The Police - Synchronicity [Digipak]

Brilliance

Dark, painful, angry music here. And lyrics that match the mood, attached to the most brilliant melodies Sting ever strung together on one LP.

Their previous albums only set the table for Synchronicity. Sting, stung with king-sized pain from marital woes, calls on every creative fiber beneath his frown. The result: the Police were never better, cresting their talents in a musical finale that made me grateful, in a way, that they split afterward. I doubt they could have improved on this.

September 8, 2008

Howay the Lad

In the late 70's, early 80's, there was this monstrous black hole, completely devoid of talent, from which, every two years or so, 3 hit singles and a No1 album would be spewed unapologetically out.
The Police, (splendidly ironic name, given the crimes they regularly got away with) are guilty as charged, and their last somnambulistic studio album, all gaseous protest, and Caribbean sun-tanned `caring' = an absolute drag.
To be fair(!) there's actually a couple of good songs on `Synchronicity'. `Every Breath Tou Take' is fairly strong and `Synchronicity II' is a revelation. Where Gordon dug this up is a mystery, steaming rock guitar riffing and passionate vocals? Steady on there boys. The irony can't have been lost on him though, the powerful left-wing lyrics must've seemed particularly appropriate as he sat in the recording studio in the Bahamas or wherever.(This at a time when all these so-called darling groups went to Montserrat or the Riviera to record albums. Why is beyond me, each and every one came back a disaster. Check out the Durannies, or even the Happy Mondays for irrefutable proof.)
It has an exiting prog-style `II' in the title, perhaps that's where Gordon's loyalties really lie; Cocktail Prog(!) and sticks out like a sore thumb from the calculated, moribund rest of `Synchronicity'
After the exertions of `II', it's pretty obvious Gordon and the rest of the band, (Andy Summers; been going longer than Pink Floyd and The Who PUT TOGETHER, and Stewart Copeland; a lanky twit drummer, with a style borrowed from that one off the Muppets.) were worn out, so they put down a pile of filler and headed off to the beach for a lie down.
Summers (and the first time any-one wrote about him, they were using 12-point copperplate and quills!) is particularly dull. Get up, play some feeble guitar, lie on the beach, have a little drink and a snooze. Collect cash. Nice work if you can get it. Being dreary isn't a crime in rock, otherwise we'd have anarchy, so he can't shoulder much of the blame for `Synchronicity'. The finger of accusation must point at Gordon, who is determined to stamp his creative authority on proceedings and not give a hoot his `creativity' isn't worth a jot.
He waffles on about mothers and murderers in abject isolation, thinking he's being really insightful and interesting, but in reality, he's boring every-one rigid. There's two words I always try to use in my reviews. One is 'looney', which doesn't really apply here, and the other is 'worthy', a horrid, nasty word implying the worst nadir of any art-form and one that could've been specially coined for Gordon. The 80's was full of `worthies`. Lacklustre half-talents,(and if for some reason you want to check `em out, have a butchers at the `Do They Know it's Christmas' video. Most of them are on there.) any surprise or originality long since ebbed away, but still wanting to be seen to be DOING THEIR BIT. Gordon was king in this company. `Hey, I'm a working class millionaire, but never mind me, look at this rain forest guy with a plate in his lip, that I've dragged halfway across the world and put on TV, in a dire and misguided attempt to show how caring I really am in my millions. (And I've got a solo album out that nobody's buying!)'. The worst kind of pop star, one who's filament wasn't blinding to begin with, but ending up being as weak and uncomfortable as that poor rain forest guy, thousands of miles from home, plonked like a freak-show in completely alien surroundings, but still having a nobility and charisma Gordon can only drool after. I hear all this desperation and thinly disguised self-aggrandizement running like veins through all of Gordon's `work' and here it's at an annoyingly high level.
To say `Synchronicity' is limp is like saying Hitler was a slightly misled person. Gordon may think he's walking on rock's wild side, but he's not really fooling any-one. We can all see whatever limited talent he had in the first place, has now run completely dry, and all the faux roots, jazzy licks and lounge crooning in the world won't change that.
I don't normally feel sympathy for people like Gordon. Working class people who've made many millions from other working class people who will `like' a certain music because it's drummed into them, but allow me a twinge. `Synchronicity' may be insipid and lukewarm, but it's `Astral Weeks' compared to his solo work.
It should've been called `Sycophantically'. Geddit?



