sharp to look into English traditional songs, which sparked the English folk song revival. WK The song was written in June 1987 in response to staunch conservative Margaret Thatcher winning her third consecutive term as Britain’s Prime Minister. Roland Orzabal, who’d never particularly taken an interest in politics, considered this the band’s most “overtly political song.” WK It refers to Thatcher as “Politician granny with your high ideas/ Have you no idea how the majority feels?” He advocates, “High time we made a stand / And shook up the views of the common man.”

Advice for the Young at Heart Tears for Fears

Writer(s): Roland Orzabal, Nicky Holland Released: 2/19/1990 as a single, The Seeds of Love (1989) Peak: 89 BB, 62 CB, 24 AC, 36 UK, 25 CN, 4 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 21.87 video, 56.40 streaming About the Song: “Woman in Chains” and “the sweetly accessible” OU “Advice for the Young at Heart are sung with…care and attention featuring Smith's vocal contributions.” JL With its “updated Philly-soul strain,” AM this “lush and melodic [song] comes closest to a conventional pop tune.” RS It “sounds like…a perfect summer pop hit.” AD In reality, it was released at the tail of end of winter as the third single from the album and met with only moderate success.

Standing on the Corner of the Third World Tears for Fears

Writer(s): Roland Orzabal Released: The Seeds of Love (1989) Peak: 5 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 3.62 streaming About the Song: On the next couple cuts, “the group…dabbles in jazz” AM although they may have “drifted a little too much into middle of road territory…when perhaps their audience weren’t quite ready for them to do so.” AD “The bleak, harrowing Standing on the Corner of the Third World gains its strength from a remarkable collision of sound and idea.” RS

Swords and Knives Tears for Fears

Writer(s): Nicky Holland Released: The Seeds of Love (1989) Peak: 3 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 3.49 streaming About the Song: Both “Standing on the Corner of the Third World” and “Swords and Knives” “are ‘smooth,’ things to admire rather than actively enjoy.” AD

Year of the Knife Tears for Fears

Writer(s): Roland Orzabal, Nicky Holland Released: The Seeds of Love (1989) Peak: 3 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 4.23 streaming About the Song: The “slow-burning,” AM “lean, hard–driving Year of the Knife” OU “is perhaps the focal point of the tension. Its admirable flamboyance makes for more fun than could be expected from a half-live, three-part, seven-minute swaggering rock & roll track packed with guitar solos.” HE

Famous Last Words Tears for Fears

Writer(s): Roland Orzabal, Nicky Holland Released: 8/6/1990 as a single, The Seeds of Love (1989) Peak: 83 UK, 2 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 4.18 streaming About the Song: “The very pretty and touching Famous Last Words” AD is a “poignant closer…about two lovers' bracing for the Big One, reveals what might happen if the machismo outlined in ‘Woman in Chains’ were to go unchecked.” RS It is “one of the most perfectly realised songs on the entire album; very beautiful.” AD

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Stanton Swihart AD Adrian Denning HE Half.Ebay.com JL Jonathan Leonard, Leonard’s Lair OU OpenUpAndSay.com review by Eric Aaron RS Rolling Stone review by Michael Azerrad, originally in print issue 564 EO Eric Olsen, BlogCritics.org SF Songfacts page for “Sowing the Seeds of Love” SF Songfacts page for “Woman in Chains” WK Wikipedia page for The Seeds of Love WK Wikipedia page for “Sowing the Seeds of Love” WK Wikipedia page for “Woman in Chains” Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/24/2008; last updated 8/10/2025.

 

Marillion Seasons End released

Seasons End Marillion

Released: September 25, 1989 Peak: -- US, 7 UK, -- CN, -- AU Sales (in millions): 0.1 UK Genre: neo-progressive rock

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. The King of Sunset Town (Marillion, John Helmer) [8:01] Easter [5:57] (3/19/90, 34 UK) The Uninvited Guest (Marillion, Helmer) [3:50] (11/27/89, 53 UK) Seasons End (Marillion, Helmer) [8:08] Holloway Girl [4:27] Berlin (Marillion, Helmer) [7:43] After Me [3:19] Hooks in You (Marillion, Helmer) [2:54] (8/29/89, 49 AR, 30 UK) The Space… (Marillion, Woore, Dugmore, Harper) [6:14] Music and lyrics by Marillion (Hogarth, Rothery, Kelly, Trewavas, Mosley) unless noted otherwise. Total Running Time: 50:55 The Players: Steve Hogarth (vocals, percussion) Steve Rothery (guitar) Pete Trewavas (bass) Mark Kelly (keyboards) Ian Mosley (drums)

Rating: 4.032 out of 5.00 (average of 23 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: After four albums with Marillion, their lead singer Fish departed for a solo career. His “distinct voice and poetic prose made him the defining member of the band. One can only imagine how record executives held their collective breath as Steve Hogarth was brought in to take the reins. His first outing with the band, 1989’s Seasons End, removed all doubts about the band's future. Hogarth’s unique, expressive voice fit Marillion perfectly.” AMG His “flexible range and beautiful phrasing shine on the entire album.” AMG Whether “on the full-throttle rock assault of The Uninvited Guest or the emotional After You, Hogarth's singularity is unmistakable.” AMG Kerrang!’s Mick Wall called Hogarth’s voice “smooth as glass and emotive as hell…Steve Hogarth is no Fish clone…He doesn’t need to be. He’s got a voice of his own…you can almost forget the band ever had another singer.” WK The band wrote most of the material before Hogarth joined. Some of the initial attempts with Fish on vocals appear on the 1999 reissue of Clutching at Straws. They also commissioned John Helmer to write lyrics to many of the songs. Still, Hogarth did write lyrics for a couple of the songs. One was the “beautiful” AMG and “heartfelt Easter with its imaginative electric-acoustic arrangement, is another showcase for Hogarth’s talents.” AMG The song is his “plea for peace in Ireland.” AMG Hogarth also wrote The Space. He explained that the song grew out of an incident in which he saw a car parked too close to a tram and the tram tore the side of it off when it came down the road. Years later, Hogarth thought, “I was a bit like that tram when I probably ripped the side of a few things I hadn’t even felt and I hadn’t slowed down either and I probably hadn’t noticed. So the words came from that realization.” WK Several of the songs make political and social statements. The title cut addresses climate change while Berlin “describes the situation in the divided city of Berlin.” WK Helmer originally wrote The King of Sunset Town about poverty, but Hogarth modified it to address “the brutal oppression of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.” WK The line “And everyone assembled here / Remembers how it used to be / Before the 27th came” refers to the 27th Army who was involved in the massacre. WK “Marillion’s ability to write music whose ideals live and breathe in the listener continues…on the inspiring Holloway Girl, which dissects the injustice of incarcerating mentally ill female inmates (at England’s Holloway Prison) instead of placing them in appropriate psychiatric facilities.” AMG It specifically addressed “the imprisonment of Judith Ward in Holloway Prison for IRA bombings.” WK Notes: A 1999 remaster includes a second disc with outtakes of "The Uninvited Guest," (also the 12" single version), "The King of Sunset Town," "Holloway Girl," "Seasons End," and "Berlin" as well as B-sides "The Bell in the Sea" (2 versions) and "The Release."

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Marillion AMG All Music Guide review by Jeri Montesano WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/14/2008; last updated 3/6/2022.

Neil Young “Rockin’ in the Free World” charted

Rockin’ in the Free World Neil Young

Writer(s): Neil Young (see lyrics here) Released: November 14, 1989 First Charted: September 23, 1989 Peak: 2 AR, 39 CN, 5 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 27.6 video, -- streaming

Awards (Neil Young): Click on award for more details. Awards (Pearl Jam): Click on award for more details. Awards (Indigo Girls): Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Some music fans don’t want to see politics in rock ‘n’ roll, but “artists like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan have woven politics seamlessly into the fabric of their music, chronicling the American condition over decades. And anger has always been part of the backbone of rock music, whether the singer’s angry at the government, another man, or a girl who’s done him wrong.” UCR “When the result is a barnburner like Neil Young ‘Rockin’ in the Free World,’ it’s hard to deny the value of self-righteous rage when it comes to penning a classic tune.” UCR “Young captured that anger perfectly with ‘Ohio’ in the wake of the Kent State shootings in 1970, and he did it again in 1989.” UCR “There may be no better explosion of rage on record than ‘Rockin’ in the Free World.’” UCR “It feels like decades of rage over every betrayal of the American promise, spitting out line by line and lick by lick over three and a half minutes.” UCR “Whatever your political leanings, there’s plenty to love about this track, not least of which is the simple gut-punch riff that churns throughout the tune. Young shreds away at his guitar with the ferocity of a pissed-off teenager in his garage, spitting out words that were a scathing indictment of America under George H.W. Bush, but seem timeless decades years later, especially when his attention turns to a baby in the arms of a poor drug addict living on the streets: ‘There’s one more kid / That will never go to school / Never get to fall in love / Never get to be cool.’” UCR The song has been widely covered by other artists including the Alarm, Pearl Jam, Indigo Girls, and Bon Jovi. On my personal charts, Pearl Jam and Indigo Girls each got to #1 with their versions. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Neil Young UCR UltimateClassicRock.com (6/20/2013). “Top 100 Classic Rock Songs” WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 7/31/2022.

Aerosmith “Janie’s Got a Gun” charted

Janie’s Got a Gun Aerosmith

Writer(s): Steven Tyler, Tom Hamilton (see lyrics here) Released: November 8, 1989 First Charted: September 23, 1989 Peak: 4 US, 3 CB, 6 GR, 8 RR, 2 AR, 76 UK, 2 CN, 11 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 70.7 video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The rock band Aerosmith formed in Boston in 1970. They released six studio albums in the 1970s, all of which have gone platinum. 1976’s Rocks was their highest charting album, reaching #3, while Toys in the Attic was their biggest seller generating nine million in sales in the U.S. They have some of the most celebrated album rock classics of all time in “Dream On,” “Sweet Emotion,” and “Walk This Way.” However, they hit hard times in the 1980s. Drug problems and internal conflicts led to the departures of guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford. Both returned to the fold, but in 1985 it looked like the band would never come close to their glory days again. However, their fortunes changed when rap group Run-D.M.C. covered “Walk This Way,” taking it all the way to the top 10. The song featured Perry and singer Steven Tyler. Suddenly people cared about Aerosmith again. Their 1987 Permanent Vacation album sold five million copies on the strength of three top-20 singles. The follow-up album, Pump, was even more successful. On the strength of three top tens and a fourth top-40 hit, the album sold seven million copies and reached #5 on the Billboard album chart. The second of those top-10 hits was “Janie’s Got a Gun.” In an usual departure for the band, this wasn’t some feel-good party tune. Tyler saw a Time magazine article about handgun deaths in the United States and heard a woman talking about how often children are attacked by their parents. WK He put the ideas together to create a story of a young woman who shoots her father because he sexually abuses her. The video was shot by David Fincher, who later directed Se7en, and depicts the murder and subsequent crime scene investigation. SF The song earned them their first Grammy – for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Resources: SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 12/27/2022.