CD Odyssey Disc 873: The Police

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

CD Odyssey Disc 714: The Police

I’m just home from having a lovely brunch out with our friend Andrew, followed by a “wee shop” downtown, as Sheila and I like to call it. This time we bought a bunch of books and graphic novels. My main score was “The Last Temptation” graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and featuring Alice Cooper. I recently found out this book existed when reviewing Cooper’s album of the same name back at Disc 710.

I’ve reviewed 23 Alice Cooper albums, but this next artist somehow escaped being randomly selected entirely until now.

Disc 714 is…. Synchronicity

Artist: The Police

Year of Release: 1983

What’s up with the Cover? A bunch of pretentious crap. Among the pretentions explored: “Look I can play a harp!” “Behold, as I contemplate death by way of this laboratory skeleton!” and “I’m a hard-boiled phone operator – you can tell I’m cool because I’m wearing aviators.” Recognizing it still wasn’t self-absorbed enough, stripes of colour are then smeared across each section in what I believe is intended to be art.

Get over yourselves, guys – and shortly after this was released, they did. Except for Sting; he’s never gotten over himself.

How I Came To Know It: This album was so huge in 1983 there was no way I couldn’t come to know it. It was played at all sorts of parties, etc. Back then I hated the Police but through a slow rehabilitative process, Sheila has shown me the error of my ways and now I love them. Please remember that I love them as you read the latter part of this review.

How It Stacks Up:  I may now love the Police but I don’t love “Synchronicity.” We have five Police albums, which is all of them. I put “Synchronicity” in last place on that list.

Rating: 3 stars

If “Synchronicity” were a professional sports franchise it would be the one with a few overpaid stars and very little depth through the lineup. Let’s call this team the “Dallas Cowboys” since everyone thinks the Cowboys are cooler than they are, much like everyone thinks “Synchronicity” is better than it is.

This is not to say this record does not have great songs – it has some absolute classics, which is why the whole album graded out at a respectable 3 stars. It is too bad that you are halfway through the album before you get to any of them.

The good stuff begins with “Synchronicity II” at Track 6 (or the last song on Side One for you traditional types). Unlike the album’s opening track, “Synchronicity,” which has that signature Police rhythm but is largely forgettable after that, “Synchronicity II” is a real achievement. From Sting’s high vocal ‘oh-oh-ohs’ to the unforgettable walk-down guitar hook of Andy Summer that makes the song so damned irresistible, this is a fun song that gets better with repeat listens.

Side Two opens with one of pop music’s great songs, “Every Breath You Take.” “Every Breath…” is one of those songs that you can name within hearing the first few notes. It has a beautiful rolling-quality that feels like floating in the sea, or twirling through a dream, or twirling through a dream about floating in the sea. You get the idea. This song is a bit “stalky” but it somehow makes unhealthy obsession feel like a deep and abiding love, rather than the restraining order vibe that such attitudes will earn you in the real world.

“King of Pain” and “Wrapped Around Your Finger” round out the album’s stars with another two ethereal tracks that capture the best qualities of early (better) Police albums. These songs ably round off the edges of groovy drum beats and reggae/new wave combinations and make it all generally more palatable to a larger audience. Moreover they do this without wrecking themselves or losing their edge in the process. No wonder this record was so huge in 1983 – these four songs are all classics.

What people rarely talk about (but I am now going to) is how the rest of the album is an overwritten mess of disparate ideas and unchecked ego.

Sting is the main villain in our piece, if for no other reason than he writes most of the songs. The two exceptions are Stuart Copeland’s ambling and pointless “Miss Gradenko” and the truly risible combination of eastern rhythms and shouting that is Andy Summers’ “Mother.” Hey Andy – I don’t give a shit if that’s your mother is on the phone. Stop shouting in my earholes.

Sting’s crimes are much more advanced, as he begins to fully explore the jazzercising dip-shittery that he will later commit to full time in his solo career. At this stage his solo career is still lurking just out of sight, like an ancient Lovecraftian god preparing to rise from the depths and devour us all. “Synchronicity” is the harbinger of the doom that is to come. “Oh My God,” “Tea in the Sahara” and “Murder by Numbers” are all examples of Sting’s interest in fusing jazz to pop music using the overheated glue of his own ego, while trying – and failing – to be deep and relevant.

And I would be remiss not to also mention “Walking in Your Footsteps,” which sounds like theme music from the computer version of Sid Meier’s Civilization. I always turn the music off when I play Civilization.

There are four really great songs on this album, and I already knew all of them from years of radio play. Their brilliance made my disappointment with the rest of the album so much deeper. It is great to have such flashes of brilliance, but you’ll never win a championship with that kind of inconsistency.

Best tracks: Synchronicity II, Every Breath You Take, King of Pain, Wrapped Around Your Finger