Digital Music — August 19, 2013 at 7:24 pm

Stream: Tears For Fears gives Arcade Fire’s ‘Ready to Start’ an electro-orchestral makeover

Tears For Fears

As we reported last month, Tears For Fears have reconvened in the studio this summer to record a follow-up to 2004 reunion album Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, and while that’s expected to keep Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith busy for the next few months, they did treat fans today to some new music: a surprise cover of Arcade Fire’s “Ready to Start.”

The band tweeted a link to its Souncloud page featuring the cover of the Suburbs track, writing:

“Having appreciated artists like Kanye West, Katy Perry, Kimbra, Nas, Gary Jules/Michael Andrews, Adam Lambert & Dizzee Rascal covering & sampling our songs over the past years, we agreed that some reciprocal cross-generational love was in order. We decided to give Arcade Fire a twist of TFF. Enjoy.”

In addition to working on a new album, Tears For Fears also is prepping a box set to mark the 30th anniversary of debut album The Hurting.

Below, check out TFF’s “Ready to Start.”

 

 

PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS

 

 

15 Comments

  1. Todd Husken

    Great cover! Tears For Fears still rockin’ it!

  2. Is this available for download anywhere? Need on iPod pronto!

  3. Very good track. Very similar to ‘Hey Andy’ from Roland solo album ‘Tomcats Screaming Outside’.

  4. Arcade Fire is one of few newer bands that I like – nice job Tears for Fears..nice job!!

  5. This is *really* good. :-)

  6. The singing is strong, their take on the music is imaginative–but, unfortunately, I can now clearly hear that the lyrics are insipid.

  7. I REALLY hope that this is an indication of what the sound of the future album will sound like. Am I the only one who thinks that this almost sounds like a lost track from THE HURTING, or a kind of follow-up to that era? I think that this should be included in the sequencing of the forthcoming album, somewhere. It is cool that they even used the same typeface for this single…are they trying to say something w/ this, the song, and the 30th Anniversary of THE HURTING? Either way, I’m definitely intrigued.

  8. Please tell me this sweeping style with some synths is going to be on the new album. I loved ELAHE, but I would love to see a return at least to some synth influence in their new album but in an evolution of influences to 2013. This is a fantastic cover.

  9. When it speeds up it sounds almost exactly like David Gray’s Please Forgive Me.

  10. Good job… BUT I’d appreciate an original tune instead! Bit of a let down really.

    Roland and Curt BOTH have this weird thing for IMO oddball covers. Roland covered and even released Radiohead’s “Creep” and Curt who has also covered Radiohead (“Fake Plastic Trees”), has covered Coldplay with “Yellow”… why? I don’t know and I’d rather them perform their own original material. Just seems like of all the tunes those two can cover, they pick… huh? Songs we’ve heard enough off already. Even covers of Bowie’s “Ashes To Ashes” and Wyatt’s “Sea Song” was kinda like “oh. cool! they did? why?” … the recent live cover of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” was a nice tribute to the recently departed but also unnecessary.

    Great to hear “Memories Fade”, “Badman’s Song”, “Floating Down The River” live but I’d also love to hear “Watch Me Bleed”, “The Working Hour”, “Year Of The Knife”, “Elemental”, “Sorry”, and “Laid So Low” (never played live!)
    Any song from any album is fine from Tears just lovely to see the two together again and even Curt performing on songs like “Raoul And The Kings Of Spain”, “Break It Down Again”… “Seven Of Sundays” & “Snow Hill” are amazing live (how about “The Greatest Divide” and “Who You Are”!)

    Anthony,
    I BELIEVE* you the only one who thinks that this almost sounds like a lost track from THE HURTING, or a kind of follow-up to that era and this certainly should not be included in the sequencing of the forthcoming album. It’s not that cool that they used the same HURTING typeface for this single. I personally hope they aren’t trying to say something w/ this, the song, and the 30th Anniversary of THE HURTING? Either way, I’m also intrigued! ;-)

    BTW Lynna, ELAHE is an awesome album! ;-)

  11. The Sci-Fi Fanatic

    Hell do I miss this kind of music quality! OMG! Incredible.

  12. Sounds like a TFF/Postal Service/Arcade Fire mash-up

  13. Released on ltd edition 10″ white vinyl on RSD, April, 2014

    http://www.discogs.com/Tears-For-Fears-Ready-Boy-Girls/release/5609790

Leave a Reply to Bonnie Cancel

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *