Songoftheday 4/21/14 - In violent times you shouldn't have to sell your soul, in black and white they really really ought to know...

Tears For Fears - "Shout"
from the album Songs From The Big Chair (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day is by the English new-wave group Tears For Fears, who broke through in America big with their second album Songs From The Big Chair, which had produced a #1 pop hit in the US with "Everybody Wants To Rule The World". Their second single release from the album in American (and coincidentally in the UK, where "Mother's Talk" was issued first) took a similar political protest edge, and not explicitly the "primal scream" therapy that the title and emotional release of the vocals imply. The video, directed by Nigel Dick, found the boys on the beach...

"Shout" became Tears For Fears' second #1 pop hit in the U.S. in August of 1985, while also topping the Billboard Dance Club Play chart as well. The single climbed to #6 on the rock radio list, and even made it on the R&B chart for two months, peaking at #56. In their native England, the record went to #4 (their first top-ten from the album), and internationally it went to #1 in at least seven other countries including Canada, Germany, and Australia. The simplistic yet interesting arrangement would go on to make this probably their pinnacle in both their artistic and successful work combined together.

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Here's the band live in concert with "Shout" back in 1985...

...and again a few years later...

Many bands covered the song, like alt-soul act Sweetbox, which they interpolated as "Shout (Let It All Out)", which they released as a single in 1998..

Heavy metal band Disturbed also took on "Shout" in 2000....

Dance singer Alexis Jordan also nabbed the chorus for her track "Shout Shout"...

Pop/rock band OneRepublic stuck a live version of "Shout" on their Waking Up album repackage...

Gospel artist Kirk Franklin also sampled the chorus on his single "Let It Go" in 2005...

But the most successful remake of "Shout" by far came in 2010 when British rapper Dizzee Rascal and my future third husband James Corden mashed it up with Bill Withers' "Grandma's Hands" for "Shout For England" to root for England in that year's World Cup soccer match. It ended up going to #1 on the UK singles chart....

Swoon.

Finally, here's Tears For Fears in 2006 in Belgium at "Night of the Proms"...

Up tomorrow: At that moment, this 16-year-old's vision of the best pop single of all time. And I still have trouble disputing it.