The Hurting
by Tears For Fears
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Tears For Fears bestography
The Hurting is ranked 2nd best out of 13 albums by Tears For Fears on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Tears For Fears is Songs From The Big Chair which is ranked number 320 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 5,156.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
Listen to The Hurting on YouTube
The Hurting track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 81 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.
The Hurting rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 5 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 |  ERadio | Top 55 Music Albums of 1983 | 45/55 | 1 |
| 2026 |  Leonard | Top 100 Music Albums of 1983 | 11/100 | 5 |
| 2026 | Gendjar | Top 98 Greatest Music Albums | 6/98 | 93 |
| 2026 | leniad | Top 101-200 Music Albums of the 1980s | 8/44 | - |
| 2026 |  Tamthebam | Best Of The 80's Pt.3 (201-300) | 37/100 | - |
| 2026 |  junodog4 | Top 20 Music Albums of 1983 | 19/20 | 1 |
| 2026 | Skerns | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s | 80/100 | 4 |
| 2026 |  Helios | Top 90 Music Albums of 1983 | 58/90 | 2 |
| 2026 | Cheboygan74 | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s | 86/100 | 3 |
| 2026 |  imacgill | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s | 43/100 | 12 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 300 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 1,809 | |||
The Hurting collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 153 members
The Hurting ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 354 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 09/24/2026 12:58 |  ssteve | 2,604 | 76/100 |
| ! | 07/11/2026 04:06 | brent13 | 2,179 | 66/100 |
| ! | 05/14/2026 14:05 | Pavloss | 488 | 50/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 2% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 78.1/100, a mean average of 77.3/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 78.3/100. The standard deviation for this album is 13.7.
The Hurting favourites
Showing latest 10 members who have added this album as a favourite | Show all 54 members
The Hurting forum mentions
BestEverAlbums 09/01/2026 16:00 in Monthly overall chart movements BestEverAlbums 08/01/2026 16:00 in Monthly overall chart movements BestEverAlbums 07/01/2026 16:00 in Monthly overall chart movementsThe Hurting comments
Top Comments First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
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This is a great album, and as the person before me said, this is better than their next and more popular album, Songs from the Big Chair.
In addition to really thoughtful lyrics, the music here is really good. The melodies are memorable and interesting, the vocals are nice (almost sounding like the not yet known Smiths at times), and the instrumentation is 80s, but not corny 80s. It's good 80s with drum beats switching between left and right ears, and great moody synthesizers.
One of my very favorites!
A good album for a debut better than most eighties artists around the time underrated in my opinion best tracks clearly the hits especially 'Mad World' being the best version of the song also
Deserves to be higher up the list in 1983. Moody atmospheres, smart lyrics and accessible hooks make this an early 80's classic.
ShaneSpear TOP 100 COMMENTER 01/27/2011 06:43 | #17843 | TOP COMMENT
Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
A tad frontloaded. Also, by a tad, I mean incredibly frontloaded. The Hurting, Mad World, Pale Shelter, and Memories Fade are all very good to great songs, but then the album starts to slide quickly. Not pretty.
This summed up my early teens when I first heard this album, Full of angst and horror, I remember it well and this album reminds me of those feelings even to this day decades later. (Edited)
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