Elemental, released in 1993 through Mercury Records, is the fourth studio album by English progressive pop band Tears for Fears. Following the Troubled Production of 1989's The Seeds of Love, founding member Curt Smith parted ways with the band in 1991, citing his frustration with Roland Orzabal's dominance of that album's material. Orzabal chose to downplay the impact of Smith's departure, claiming that Tears for Fears was a de-facto solo project for him from the outset. Consequently, he didn't publicly express any qualms about taking the reins of the band by himself. Despite these claims, the songwriting on Elemental was done with the help of prior collaborator Alan Griffiths, who co-wrote almost every track on the album with Orzabal (with the sole exception of "Cold", written by Orzabal alone); Orzabal himself commented that the project was more collaborative than The Seeds of Love.
Sound-wise, the album marks a shift to a more Alternative Rock-influenced style, the result of a major sea change in the musical landscape that had taken place during the four-year gap between albums. While alternative rock first broke into the mainstream in 1987, it was in 1991 that it became the leading genre in popular music, a change that Elemental reflects. To consolidate this shift, the album features the assistance of Tim Palmer, who'd previously produced both albums for David Bowie's grunge supergroup Tin Machine and done mixing work on Pearl Jam's Ten. Palmer, who served as co-producer alongside Orzabal and Griffiths, had the record finished in just six months as a direct response to the three-year production of The Seeds of Love. While the shadow of Smith's absence resulted in considerable pressure, which was reflected in the album's lyrics (much to his retrospective amusement), Palmer described his working relationship with Orzabal as benign, which aided in getting it done quickly.
Upon release, Elemental reached No. 5 on the UK Albums chart, later being certified silver by the BPI. In the US, it would peak at a more modest No. 45, but would achieve greater long-term sales, being certified gold by the RIAA; it would also go gold in Canada and France. These differing results were partly aided by the decision to focus the supporting tour mostly on the United States, with just four concerts in the UK at the end of the year. Orzabal described the tour as being aided by Smith's absence, being able to revisit his roots as a musician. Following the conclusion of the supporting tour, he would quickly start work on the follow-up, Raoul and the Kings of Spain.
Elemental was supported by four songs: "Break It Down Again", "Cold", "Goodnight Song", and "Elemental".
Tracklist:
- "Elemental" (5:30)
- "Cold" (5:05)
- "Break It Down Again" (4:31)
- "Mr. Pessimist" (6:16)
- "Dog's a Best Friend's Dog" (3:39)
- "Fish out of Water" (5:07)
- "Gas Giants" (2:40)
- "Power" (5:45)
- "Brian Wilson Said" (4:22)
- "Goodnight Song" (3:53)
"No more sleepy troping":
- Blue Means Cold: The music video for "Cold" features a prominent blue tint, matching the title and lyrics.
- Book Ends: "Brian Wilson Said" begins and ends with the line "My life, nothing was easy 'til now."
- Celebrity Song: "Brian Wilson Said", an ode to the Beach Boys frontman that replicates the band's sound.
- Character Action Title: "Brian Wilson Said".
- Continuity Nod: The wilted sunflowers that Orzabal holds on the single cover for "Break It Down Again" nods back to the use of them as a flower motif for The Seeds of Love, his last album with Smith until 2004.
- The Diss Track: "Fish out of Water", a tirade against Curt Smith that accuses him of having been swallowed up in frivolity after the band became successful, to the extent where Orzabal claims that leaving the band has left him out of his element.
- Epic Rocking: "Mr. Pessimist" clocks in at six minutes and sixteen seconds.
- Face on the Cover: A shot of Orzabal alone in El Mirage Lake, California.
- Fading into the Next Song:
- "Dog's a Best Friend's Dog" segues into "Fish out of Water".
- "Power" segues into "Brian Wilson Said".
- Fire/Water Juxtaposition:
- Both fire and water feature prominently in the music video for the Title Track, tying in with the title and the album's focus on the fallout of Curt Smith's departure (given that fire and water are respectively Orzabal and Smith's astrological elements).
- "Fish out of Water" uses the titular metaphor to describe Smith, who Orzabal claims is stuck "laughing at the sun.".
- Heavy Meta: "Goodnight Song" is a piece about being a rock musician repeating the same hits over and over again on the touring circuit and being so disoriented from rowdy crowds that it becomes hard to play them right.
- I Am the Band: Though Orzabal put the album together collaboratively with Andrew Griffiths and Tim Palmer, he was the only member of Tears for Fears by that point who'd been with the band since the outset, thus leading to Elemental being commonly billed as a de-facto solo album. Orzabal himself asserted at the time that he pretty much was Tears for Fears, though he'd back away from this after making amends with Curt Smith.
- Indecipherable Lyrics: "Cold" features a passage of deliberately unintelligible processed vocals.
- In the Style of: "Brian Wilson Said" is a direct homage to The Beach Boys, replicating the dense, psychedelic approach of Pet Sounds.
- Limited Lyrics Song: "Gas Giants" is mostly instrumental apart from two vocal lines: "Giants on Armistice Day/Caught between the rock and the renegade."
