Songs from the Big Chair

Originally, the album was to be titled The Working Hour, but Roland Orzabal fought to change it to Songs from the Big Chair,[5] which was derived from the 1976 television film Sybil about a woman with multiple personality disorder who only feels safe when she is sitting in her analyst's "big chair". While a mostly-instrumental track called "The Big Chair" (which includes dialogue samples from the film) was released as the B-side of "Shout" in 1984, it was not included on the album (but was available on its "special limited edition" cassette version, released in the UK in 1985).

In an interview for the 2006 deluxe version booklet, Curt Smith noted that "The Hurting really was influenced by modern technology at that time. Songs From The Big Chair expressed our desire to move on from there [...] It was an attempt to be less insular. We were very introverted on The Hurting; it was a very dark album. We found the need to be more outgoing on The Big Chair, and the use of big guitars and the things that we shied away from before allowed us to do that [...] I remember Chris Hughes bringing in more American stuff; that's when we started listening to Steely Dan – even, dare I say it, to Bryan Adams, before he took off. And Bruce Springsteen. It was really to broaden our horizons more than anything else [...]"[6]

The band started to generate new material around the beginning of 1984. The first song written for the album was "Head Over Heels", which the band played live during a tour undertaken between the two albums.[6]

On the need to reach out to a bigger audience, Smith said: "That certainly was the plan, more of...the record company than ours... I'll give Chris Hughes his due: he was a big supporter of 'Rule the World' and we weren't that sure of it, and in America that was the first single they really went for. And it broke the market for us." Smith added: "'Shout' is the obvious stadium thing. We consciously started with the chorus. It was kind of a sing-along; a protest song-like 'Give Peace a Chance', or 'Hey Jude', even... But we never imagined it would take off like that. We're from Bath. We're not part of any scene. We've never been fashionable. We're quite insulated when we make records. What happens afterwards is really out of our hands. It's not something you can really plan for. We certainly can't. I don't think we're that clever."[6]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[7]
Consequence of Sound	A+[8]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[9]
The Guardian	[10]
Mojo	[11]
Pitchfork	8.9/10[12]
Q	[13]
Record Collector	[14]
Smash Hits	8/10[15]
The Village Voice	B[16]

Songs from the Big Chair received critical acclaim. In his review, critic Barry McIlheney of Melody Maker stated that "none of you should really be too surprised that Tears for Fears have made such an excellent album", calling it "an album that fully justifies the rather sneering, told-you-so looks adopted by Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal on the sleeve", before concluding, "An awful lot of people will, of course, go on and on about overcoats, The Lotus Eaters and an alleged lack of depth. And an awful lot of people will have to eat an awful lot of words."[17] Ian Cranna of Smash Hits described it as "looser, more exploratory than before" in nature, and noted its "unflinching lyrical honesty".[15] Rolling Stone critic Don Shewey wrote that Tears for Fears "sounds a lot like a lot of other British bands" and observed traces of "U2's social conscience, the Bunnymen's echoing guitars and XTC's contorted pop wit" on the album, but commented that Chris Hughes' production "nudges Songs from the Big Chair slightly ahead of the pack."[18]

Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic in his review for The Village Voice, observing some substantial lyrics, particularly on "The Working Hour", and musical elements such as an "uncommon command of guitar and piano, Baker Street sax, synthesizers more jagged than is deemed mete by the arbiters of dance-pop accessibility". However, he felt these are all beneath grandiloquent lamentations suggesting "a depth and drama English lads have been falling short on since the dawn of progressive rock."[16]

In a retrospective review published on AllMusic, Stanton Swihart wrote: "In the loping, percolating 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World', Tears for Fears perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the mid-'80s while impossibly managing to also create a dreamy, timeless pop classic. Songs from the Big Chair is one of the finest statements of the decade."[7] Mark Elliott of Record Collector agreed, while adding that it contained the band's "most consistently interesting material".[14] Q remarked that the album "zeroed in on every angsty adolescent's desire to feel heroic, with a sound of spotlit, spacious sophistication plus anthemic choruses you'd bet your house on."[13] In Stylus Magazine, Andrew Unterberger concluded that "even today, when all rock musicians seem to be able to do is be emotional and honest, the brutality and power of Songs from the Big Chair's catharsis is still quite shocking."[19] Songs from the Big Chair has been included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[20] Slant Magazine listed the album at number 95 on its list of the best albums of the 1980s.[21]

In February 2020, the album was the focus of an episode of the BBC's Classic Albums documentary series. The episode included new interviews with key personnel including Orzabal, Smith, Ian Stanley, producer Chris Hughes, engineer Dave Bascombe, and A&R man David Bates. Additional interviewees included Oleta Adams and John Grant.[5]

Songs from the Big Chair spawned the commercially successful singles "Mothers Talk", "Shout", "Everybody Wants to Rule the World",[22] "Head over Heels",[23] and "I Believe".[24]

To mark the album's 30th anniversary, Universal Music released the album in five different formats on 10 November 2014, including a 6-disc Super Deluxe Edition which includes four CDs and two DVDs (1 audio, 1 video).[25]