Curt Smith

Curt Smith (born 24 June 1961, Bath, Somerset, England) is an English musician. He is best known for forming the band Tears for Fears, along with childhood friend Roland Orzabal. As a solo artist, he has released four full-length albums.

Musical groups

Graduate

Smith met Roland Orzabal when both were teenagers. They first formed a band in their teens, for which Smith taught himself to play bass guitar. They next formed the ska influenced band Graduate, who released their only album in 1980 achieving minor success in Europe. Around this time, Smith and Orzabal also became session musicians for the band Neon. Fellow band members included Pete Byrne and Rob Fisher who went on to become the duo Naked Eyes.

Tears for Fears

After Graduate and Neon disbanded, Smith and Orzabal founded Tears for Fears in 1981. Their debut album, 1983's The Hurting, reached no.1 in the UK and produced three international hit singles – "Mad World", "Change", and "Pale Shelter" – each with lead vocals performed by Smith.

Tears for Fears

Tears for Fears are an English pop/rock band formed in 1981 by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. Founded after the dissolution of their first band, the mod-influenced Graduate, they were initially associated with the new wave synthesizer bands of the early 1980s but later branched out into mainstream rock and pop, which led to international chart success. They were part of the MTV-driven Second British Invasion of the US.

Their platinum-selling debut album, The Hurting, reached number one on the UK Albums Chart, while their second album, Songs from the Big Chair, reached number one on the US Billboard 200, achieving multi-platinum status in both the UK and the US. Their second album contained two Billboard Hot 100 number ones: "Shout" and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"', the latter winning the Brit Award for Best British Single in 1986.

Smith and Orzabal parted company in 1991, after the release of their third platinum-selling album The Seeds of Love (1989), though Orzabal retained the Tears for Fears name throughout the remainder of the 1990s. The duo re-formed in 2000 and released an album of new material, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, in 2004. Since 2013, the duo have been working on their seventh album. To date, Tears for Fears have sold over 30 million albums worldwide, including more than 8 million in the US.

Smith

People

Occupations

Everybody Wants

Everybody Wants is the first studio album from The Struts, which was released on 28 July 2014 and reached the number 52 spot on the United Kingdom album charts.

Re-issue

After successfully touring throughout North America the latter half of 2015 in support of their Have You Heard EP, The Struts announced on their headlining solo tour that they would be releasing their U.S. debut. This record is a re-release of their original album featuring new tracks, released on FreeSolo and Interscope Records

Through an Instagram post by lead singer, Luke Spiller and a tweet by drummer, Gethin Davies, it was confirmed that this release of Everybody Wants will feature five new tracks in total, plus remasters and rerecording of songs off the original 2014 release. While keeping the original album's title, the reissue has different cover art. The front of the album features lead singer Luke Spiller's girlfriend, Laura Cartier, seemingly topless and covered in glitter; hands groping at and around her at various positions. The Struts better known, more current font face logo is featured in a golden hue while the title is in white.

Mad World

"Mad World" is a song by the British band Tears for Fears, written by Roland Orzabal and sung by bassist Curt Smith.

It was the band's third single release and first chart hit, reaching #3 on the UK Singles Chart in November 1982. Both "Mad World" and its B-side, "Ideas as Opiates", appeared on the band's debut LP The Hurting the following year. In the same time, the song eventually became Tears for Fears' first international hit, reaching the Top 40 in several countries in 1982 and 1983, peaking notably at #2 in South Africa.

Two decades later, "Mad World" made a popular resurgence when it was covered in a much slower and sombre minimalist style by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for the soundtrack to the movie Donnie Darko in 2001. This version reached #1 in the UK in December 2003, and also became an international hit. More recently, Jasmine Thompson made a cover version which she released as part of her EP Another Bundle of Tantrums.

Background

"Mad World" was originally written on acoustic guitar when Orzabal was 19, it was a deliberate attempt to write something in the vein of Duran Duran's "Girls on Film". After a few false starts with Orzabal on vocals, Smith took over and "suddenly it sounded fabulous".