I have the super deluxe box, but I’m interested in getting a better sounding version of the main album. What’s generally regarded as the best sounding digital version of this album? I know that’s a dangerous question on SHF...
Here's a tremendously in-depth shootout of The Hurting and Songs From the Big Chair by forum member @JoshM The Best Version Of… Tears for Fears’ The Hurting and Songs from the Big Chair
FWIW, I have the ‘13 SDE for all the great bonus material and ‘14 blu Ray for main album. The latter was still available at Acoustic Sounds last time I checked, but note that it is 2.0 mix and not surround unfortunately.
I finally cracked last week and bought a NM condition Tears Laid Low promo CD just to have the proper dry mix of "We Are Broken" on a digital format. It wasn't cheap but it was worth it. Quite a nice compilation actually.
Tracklist can be found on discogs.com: Tears For Fears - Tears Laid Low (A Tears For Fears Alter Collection) It's basically a prototype Saturnine Martial & Lunatic, but without the later Curt-less tracks. Almost entirely instrumental.
Thanks again for that link. What a great read! It looks like I don’t need to worry about finding a better digital version of The Hurting because the SDE disc 1 is about as good as it gets. That’s nice. The author wasn’t impressed by the MoFi CD of SFTBC. I read a lot of praise for it on this website and dropped about $85 for it on eBay. Hopefully I’m happy with it.
I need to make a massive TFF playlist from all three SDE boxes, curating favorite versions and mixes to limit redundancy.
And aside from "We are Broken" it also has "Music for Tables" and "The Conflict", which are inexplicably missing on Saturnine - I'd really have selected those over more noisy tracks like "Empire Building"!
It’s a tremendous analysis but in the end just one opinion. Personally I don’t think he gives enough (negative) weight to the amount of dynamic range compression on the more recent releases. I find the original CD of The Hurting to be the best overall, largely due to the dynamics. Further, while the channels are flipped on the SFTBC mofi, it is still very, very good. You’ll like it. I’m not generally anti-remaster; it’s always case-by-case, but for TFF I find the original Mercury/Fontana CDs for the first three albums to still be the best for sound quality.
So far, I've not found an upload of the original mix except this one, which is from a vinyl single and sounds accordingly...
I’m listening to the original Mercury P2-10039 CD and you have to crank it high just to hear certain songs. A fellow member mentioned the sound being soft and I will agree with that. I’d personally seek out the 1999 remaster to draw the comparison (and the bonus tracks).
Since I was sent a file of the Tears Laid Low CD, I was able to upload it in digital quality. Note that I had to fix the first beat, which was missing on that CD!
It truly is getting the deluxe treatment now - brand new 5.1, Atmos and instrumental stereo mixes from Steven Wilson along with the original stereo master. There's also a new 1/2 speed mastered vinyl from Miles/Abbey Road for the 40th. The Atmos mix will be available on streaming platforms too, but lossy streaming Atmos leaves a lot to be desired in terms of fidelity. From Steven's FB page: As if that wasn’t enough my stereo mixes of two recently rediscovered earlier recordings of ‘Mad World’ & ‘Watch Me Bleed’ made at sessions with producer Mike Howlett prior to the album versions will also be exclusive to the blu-ray. These tracks were found on the multitrack reels, possibly having never been mixed before. Even Roland and Curt had not heard them for 40 years! The blu-ray will be released on 12th May and will only be available from superdeluxeedition.com. It will be pressed based on demand and because of the short lead time between now and going to press you have just a 10 day pre-order window to make sure you get a copy. If you like this album this is surely the definitive version, so don’t miss out! PRE-ORDER THE EXCLUSIVE BLU-RAY HERE: https://www.thesdeshop.com/collections/tears-for-fears
I am of course, in for this! Tears For Fears / The Hurting on SDE-exclusive Blu-ray Audio – SuperDeluxeEdition
Same here. I'm very excited for the Atmos mix of course, but the instrumental version of the album sounds interesting as well. Ditto for the two newly unearthed outtakes. It took me about 2 seconds to decide I just had to have this.
Fantastic news, already ordered. I have 4 versions of this album on cd plus the first Pure Audio STEREO blu-Ray of this title. Will be nice to finally hear it in surround.
