I am just back from the gym, where
I haven’t been in over a month. If this review suddenly trails off, it will be
because my arms have fallen off.
Disc 873 is….Ghost in the Machine
Artist: The
Police
Year of Release: 1981
What’s up with the Cover? A malfunctioning digital display.
Fu fact: I still use my original clock radio from 1977 and it has the same
light up digital numbers. It was considered very modern in 1977. Almost forty
years later it continues to work great and gets me up for work on time every
morning. So far it has shown no sign of ghosts.
How I Came To Know It: Sheila introduced me to the
Police shortly after we had met. I had heard them back in the day, but I had
never opened my heart to them. When I did it was a pleasant surprise.
How It Stacks Up: We have five Police albums, which is all of
them. I didn’t love “Ghost in the Machine” but it was alright. I put it fourth
best.
Ratings: 3 stars
Due to a busy social calendar I had “Ghost in the
Machine” on rotation a bit longer than I would have liked. This is a good but
not great record, and after a couple listens I was ready to move on.
There is still a lot to recommend the record,
starting with the rhythm section. On my third rotation I was getting a little
bored with the songs and started listening for something different. My ear
immediately seized on the bass lines, which are very cool and drive what goes
on in the melody above it.
The same goes for the drums, which snap and pop
along with a jazz sensibility but a reggae heart. “Demolition Man” didn’t appeal to me at first, but once I realized
it was all about that bass, I enjoyed it a whole lot more.
The album has one big hit with “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” and it is easy to see why.
Most of the album is a clever hybrid of New Wave and Reggae, with megalomaniac Sting
thankfully restrained within the aforementioned rhythms that make up the songs.
“Every Little Thing” breaks all those
rules, with a hook-laden piano intro and a chorus that remains a mainstay of
a.m. radio. Despite the gratuitous amount of radio play this song has received
over the past 35 years, when it came on I was glad to hear it. Through multiple
listens (even past the first two that I wanted) the song stood up; sugary
sweet, but so good you don’t mind.
In contrast with the hit, much of the album focuses
on humanity’s faults. This starts with the opening track (and album’s lesser
hit) “Spirits in the Material World”
which introduces us to the album with a discordant yet catchy organ riff. The song
opens with:
“There is no political solution
To our troubled evolution
Have no faith in constitution
There is no bloody revolution.”
Despite the pessimism in the song (later Sting sings
of “the rhetoric of failure”) at its
core it reminds us that we have a nobler nature trapped in our physical form.
Like the titular ghost in the machine, the Police suggest we have a spirit that
might just transcend all our political, evolutionary and legal failures.
This is a theme that is revisited often through the
album, and seems to inspire the band to their better work, culminating with the
positively jaunty “Rehumanize Yourself.”
Sure this song is full of cops that can’t forgo their guns and thugs that can’t
resist a brawl, but the message is that we need to all get back on track. Also,
with its up-tempo ska beat it’ll either make you feel like it’s possible we can
all be better or failing that, get all that aggressive energy out of you safely
on the dance floor.
Even the songs I didn’t love, including “Hungry for You” and “One World (not Three)” have an
infectious beat that keeps the record cruising along. These songs don’t connect
to my spirit so much as my material world, but they are inoffensive pop ditties
with a good swing to them, so I can’t complain overmuch.
The album loses steam in its final third, with three
songs (“Omegaman,” “Secret Journey” and “Darkness”) that all would feel more at
home on their lesser follow-up record “Synchronicity.”
Their structure and tinny “wall of sound” feel also
reminded me a bit of Blue Oyster Cult from around the same period (everyone
loved the fuzzy synthesizer a little bit in 1981). The problem was that I
prefer the heavier rock punch that BOC managed with the same tools, and kept
hoping they’d come on instead.
The Police were one of those special bands that
never made a bad record, and there is plenty to like about “Ghost in the
Machine.” It is strong musically, and when the band appeals to our higher natures
they seem genuinely inspired. I prefer the band’s first three albums, but if
you are a completionist and like the Police’s sound, “Ghost in the Machine”
will not disappoint.
Best
tracks: Spirits in the Material World, Every Little
Thing She Does Is Magic, Too Much Information, Rehumanize Yourself
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