April 5, 2008

A Milestone Of The 1980's

This album is not only an important artistic step ahead for The Police but also for the time period in general.In the early 80's many pop stars of the time such as Peter Gabrial were beginning to experiment with adding elements of world music,such as African and latin styles into their own sound.The Police had begun doing the same thing with reggae but here Sting,who wrote or co-wrote ten out of the eleven songs presented here,has begun to reach for new artistic heights.The title track is presented in two seperate parts comes of well as very stratospheric rock and showcases another important element of this recording;'Syncronicity' is The Police's most polished,glossy and slick album,a sound they began moving towards as far back as Zenyatta Mondatta [Digipak].In "Walking In Your Footsteps" a strong,stripped down afro-raggae influnece makes it's presence known,especially fitting with Sting's deeply poetic lyric about the evolution of life itself. For their biggest hit recording it's ironic that the first songs presented here are generally their more artsy and ambitious,especially showcasing what an incredible drummer Stewart Copeland is. "Oh God" and "Miss Gradenko" (a song co-written with Copeland) showcase very catchy pop melodies with funky grooves,something The Police did so well and the reason why there's such a thing as album tracks!The oddest song on this album has to be Andy Summers "Mother",a deeply avante garde rocker with Andy ranting in psychopath style about a very twisted Fruedian "mother" fetish involving his lady love.It is generally people's least favorite song on the album but in the context it's in it makes sense in a bizzare way. The Police in very untraditional style chose to link the albums three huge hits "Every Breath You Take" (that such a creepy stalker song got to be a hit is a testement to the bands clout at the time),"King Of Pain" and "Wrapped Around You Finger" one after the other;these are songs fans,80's and pop music lovers in general all know almost by heart. Sting returns to the almost ambient,poetic style of earlier in the album on the haunting "Tea In The Sahara". The final track (added to the CD edition only) is the most pointed;the bluesy "Murder By Numbers" points very strongly to the jazz based sound Sting would showcase to a fuller extent on his solo debut The Dream of the Blue Turtles,an album I highly recommend either right after or...just pick it up along with this;you'll find they play GREAT back to back!. Sadly this album was the swansong for The Police (in my opinion they should've continued throughout the 80s) but Sting's strong musical ego had begun to grow beyond the group at this point and the resulting in fighting resulted in the bands breakup shortly after 'Syncronicity' came out. But outside of Peter Gabrial this is perhaps one of the best examples of advanced,superbly polished 80's pop-rock one could find and I highly recommend this to.....anyone who really enjoys great music! March 6, 2008

WOW..

..(Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings)..(F haters..)tHis album's worth studyiNg..African sounding stuff (Sang "King of Pain" to My lawyers..)in "Walking In Your FootSteps"..Yo..I Mature leaps and bounds.. February 25, 2008

The Police - Put Out Their Best Album And Then Call It Quits

To my ears this is the pinnacle of The Police's recorded output. I really think every song here is great and the title track "Synchronicity II" remains my all time favorite Police composition, and some of the best lyrics Sting has ever written. Everything comes together on this disc as The Police don't stick to a formula but continue to evolve their sound into what would unfortunately become their final album. More huge, huge hits came from this one including one of their biggest "Every Breath You Take", a song that many people took for a love song, but really contains a much darker sinister plot. The Police had become a football stadium band by the time this album came out and could literally play any size venue that they wanted. They truly went out at the top of their game with their best album and most successful tour. It is good to have them back on the road again in 2007. January 8, 2008

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