Contemporary
Contemporary reviews of the album were mixed. In Smash Hits magazine,Fred Dellar gave the album a positive review and stated that "there's no doubting the talent on display." [22]
In the NME Gavin Martin's review was negative,stating that "this record and others like it are a terrible,useless sort of art that makes self pity and futility a commercial proposition",and that "Tears for Fears and their listeners sound like they've given up completely,retreating from the practical world into a fantasy". He described the album's music as "just the sort of doom laden dross you'd expect from the lyrics:rehashed and reheated hollow doom with a bit of Ultravox here,diluted Joy Division poured everywhere,and the title track sounding suspiciously like one of the old pompous outfits with a welter of mellotrons –Barclay James Harvest per chance?" [24]
Melody Maker 's Steve Sutherland felt that "Tears for Fears's pop primal therapy tends to luxuriate in the attention it attracts,sounds ironically happy to wallow inspirationally instead of seeking exorcism". However,he observed that "the Tears for Fears formula –to translate childhood traumas into adult romance with Freudian fanaticism –is ludicrously laboured but,crucially,their lyrical lethargy is salvaged by what really sells them;their structural invention... sensibly,their suffering's usually controlled to sound smooth",and that this was the strength of the record:"The success of The Hurting lies in its lack of friction,in its safety and,for all their claims that coping with relationships has been warped beyond their ken,Tears for Fears have contrived an assured masterpiece of seduction". [25]
In the US David Fricke of Rolling Stone said that "Tears for Fears stand out among the current crop of identikit synth-pop groups by virtue of their resourceful,stylish songwriting and fetching rhythmic sway. Granted,the adolescent angst and bleak,pained romanticism of singer-instrumentalists Curt Smith and Roland Orzabel [sic] sometimes come off as an adequate imitation of Joy Division,at best. But for every lapse into sackcloth-and-ashes anguish on The Hurting,the duo's debut album,there is a heady,danceable pop tune like 'Change'... Tears for Fears may be too concerned with their own petty traumas,but it is a testimony to their refined pop instincts that they manage to produce this much pleasure from the pain." [21]
Retrospective
Retrospective reviews regarded the album more highly. Reviewing the 1999 reissue for Q ,Andrew Collins said,"Despite its occasional bum note,The Hurting remains a landmark work... a highly emotional pop record,at its simplest". [18] Bruce Eder of AllMusic noted that the album's success was due to "its makers' ability to package an unpleasant subject –the psychologically wretched family histories of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith –in an attractive and sellable musical format" and said "the work is sometimes uncomfortably personal,but musically compelling enough to bring it back across the decades". [14]
For the 30th anniversary edition in 2013,Danny Eccleston of Mojo pondered,"Has there ever been a more thoroughly miserable mainstream pop album than The Hurting?... Even when it is uptempo it is sombre,and at its most musically adventurous,in the cavernous minimalism of 'Ideas as Opiates' and gnarly dissonances of 'The Prisoner',it's almost unbearably bereft... But in essence,it was pop." [16]
Tom Byford of Record Collector summarised the album as "a surfeit of complex ideas reflecting troubled upbringings married with immediate,infectious,hummable tunes". [19] John Bergstrom of PopMatters said that "at times,the unflinching approach works to the album's detriment,as Orzabal's songwriting skirts clichéand the obtuse,teenage poetry that some critics seized on at the time of The Hurting's release... But part of the brilliance of Hurting is that such histrionic moments are so seldom. Rather,time after time,as rendered by Orzabal and co-vocalist Curt Smith,the words connect at gut level and in sincere fashion." Calling the record "simply one of the strongest,most fully-realized albums of the early-to-mid-1980s",Bergstrom noted its influence on later acts such as Trent Reznor,the Smashing Pumpkins and Arcade Fire,and concluded,"The albums that prove to be special,influential,and groundbreaking in their own time,and then in subsequent eras as well,are far and few between. Thirty years on,there is little doubt where The Hurting stands." [17]
At least three of the songs from The Hurting were sampled by some of the most mainstream hip-hop and R&B artists. "Memories Fade" was reworked by Kanye West on his fourth studio album 808s &Heartbreak (2008) into "Coldest Winter". "Ideas as Opiates" was sampled by Drake on the song "Lust for Life",from his third mixtape So Far Gone (2009). "Pale Shelter" was sampled by The Weeknd on the song "Secrets" on his third studio album Starboy (2016).
"Mad World" was covered by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules originally for Donnie Darko soundtrack and later released as a single,topping the UK Singles Chart.
