The Tipping Point

Brand new sealed album from Tears for Fears.

The Tipping Point is the seventh studio album by the English pop rock band Tears for Fears, released on 25 February 2022 through Concord Records.^[5] It is the band's first studio album since Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, released almost 18 years prior.

Tracks on the album include "The Tipping Point", which was released with a music video in October 2021. Further singles followed, with "No Small Thing" released in December 2021, and "Break the Man" in January 2022. The album was a critical and commercial success, giving the band their sixth UK Top 5 album and highest chart peak in 30 years, also reaching the Top 10 in numerous other countries, in particular Scotland and the US where it topped the charts, and Walloon Belgium and the UK where it reached number 2.

Work on the album began in 2013, but the process proved difficult for band members Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. The band were asked by their (then) management company to collaborate with various younger artists in an attempt to create a more contemporary and commercial sounding album. However, these sessions (which the band themselves likened to "speed dating") were not entirely successful, resulting in an album which, as Orzabal later put it, sounded "less like a Tears For Fears album". The band originally signed to the Warner Music label to release the album, but once it was completed in 2016, Universal Music (who own the bulk of the band's back catalogue from the 1980s and 90s) then showed interest in the project. Universal opted to first release a new compilation album, Rule the World: The Greatest Hits, in 2017 in order to pave the way for the new album. This included two of the new tracks, including "I Love You but I'm Lost" which was co-written by the band along with members of Bastille. However, Universal then delayed releasing The Tipping Point as planned, at which point Orzabal and Smith began to have second thoughts about the finished product. The duo lost focus on the project for a while as Orzabal struggled with health problems following the death of his wife, and Smith even contemplated walking away from the band altogether. However, after a successful tour in 2019, they reconvened in early 2020 and "plotted a path forward of how we could finish an album that we were both happy with". The duo signed with a new management company, decided to rework the album (keeping some tracks and replacing others with new material), then signed a new contract with Concord Records.^[6] Some lyrics were inspired by the death of Orzabal's wife in 2017.^[7] Of the various songs recorded with other artists and producers, many of the band's collaborations with Sacha Skarbek remained on the album. The track "Stay", which was the other new track to appear on the Rule the World compilation album in 2017, was also included in a slightly remixed form.