My mind was wandering the other day. And as it it’s prone to do these days, my brain had ventured back to the semi-distant past. I was thinking of my Playlist based on the songs of 1983. Well, to be more accurate, I was thinking back mulling over events that occurred 40 years ago and happened to also think about my playlist. All my memories have a soundtrack. I quickly pulled up that playlist and as I shuffled through those tracks from ’83, I couldn’t help but think about some of the great albums from that year that are turning 40 this year. It dawned on me that the Police, a band I have never posted about here on B&V for reasons unclear, released their masterwork Synchronicity that unhinged summer. The album was released on June 17, 1983… so literally forty years this month. It was of course, preceded on May 20th that year by it’s first single, the iconic track “Every Breath You Take,” which was naturally included on our 1983 playlist.

It would be difficult to overstate how huge Synchronicity was back in 1983-1984. The album spawned four hit singles: the aforementioned “Every Breath You Take,” “Synchronicity II,” “Wrapped Around Your Finger” and finally “The King Of Pain.” I think they may have also released “Synchronicity I” as a single in Japan. That’s half the album. It probably helped that the mid-80s were the apex of MTV. It may come as a surprise to some readers but MTV used to actually play videos all day, like a video radio station. Sting’s photogenic face was a perfect fit for the new medium of shooting videos, in a way that say, Bob Dylan’s face wasn’t. I think it’s safe to say that Synchronicity propelled the Police to the top of the rock n roll hill. Although, in retrospect it’s easy to see that everything they had done before had been to lay the groundwork for conquering the world.

While we all love to define and categorize music by decade – the 70s or the 80s – The Police were one of those bands whose career straddled two decades. Their debut album Outlandos D’Amour dropped in 1978 and by 1984 they were basically done. There are a lot of bands whose decade I’d define as 75 to 85: the original line-up in Van Halen and the Cars just to name a couple. I can remember hearing “Roxanne” from the debut, it was on the radio all the time. There was a guy in my study hall who used to loudly sing it with the perfect Sting falsetto impersonation… it was like Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours, only slightly more exaggerated… “Rooooooxanne…” The Police’s debut is a great one – and you know we love our debut LPs around here – although I didn’t know many people who owned it. Yes, my brother who is younger actually had Outlandos D’Amour, and I can remember listening in his room but it didn’t move me to buy it. I was always a late bloomer compared to my brother.

When the Police put out their second album, Regatta De Blanc, it was so quick I thought the songs “Walking On The Moon,” and “Message In A Bottle” were on the debut. It was only 11 months between those first two Police records. As so many bands do, the Police struggled to come up with enough material to fill up the “difficult” second album so drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers actually have a few writing credits, certainly more than any other Police album. Singer/bassist Sting was the main writer in that band. If I’m being honest, there was an acoustic version of “Message In A Bottle” that Sting recorded at The Secret Policeman’s Ball that got a ton of airplay in KC, and it’s the version I was sort of drawn to.

It was the third album – as so many times it’s the third time that’s the charm – that broke the Police big. Zenyatta Mondatta and it’s first single, “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” were huge hits. About that time I went to my brother’s room to listen only to discover that he had all three of the then extant Police albums…naturally I brought a cassette along to “selectively” tape certain songs by them. I think I had Zenyatta on one side and a hodge podge of tracks on side 2. I loved (and still love) “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.” For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to buy Police albums. I was a teenager in late junior high and early high school and I didn’t want to be caught dead buying something that didn’t… “rawk.” I was buying albums from Zeppelin, Ozzy, Sabbath and Van Halen. The Police were little more mellow. They had ballads. And they were reggae influenced. I’m not sure I even knew what reggae was until I was in my late 20s which is crazy considering how many great rock bands have dabbled in playing reggae tunes, not least of which was the Stones. 

The juggernaut that was Sting and the Police continued to build momentum. Ghost In The Machine was the Police’s biggest album yet upon it’s release in 1981. Each album – even the second one – did better than the preceding record. Ghost spawned four singles: “Invisible Sun” (which was actually the first single in a lot of places), “Everything She Does Is Magic” the first single in the UK and US, “Spirits In The Material World,” and finally “Secret Journey.” I remember hearing Ghost In The Machine – once again courtesy of my brother – and thinking they’d really gotten slick. Gone were the heavy reggae tunes – which I respected since the Police were a bottom heavy band, all bass and drums – and even the faux punk was history. This was an album of synthesizer and strings and even shockingly on “Every Thing She Does,” a piano. I was still resisting the Police but secretly my best friend Doug went to see the Police on this tour… with some chick from the mall that he was keeping a secret. He’s always said it was an amazing show. Alas, I never got to see the Police live.

