Tears for Fears, the synth-pop duo made up of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, enjoyed a very successful career, moving over 22 million albums internationally. The group, who hailed from Southwest England, were childhood friends who both came from broken homes and discovered music together, giving their group a name inspired by psychologist Arthur Janov's "Primal Scream Therapy" (the controversial therapy publicized by John and Yoko Lennon after the breakup of The Beatles). Many of the songs on their initial album, The Hurting, were based on Janov's writings and made for great lyrics for the angst-ridden MTV generation.
It would be their second album, Songs from the Big Chair, and the strength of two storming singles, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and "Shout," that catapulted the duo to international rock star status. They continued to make albums for another five years, but after their third album Smith departed, leaving Orzabal the task of carrying on alone with the band name. Though that LP, 1989's Seeds of Love was sold over a million copies in the US, it wasn't enough to keep the group together. Neither saw any great commercial success while apart from each other. In 2004, they reunited to record a comeback album, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending.
The group is back together, and they still play the occasional concert. They remain one of the most enduring groups from the 80's synth-pop heyday, and their classic song "Mad World" enjoyed renewed cultural relevance after Michael Andrews and Gary Jules covered it in Richard Kelly's iconic 2001 film Donnie Darko.