Police - Synchronicity POLL

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After this poll started I listened to this album about 400 times. Soooooo goooooooooood.

I love how he says 'HUMILIATING kick in the CROTCH."

I think Mother is great! It's so fucked up. I'm tempted to vote for it. Or Sync I. Can't decide.

I thought ILM hated this album. Pleasant surprise that I was wrong. Best thing Sting was ever involved in of course.

Yes because ILM is all one brain.

"Best thing Sting was ever involved in of course"

Yes, except for DUNE.

the one that goes "I WILL LISTEN HARD TO YOUR TUITION"

I stop caring about the Police after their third album. And by this one, I basically can't stand them. My wife, on the other hand, is a huge fan -- first concert she ever saw, etc. When I asked her what her favorite track was, she said she didn't have one because it's meant to be listened to as an entire album. But when pressed, she named "Synchronicity I," for being the "most rock." So I'll vote for that.

Also, we just checked her copy, and the vinyl is in fact translucent purple -- looks pretty cool! We can't find any bare breasts, however (except for those belonging to actual Police members.)

Holy shit! Mine is purple too! Wow, you would never see that unless you held it up to the light. I had to go get another record by someone else and hold it up to the light just to prove my sanity. I wonder why they didn't make it more obvious, because it's really beautiful. I don't see any bare (female) breasts on mine, either, though. The Asian lady standing near Summers is the only female I see on this.

Also subtly translucent: Neil Young's Tonight's The Night

Yeah I heard about the purple thing a long time ago. Pretty subtle and unexpected for the era and label. The bare breast one isn't terribly rare (I don't think), just obviously wasn't as widely distributed.

I bought this album at 12:01am on the day of release. "Every Breath You Take" was (and still is I believe) a terrific single and big-upped everywhere on MTV and KROQ so the anticipation for the whole album was tremendous. But when I opened the shrink wrap and gave it a listen I was vaguely pleased and vaguely underwhelmed. OK sure... I put Ghosts In The Machine back on and waited for tickets to go on sale for the tour. The following year I'd have the same reaction to The Unforgettable Fire

The eventual show at Hollywood Park was nuts. 75,000 in a venue that had no business hosting a rock concert of that size and smack in the middle of a summer heat wave. This was one of the few times where I've felt unsafe at a show... people were passing out from the heat, kids were getting crushed near the stage, and after the ninth or tenth kid being carried out over the security fence with a bloody face or body part I headed for the exit. Meanwhile, Sting was singing "So Lonely." Never really cared about The Police after than and since then I listen to the Summers/Fripp albums a lot more.

Anyway, the opening song on that night was "Voices In My Head" - weird moody choice, but right after that was "Synchronicity I" and WAY more fired up than what was recorded. In fact the live versions of everything on the album were significantly better live. "Synchronicity II" was next and just as powerful, but I hadn't ever seen tens of thousands of people go from meh to YEAH instantly so "Synchronicity I" gets my vote.

FWIW, The Fixx and Berlin were the openers and FAR better than The Police (the Thompson Twins opened too, but live they were irrelevant). Hell, Berlin was one of the better bands I'd seen anywhere.

That's the song wherein The Police say fuck it and imitate Rush.

I like that later Rush decided to say fuck it and imitate The Police (to greater effect too)

Rush > Police

Anyone who thinks otherwise is crazy.

And by crazy I mean is probably a woman.

Thank you Bob Dylan.

I am a crazy woman.

My wife, who is a woman and not crazy and also a really big Rush fan, says the bands are not comparable. (She did agree, though, that "Synchronicity" sounds like the Police trying to be Rush.)

"Synchronicity I" barely over "King of Pain".

God, I'd love to hear Rush do a cover of Synchronicity.

If bimble pulled this out on vinyl to start the poll as stated above - I don't believe it would have had 'tea in the sahara,' right? I remember being fairly peeved at 13 and finding my buddy's cassette had a song my vinyl copy didn't have ... that said - I vote 'Synchronicity I' ...

PS - Excellent call on the wish for Rush to cover Synchronicity - (heck either one!)

"Murder By Numbers" was the extra song not on the original vinyl release, "Tea in the Sahara" was on both.

What he said.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Votes are pretty right on except for Mother scoring so low. Pretend it's Scratch Acid and re-listen!

I voted for "O My God" by accident and now I'm totally happy that I did because I would have cried if it was beat by "Mother."

Was searching for an image of the bare breast cover art and found this info on Wikipedia:

The album's original cover artwork was available in 36 variations, with different arrangements of the colour stripes and showing different photographs of the band members, which they took themselves. In one version Sting is reading a copy of Jung's Synchronicity on the front cover along with a negative/superimposed image of the actual text of the synchronicity hypothesis. A photo on the back cover also shows a close-up, but mirrored and upside-down, image of the Jung's book.

Yeah, that's actually the one I've got, with all the pics of Jung's Synchronicity.

I have to constantly sing along with one part, "packed-like-lemmings into shiny metal boxes"

Anyone heard the B-Side "I Burn For You"?? Such a great tune, surprised it didn't make it on here

"Synchronicity 1". Song doesn't get nearly enough love.

― Alex in NYC, Monday, April 6, 2009 7:56 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

alex so OTM (as usual)

I love the vocal harmonies in 'Synchronicity I'. I would have voted for 'Synchronicity II' in this, though.

Hey, mighty brontosaurus,
Don't you have a lesson for us

I feel disappointed to learn the lyrics are not "Are you SICK, Miss Gradenko?"

Miss Gradenko are you SICK

TPL does the album; not quite as good as I remember it being - http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-police-synchronicity.html

I definitely agree that Ghost is a better record. In fact, I feel like that and Reggatta are the great records that you claim the Police never made. Synchronicity is definitely not it, though that Side 2 continues to be astounding, even "Tea in the Sahara" which I loathed for so many years. Just incredible that the band who recorded "Next to You" only six years prior would wind up doing such tightly knit sophistipop songs like this.

Have you heard the B-side "I Burn For You"? I believe it wound up on a soundtrack somewhere, which is unfortunate - it's one of Sting's best songs, and had they slotted it in the middle of Side 2, kicked out "O My God", and made "Synchronicity II" close the first side, the album could be a masterpiece. Alas...

I agree - I think "I Burn For You" was the best thing they ever did, and it got thrown away on the Brimstone And Treacle soundtrack (the cassette of which I've kept pretty much for that track only).

I Burn for You is indeed awesome. It would have fit well on Zenyatta or maybe even Synchronicity. I would have closed side one pretty well. Even more than a lot of later Police stuff, there's barely anything for Andy to do on the track, though.

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.