Ghost In The Machine was the last Police LP released while I was in high school. By ’83 I had suffered through the tragic freshman year. Mine was a cliche as you can get. I had struggled in school… there is some thought in retrospect that I was a bit immature in those days… and well, these days too. I had adopted every bad early college cliche: long distance relationship, switching colleges a couple times, breaking up, too much booze, car crash… you name it. And so as I was driving home for the summer in late May of ’83, I heard a song that would completely change my perspective on the Police. A simple snare drum and guitar figure… I could barely keep the car on the road the first time I heard “Every Breath You Take.” That song hit me like a ton of bricks… it shifted the universal axis inside my head. Having gone through what I just went through – I knew this was not a love song. It was dark song of obsession and pain, two emotions I was sadly newly acquainted with. I remember standing around a pool table in a bar talking to this guy I used to know and saying, “Have you heard this new Police track, it’s the best song they’ve ever done.” Apparently I wasn’t alone in that opinion. The video, again iconic, was next level. Kudos for shooting it in black and white.

I went out the next day and purchased the album. Everything they’d been building toward, in terms of song-craft and melodies was fully realized on Synchronicity. It remained in high rotation on my stereo the entire summer.

Much can be said about this album being a tale of two sides. I’ll admit, side 2 is the stronger side and has most of the hits. But I actually like side one. I thought, while a bit pretentious, “Synchronicity I” and it’s sister “Synchronicity II” were great songs. At least they rocked which the Police rarely allowed themselves to do. I thought “Walking In Your Footsteps” was a great, old style Police track with a great message. Yes, it was tad lightweight. Same story with “Oh My God.” Hell, I even liked the Stewart Copeland written trifle “Miss Gradenko.” At least they’d stripped away a lot of the synths and strings. the problem with side 1 is, simply put, “Mother.” It’s an awful song. I’d go so far as to say it’s an awful parody of a parody song. It should have never been included. I get they wanted to include an Andy Summers penned tune, but “Mother” mars the entire album. Although I did put it on my Mother’s Day playlist… Summers co-wrote the great track “Murder By Numbers,” which ended up the B-side of “Every Breath You Take,” (and on our favorite b-sides list), and on the cassette version of the album and it would have been a much better inclusion than “Mother.”

The album made the Police, arguably, the biggest band in the world. Although come 1984, I think Van Halen might have something to say about that… Unfortunately during the making of Synchronicity the tensions ran so high the band could barely record together. They were physically all in different rooms while they played the songs in the studio. Some might consider this album Sting’s first solo album were it not for the two weaker songs penned by the other guys. And as so often happens a band reaches the apex of their career and end up breaking up. Sting went solo and while they tried to get back together, it just didn’t work. Sting went all “light-jazz” and the other guys were left to pursue whatever it was they pursued?

I remember seeing video of some festival the summer of 1984 where the Police, at the end of their set, passed their instruments to the members of U2 and walked off stage. Only Sting and Bono could have come up with such a pretentious gesture. Jeez, the egos. They considered it a “passing of the torch.” I don’t know about that ridiculousness, but it was a good symbol of the fact the Police were largely done.

As for me, that summer I ended up buying all the back LPs by the Police I’d missed over the years. That and I drank a whole lot of rum and had a magnificent tan. I’m not sure I had a steady job that summer break… I think I just did odd jobs which left more time for “recovery partying.” Oh and god did I party! My parents avoided me. But listening to Synchronicity that summer certainly got me through a tough time. I lived to fight another day… music can always elevate you past whatever you’re going through. Hearing “Every Breath You Take” made me realize that someone else, somewhere, had felt what I was feeling. And that alone, was helpful.

Over the years Sting did some solo stuff I liked, including his last LP (The Bridge) that I felt was his best in years, but he never hit the heights of Synchronicity again. I’d liked to have seen where the Police would have gone after this album but it really is the sound of a band reaching it’s apex while breaking up at the same time. There was nowhere for this band to go after this.

I’d recommend putting this one on loud somewhere out by the pool… with something cold, maybe a Pilsner Urquell… And for our U.S. readers, enjoy the upcoming 4th of July weekend… put on our 4th of July playlist and don’t blow any fingers off with firecrackers or burn yourself on sparklers… Enjoy!

Cheers!