Police - Synchronicity POLL

Though Sting (and certainly Omar Hakim) makes a pretty good case for it c. "Blue Turtles."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgxy9lMbqJc

Yeah, someone here introduced me to "I Burn for You" last month and it is spectacular; exactly the sort of thing I wish Sting would have done in his solo career.

As it stands, the b-side of Synchronicity is pretty good and I love, love, love "Tea in the Sahara", but it's still the weakest blockbuster LP of the early 80s.

Marcello is otm about "the disaster of three-way democracies". I can't think of any group whose albums would have benefited more from crediting the entire band with all compositions; an arrangement that would have been much fairer to Andy on a certain massive #1 hit...

Yeah, seriously. Even-split is a good way to survive. Even Coldplay does that, and I'm not even sure the other guys have names. Of course, I don't doubt that Sting believes he's done his best work after the Police ...

Man, do I love the snare sound on this record.

i burn for you is fantastic. sting's smugness and awful lyrics keep me from embracing this band, but they had some amazingly vital, alive songs.

Most contemporary reviews were sympathetic, and then some; interviewing the band in Atlanta later that year for the NME, the late Richard Cook remarked, “...if that record (Ghost In The Machine) was difficult, Synchronicity is like Chinese algebra"

Cook's observation is like... 50% crypto-racist and 50% math-class-is-tough-Barbie. It brings back 1983 as a foreign country, where psychiatric advice was a running gag in Peanuts and the Columbia House's secret gold box and the Book of the Month Club intersect.

This album is fucking great! I love every song, even Mother. 7/4 time!

Fascinating interview with the producer on what a nightmare it was recording "Every Breath You Take": http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar04/articles/classictracks.htm

I listened to this album a lot as a kid, and you couldn’t skip tracks on an LP, so I find it weird that while half the songs are burned on my brain, I have absolutely no memory of the others—O My God, Mother, Miss Gredenko, Tea in the Sahara? what are these(?)

This band is kinda goofy, but “Synch II” is clearly in the Top 1 gtr riffs of all time.

damn someone voted for “mother”?

I listened to this album a lot as a kid, and you couldn’t skip tracks on an LP, so I find it weird that while half the songs are burned on my brain, I have absolutely no memory of the others—O My God, Mother, Miss Gredenko, Tea in the Sahara? what are these(?)

Mother is such an irritating joke, maybe you did yourself a favor and blocked it out. Miss Gradenko and O My God sound like tossed-off filler so no surprise that they wouldn't be memorable.

I actually like Tea in the Sahara, and I guess it was a hit somewhere since it was on the international Greatest Hits CD. It's a nice low-key, atmospheric piece, but I can kind of see where Sting would go wrong whenever I hear it - it stops just short of that, but it points towards that unfortunate direction.

"Miss Gredenko" the best album track imo

it’s a banger I agree, maybe a little influence on Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes” to my ears.

Haha, I like "Mother" and "Tea in the Sahara" (although "Sync II" would def get my vote and probably did). "Every Breath You Take" is my least favourite song.

Buddy of mine on his private Twitter recently said something like, "Listening to Synchronicity on vinyl right now - where you can't skip past "Mother" and there's no "Murder by Numbers" for compensation at the end of Side Two."

OK, “Miss Gredenko” is kind of a jam. Cool solo. It’s almost like a (lesser) French Frith Kaiser Thompson track.

Buddy of mine on his private Twitter recently said something like, "Listening to Synchronicity on vinyl right now - where you can't skip past "Mother" and there's no "Murder by Numbers" for compensation at the end of Side Two."

Yeah I've always had this album on my iPod/iTunes with "Mother" chopped out and "Murder by Numbers" as a nice little epilogue.

that moment when two buddies find out they’re both ilxors

#synchronicity

do we stan
neu! and can
suggest ban
synchronicity

geir hates sex
pretend lex
POX
synchronicity

eephus w/o a cuz
sub-borad oriolez
synchronicity

Melodically, harmonically, lyrically, texturally, "Walking in Your Footsteps" is about as NOTHING as a song can be.
"Mother" is still worse though, I wonder if Summers was imitating both Peter Hammill and Fripp on "Disengage" from Exposure.
This release would have been fine as a 45 with the two Synchronicities on it, the other singles are adequate.

Melodically, harmonically, lyrically, texturally, "Walking in Your Footsteps" is about as NOTHING as a song can be.

otm -- dullest second song ever

With #onethread
one #oneboard
you will know
synchronicity

Mother and Miss Gredenko unmemorable? the former is infamously one of the most irritating album-destroying tracks ever, the latter is ridiculously catchy

O My God is like a by the books filler track - sort of a dry run for Sting's solo career - but I do find it interesting that they reused lyrics from the Strontium 90 days

fwiw the live disc from this tour has better versions of "Tea in the Sahara" and "Walking in Your Footsteps". it kinda makes me feel like the album wasn't really complete yet.

imo the weirdest thing is why "I Burn For You" wasn't included. its one of Sting's best songs ever, just unfathomably good for an outtake for an album that included uh...all the songs mentioned above

When I was a kid I was into the fact that I could recognize that "Mother" had a weird time signature without really being into the song per se

Melodically, harmonically, lyrically, texturally, "Walking in Your Footsteps" is about as NOTHING as a song can be.

