Retro Spins: The Police - Ghost In The Machine

I feel like by 1983 The Police were just starting. What happened with that? Why did they suddenly break up?

Sadly, it all comes down to a common tale in the rock and roll world. One member, typically the singer, and as such in this case, got too big for their britches. As the story goes, Sting took control of the band, eventually making the remaining members, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, feel more like his employees than his band mates. Fighting ensued, and despite the band poised to be the next biggest thing in rock music, they finally called it quits in 1984 after a supporting tour for their 1983 album, Synchronicity.

Fortunately, before that happened, The Police left a mark in the music world which will forever be captured in vinyl, cassette and CD history.

Today's Retro Spin takes me to their 1981 album, Ghost In The Machine. It all starts out with the powerhouse tracks, Spirits In The Material World and Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic. These two songs are definitely the most radio friendly of the eleven tracks which encompass the album.

The rest of Ghost In The Machine sounds very experimental with a heavy lean towards reggae. Mind you, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's just interesting, in light of this, how the band became a "pop" sensation, as this was clearly not their objective.

What throws me off the most about the album is how short each song feels. Just as you're getting into it, the tracks fade out abruptly and in seemingly awkward places. You'd really have to hear it yourself to understand what I mean by this.

The album also features singles, Invisible Sun, Demolition Man and Secret Journey. However, these aren't particularly good songs, in my opinion. Overall, that's kind of my opinion about the whole record. It's not terrible, but it doesn't blow me away, as I would have expected it to do for how big of a stink some people make about The Police. It won't stop me from eventually getting around to their remaining albums. I'm just not in any rush to do so.

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Retro Spins: The Police - Outlandos d'Amour

 

People often forget that The Police didn't get their start in the 80's. In fact, their hit, Message In A Bottle, often played on 80's stations, was released in 1979.

The Police formed in 1977, consisting of lead singer and bassist, Gordon Matthew Thomas Summer, AKA Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland. They released their first album, Outlandos d'Amour, translated from French to love outlandos, but loosely translated for the album as Outlaws of Love. The album reached number six on the charts, and with the aid of their hits, Roxanne and Can't Stand Losing You, contributed greatly to their following four albums reaching number one.

Hit after hit was churned out by the band, and by 1983 they were at the height of their popularity with their 8X platinum (in the USA alone) album, Synchronicity. I imagine many that year asked where The Police could possibly go from there. Shockingly, they disbanded.

Upon completing their tour for the album in 1984, the group took a hiatus. This was mainly a result of lead singer, Sting, wanting to focus on a solo career, releasing his first album, The Dream Of The Blue Turtles. As he toured throughout 1985 and parts of 1986. Though the band intended on recording a new album, it was apparent to the remaining two members that their lead singer really didn't have any interest in the project. Coupled with drummer, Copeland, breaking his collar bone the night before they were scheduled to return to the studio, the band called it quits.

It's a bit selfish if you think about it. How many bands survive when the lead singer leaves? Sure, it happens, but not often. For Sting to be so self centered that he preferred to focus on a solo career only serves to show how greedy he is as a human being.

However, him being a douche bad didn't stop me from buying all of the band's studio albums, so today, I'm jumping into Outlandos d'Amour to give it a spin.

It's interesting hearing the album, because it sounds like grunge, before grunge was a thing. Wikipedia classifies the album as punk, and I can totally hear that in it, which is odd, because I never thought of The Police as a punk band. They really don't look the part.

Outlandos is a decent album, but it by no means blew me away. The two hits from it are fantastic even to this day, but beyond that, I didn't hear anything else that stood out. It does intrigue me to keep moving through their library of records, but it doesn't necessarily make me a fan.

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Retro Spins: The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta

The Police
Zenyatta Mondatta
1980

I admittedly don't know much about The Police. Growing up I heard many of their hits on the radio throughout the 80's, but honestly never sat down and listed to a full album from them. Well, at least until today that is.

Zenyatta Mondatta, or He Said It, as it is translated in Hungarian, is The Police's first entry into the 1980's. It's notable for featuring such hits as; Don't Stand So Close To Me  and De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da, both of which charted between 1980 and 1981.

De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da was the first track to chart for the album. It slowly began its assension up the charts in mid 1980 and capped at the number ten spot in January 1981 where it stayed for two consecutive weeks. Ironically, Don't Stand So Close To Me somewhat mirrored this same success. It made it to the number ten spot by April of 1981 and sat there for three consecutive weeks in a row before being bumped all the way down to number fourteen where it would continue to slip down until it eventually fell off.

As a whole, the album is peppy. It's got a funky reggae / pop feel to it and it's enjoyable. However, there's no denying why the hits are the hits. If I could call out one additional track, Canary in a Coalmine, definitely had the makings of a hit for the band. Unfortunately and for whatever reason, this was not the case.

I admittedly have never been a big fan of the police or the band of the same name. Ha, jokes. Seriously, though...Not a joke.

Anyway, after a moment of awkward pause while typing, The Police have good songs here and there (as a whole) and as someone who actually owns every album from them, but as mentioned above, has never listed to any until today, I'm honestly looking forward to hearing some more from them. After all, they must have been doing something right to have released five albums between 1978 and 1983 before Sting went solo and launched himself even further into musical stardom. I won't be listening to any more of their music today, but I'll definitely be getting around to it.

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