- New Sound Album: The music on Elemental is much slicker and more rock-centric than the increasingly eclectic style of their '80s output, in particular moving away from the dense symphonic arrangements of The Seeds of Love in favor of more streamlined Alternative Rock.
- Non-Appearing Title: "Gas Giants" and "Brian Wilson Said", the latter of which carries the implication that the song, done In the Style of The Beach Boys, is Orzabal's attempt at speculating what a new Wilson song would sound like (given that, by the time this album released, Wilson hadn't released anything since his solo debut in 1988).
- One-Word Title: Elemental, "Elemental", "Cold", and "Power".
- Performance Video:
- "Elemental", depicting the band performing in various abstract studio sets.
- "Break It Down Again" mostly centers around the band performing in a variety of sets and Orzabal miming alone throughout California (including El Mirage Lake, where the album cover photo was shot).
- "Goodnight Song", depicting the band performing in a bar somewhere in the American southwest.
- Rearrange the Song: "Break It Down Again" was given an acoustic arrangement for a B-side; this was later included on the reissue of Raoul and the Kings of Spain.
- Rule of Symbolism: The cover of the "Break It Down Again" single is a picture of Orzabal holding a bunch of wilted sunflowers. The previous album The Seeds of Love and two of its singles feature sunflowers as a Flower Motif, so the wilted sunflowers signify the end of his friendship and musical partnership with Curt Smith.
- Self-Referential Track Placement: "Goodnight Song" is the last track on the album.
- Shout-Out:
- "Cold" namedrops Nicky Holland (using his nickname, Nockles), the band's former keyboardist and the co-writer of "Advice for the Young at Heart" and "Famous Last Words".
- "Dog's a Best Friend's Dog" namedrops the title character from Waiting for Godot.
- "Power" cites Star Trek with "Phasers switched and set to stun".
- "Brian Wilson Said", apart from namedropping Brian Wilson, takes the format of its title from Van Morrison's "Jackie Wilson Said". Fittingly, a Jackie is mentioned among the girls listed in the song.
- Stealing from the Till: "Cold" includes the line "King got caught with his fingers in the till" during two of the pre-choruses, jabbing at former manager Paul King, who declared bankruptcy in 1990 after being outed for embezzlement.
- Surreal Music Video: The music video for "Cold" features a collage of imagery centered around a torch-bearing woman running through a frozen factory, with Orzabal in a block of ice and tribesmen in masks and grass skirts parading around the place.
- Take That!:
- The second pre-chorus in "Cold" starts with the line "King got caught with his fingers in the till," jabbing at former band manager Paul King, who declared bankruptcy in 1990 after being outed for embezzlement. The case was reportedly a factor in Curt Smith's decision to leave Tears for Fears the following year, thanks to Roland Orzabal taking issue with his unwillingness to fire King.
- "Fish out of Water" is a diss track towards Curt Smith. The song also mentions their early fascination with primal scream therapy, before retrospectively dismissing it as an "adolescent dream."
- Title Track: "Elemental", which opens the album.
- Virgin Sacrifice: "Power" features the lines "We'll sacrifice the virgin white/Her death will be the life of me."
- Western Zodiac: Several elements on the album reference Orzabal's longtime fascination with astrology:
- The album cover is a photo of a solitary Orzabal standing in a desolate, arid landscape. The dry scenery is emblematic of Smith's absence (who had left the band two years prior) because his Cancerian water element is no longer there to balance Orzabal's Leonine fire element, hence the reason why the album's title is Elemental.
- Three stylized flames appear on the disc label because Orzabal's sign Leo has fire as its element.
- The music video for the Title Track includes the astrological symbols for Aquarius, Capricorn, and the sun.
- The track "Cold" has the lyric "And Capricorn is rising, yes I'm cold". The reign of Capricorn begins on the winter solstice, so those who are born under this sign tend to be aloof (cold weather = frosty temperament), like the narrator in the song.
- "Fish out of Water" is a diss track towards Curt Smith, and its aquatic-related metaphors are connected to the latter's watery Cancerian nature. The first verse is "You always said you were the compassionate one," and compassion is a trait that's typically associated with Cancerians. It's then followed by "But now you're laughing at the sun"; the sun represents Orzabal because it's the ruler of his sign Leo. "You're dreaming your life away" is part of the chorus, and Cancerians are noted to be dreamers, although Orzabal disparages Smith for focusing too much on his idealized vision of how things should be (including their past friendship) instead of reality.
- We Used to Be Friends: In "Fish Out of Water", Orzabal recalls how he bonded with Smith while learning about primal therapy as a way to cope with their difficult upbringing, but he now feels that Smith has mostly forgotten about how vital their past friendship was to their emotional survival as teenagers, and therefore is ungrateful for all the moral support that Orzabal once provided to him when they were at their most fragile psychologically. Orzabal is so enraged that Smith had abandoned their whole relationship that his home recording studio (which is called Neptune's Kitchen and its weathervane is shaped like a whale) becomes the site where his ex-best friend is wholly "eviscerated" (derided) on The Diss Track.
