Tears for Fears: The Tipping Point Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		0.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		5.0

Tears for Fears: The Tipping Point Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 23, 2025

Tears for Fears: Songs For A Nervous Planet offered a somewhat unusual "grab bag" that included a handful of new, ostensibly post-The Tipping Point, tracks, along with a larger aggregations of live performances culled from the band's long history, up through songs off of The Tipping Point. The Tipping Point had an incredibly long gestational period, as fans of the band will no doubt know. Their sixth and most "recent" studio album, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, actually came out in 2004, which means close to two decades elapsed between that album and this one. That intervening time period was fraught with any number of issues for both Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, a duo which had already experienced breakups and reunions. A significant tragedy also intruded in the form of the death of Orzabal's wife, something that no doubt added to the somewhat elegiac ambience of a lot of the album. As I mentioned in my Tears for Fears: Songs For A Nervous Planet Blu-ray review, there's a somewhat "wending" quality to a lot of the band's current material (by which I also meant this album), and so the "sing along" opportunities of tunes like "Shout" may frankly be missing here, but in their place is some impeccably arranged material that may not have the over the top bombast of some of the earlier albums, but which provides a really sophisticated and frankly moving listening experience quite a bit of the time.

The album's track list can be seen in the screenshots of the menu(s) I've uploaded to accompany this review.

Tears for Fears: The Tipping Point Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

As with many audio Blu-rays, the video component is minimal, though there is a bit of animation on hand with the opening Tears for Fears logo graphics and then when various submenus are accessed. The main presentation here, though, is simply the track list with the album cover, though at some point things returned to the main menu image (see screenshot 10), a transition I frankly didn't notice happening. As can be seen when cycling through the screenshots, the color the track titles changes as they're selected.

Tears for Fears: The Tipping Point Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tears for Fears: The Tipping Point features Dolby Atmos and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 options, but rather interestingly for an SDE edition the disc actually defaults to the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Both tracks deliver fulsome immersion, with various instruments dotting the surrounds, and with vocals often nicely splayed between front and rear channels. The Atmos track offers even more spaciousness, to the point that I frankly wished the vocals were mixed just a little further forward. Interestingly at times lead vocals can be anchored in the center channel, with various other elements, both vocal and instrumental, filling the surround channels. There are some really fun and noticeable directional moments, as in the opening of the title track, where some back and forth synth (?) sounds ricochet between the rear channels, in a 21st century version of some of the super wide stereo imaging of, say, the Command albums done by Enoch Light in the early sixties. Fidelity is fantastic throughout both tracks.

Tears for Fears: The Tipping Point Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no on disc supplements offered with this release. An insert booklet offers lyrics, some stills of the guys, and reproductions of parts of the cover art. The insert sleeve offers an inner print photo of the guys on a teeter totter.

Tears for Fears: The Tipping Point Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Tipping Point may frankly take a listen or two to get its (songwriting pun incoming) hooks into you, but for those with a bit of patience, this is a really elegant album from Orzabal and Smith, one which indicates the pair have been able to overcome whatever troubles they've encountered. As I mentioned in my review of Songs for a Nervous Planet, while it may be heresy for some Tears for Fears fans, I probably like some of Orzabal's quasi-solo albums under the band name at least as much if not more than any of the duo material, but The Tipping Point is a solid listen, and both the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby Atmos options on this disc provide sumptuous surround experiences. Highly recommended.