Hits different when you're living in fear of Soviet missles on a random afternoon!

("Walking in Your Footsteps") hits different when you're living in fear of Soviet missles on a random afternoon!

Yeah, I can see this. I actually like this track because it really sticks out as a crystal clear time capsule of Reagan's '80s. And I've also come across so many vintage '80s-era docs and even kids' PBS shows that remind me of "Walking in Your Footsteps" musically speaking, especially instrumentally. It may not be much more than a time capsule, but a time capsule has its appeal, and I do like how it shores up the context surrounding that album (the culture and the time it was released).

it kinda makes me feel like ('Synchronicity') wasn't really complete yet.

All of their albums feel kind of unrealized, like they sped up towards the end just to complete the LP with filler and leave certain tracks undeveloped. They were never that happy with Zenyatta Mondatta for that reason, but ironically (at least to me), it's the closest thing they have to a fully-realized album.

it's my favorite, and ZM also sounds rounded to me.

in fact, the last three songs on ZM consist of my favorite Police sequence

"Walking In Your Footsteps" might have been my favorite track on this when I was a kid and if you don't dig the couplet "You were God's favorite creature / but you didn't have a future" I don't even know what's up with you -- my introduction to slant rhyme and it's just gorgeously dark as hell -- compare the "it doesn't matter if God's on your side, we're fucked, just another kind of creature fated to be supplanted" (this tracks with the return of the prehistoric to reclaim the earth in Synchronicity II btw) with the much softer, goopier "Russians" ("let's all looooooooove one another it'll be fine") which represents what Sting would be doing without the band

"Russians" is fucking awwwwful. I already love the Police, but I feel much more forgiving about their missteps when I put on something like "Russians." "Mother" sucks but I'd much rather hear that again - at least it's intentionally a joke.

listening to this for the first time and immediately loved "walking in your footsteps" lol

Can you live-post your reactions to Synchronicity first listen??

Ghost in the Machine is pretty solid front to back

Mother >>>>>>>>> most solo Sting

i've always had a soft spot for regatta de blanc. not everything on it is amazing, but the oddities are quite odd, and usually pretty enjoyable ("does everyone stare," in particular)

My most-played album too. I think "It's Alright For You" and "No Time At All" are two of the best unheralded rockers in their catalogue.

*"No Time This Time"

The 8-track listing, btw:

Program 1
1-1 --- Synchronicity I
1-2 --- Walking In Your Footsteps
1-3 --- Mother

Program 2
2-1 --- O My God
2-2 --- Miss Gradenko
2-3 --- Tea In The Sahara

Program 3
3-1 --- Synchronicity II
3-2 --- King Of Pain

Program 4
4-1 --- Every Breath You Take
4-2 --- Wrapped Around Your Finger

For all of those long-haul truckers pumping Synchronicity between Merle Haggard 8-tracks.

the title track and "Deathwish" are also very good on Reggatta - idk if I wanna say "best" but it's my favorite of theirs, maybe because it has the most Stewart Copeland input. when you listen to his stuff as Klark Kent and compare it to what Sting was doing it actually seems kinda clear that the signature Police sound was really Copeland's doing, it's just that Sting was writing all the good songs

There's something really Billy Joel-ish about Sting's delivery on the pre-chorus sections of "Synchronicity II" --- "DADDy grips the WHEEL and STARES aLONE into the DIStance," "Red-light STAH-REET" etc. Maybe that's why I like it so much.

hah yeah now that you mention it, totally

Synchonicity II seemed like it could've paved the way for a bunch of prog groups to try their hand at New Wave. though I suppose Rush already covered that territory. either way I suspect if they'd stuck around they would have been making albums like Big Generator by Yes

omg i somehow never truly internalized that he was singing "We have to SHOUT aBOVE the DIN of ourrrRICEKrisPIES!" ---- that's really, wow, something. i really hate it as it's happening, but it doesn't seem to impact me finding the song awesome.

also... as beautifully cheesy as the video is (in keeping with the era when every fourth b-movie was now a Road Warrior knock-off), imagine how bad it would be if it was like Everlong and Sting's arm got all muscley at the end of every verse as the guy in the verse gets angry

this album really has a ton of stuff I love on it, and a number of hits that always surprises me. it's just hard to really grapple with just HOW acidic and grim its outlook really is.

acidic and grim can obviously be the outlook expressed through a work of art... just when it starts up with the seemingly upbeat whirl of "Synchronicity I," i don't expect to spend so much time with these nightmare characters --- every one the focal point of a disconcerting arthouse drama with slight 80s/90s erotic-thriller vibes.

but --- am i right to assume for many of its biggest fans, that's what makes it great?

There's that moment in the middle of "Synchronicity II" when it turns into a Rush song -- that drum break!

for many of its biggest fans, that's what makes it great?

Casual listeners probably think "Wrapped Around Your Finger" and "Every Breath You Take" are love songs, hate "Mother" and zone out through the rest. Fans invested in Sting's point-of-view might be glad that he became more "humanistic" and positive in his solo work?

"Synchronicity II" is a great piece of music, and the lyrics work OK as a sketch of a Doctor Who episode.