The Police
Synchronicity
★★★★
UMR/POLYDOR
December 1982 and out there in the wider world, The Police were fast becoming the biggest band on the planet: a string of international hits, two US Top 5 and three UK Number 1 albums, a couple of Grammys, a Brit, fan adulation, the lot. Inside AIR Studios on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, however, as they set about making their fifth album, bitterness and resentment hung heavy in the air between the three members of the group.
READ MORE: The Police interviewed: “There’s at least a 0000000.1 per cent chance of getting back together.”
The main source of disagreement was, of course, creative control. When singer/bassist Gordon ‘Sting’ Sumner and drummer Stewart Copeland had joined forces in early 1977 and drafted in guitarist Andy Summers later that year (replacing original guitarist Henry Padovani), the group’s frontman was a novice relative to his bandmates: Copeland had spent a couple of years in English proggers Curved Air; Summers was a veteran of tours and sessions with everyone from Soft Machine to Neil Sedaka. As the chief songwriter and sole hitmaker, though, Sting’s inherent confidence had grown and grown, and he now insisted on absolutely calling the shots in the studio.
AIR may have been in an idyllic setting, but as Copeland tells MOJO today, “we soon turned it into a living hell”. The Police had used the studio two years previously for the recording of their fourth LP, Ghost In The Machine, co-producing with Hugh Padgham (Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins) and this time around employed the same set-up: Sting in the control room, Summers in the live room, and Copeland with his kit in the wooden-walled dining room of an adjacent building. The goal was sonic isolation, but at the start of the sessions for Synchronicity, the arrangement only served to physically reinforce the intra-band divisions.
The first serious crack appeared when the trio were working up one of Sting’s new songs, Every Breath You Take, from the singer’s solo demo. He and the drummer argued over the rhythmic direction and an almighty ruckus ensued. Suddenly, it looked as if a fifth Police LP was unachievable and that the sessions were off.
A peace-making summit was hastily negotiated. The band’s manager, Miles Copeland (the drummer’s eldest brother), pointed out that AIR’s owner, George Martin, was on the island and suggested they should ask him to oversee the sessions. Summers was duly dispatched to Martin’s house through what he now remembers as “the dense and intense jungles of Montserrat”. The sage, laid-back producer politely declined to get involved but said, “I’m sure you can work it out.” The guitarist returned to the studio, related this simple, contemplative advice; the others agreed, and the tape rolled again.
The beat for Every Breath You Take was pieced together element by element, losing Copeland’s virtuosic drumming but resulting in a metronomic, almost Kraftwerk-like precision. It’s one of the tracks whose development, from demo through studio rehearsal, is charted in this six-disc reissue of the group’s most successful, and final LP.
If The Police were never cool (see Sting’s lyrical pretentions, Jamaican vocal inflections and unabashed self-love), in terms of their constituent parts they were dazzlingly inventive musicians who conspired to make a series of singles – and The Police were always essentially a singles band – which were enormous, era-defining hits, but that in retrospect are striking in their artfulness. The sparse, haunting dub of Walking On The Moon, for one, now sounds like a deeply strange record to reach UK Number 1.
Here, the 36 unreleased tracks (albeit including alternate or instrumental versions of the LP cuts) highlight the outside influences that each brought to the table. Summers had just made an album, 1982’s I Advance Masked, with Robert Fripp, and his lead vocal on Mother – boldly tracklisted midway through side one – involves a manic, screaming performance that sounds as if he’s auditioning to be Adrian Belew’s replacement in (the similarly troubled) King Crimson. Copeland contributed the tumbling Afrobeat of Miss Gradenko to the finished record, while his unused contributions included I’m Blind (odd new wave) and the instrumental, organ-led Ragged Man, both recycled for his soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film Rumble Fish.
Elsewhere, Sting’s demos reveal someone attempting to break free of the confines of the three-piece band, whether with the aid of the synth arpeggios of Synchronicity I or the JBs-styled brass stabs of O My God. The album’s title was, meanwhile, inspired by Arthur Koestler’s 1972 book The Roots Of Coincidence, which partly explored the Jungian theory of synchronicity (involving a psychological state somehow causing a physical event). In the third single released from the album, the propulsive Synchronicity II, the singer painted a picture of a browbeaten man whose growing anxiety coincides with the faraway surfacing of the Loch Ness Monster. If it stretched Jung’s theory to snapping point, it was a towering rocker nonetheless.
While some of the tracks suffered from the thin, digital reverb-y aural trends of the era, Padgham was a good choice for co-producer, having engineered Peter Gabriel’s ground-breaking third LP, whose echoes could be heard in the marimba-led atmosphere of King Of Pain or the sequenced polyrhythms of Walking In Your Footsteps. The overall result was an art rock record that managed to yield four hits, including the brooding ballad Wrapped Around Your Finger, with its none-more-Sting, Greek mythology-referencing opening couplet, “You consider me the young apprentice/Caught between the Scylla and Charybdis.”
Following the album’s June 1983 release, in spite of the bad blood between them, The Police managed to complete a nine-month-long 1983-4 world tour, represented here by selected tracks from the Omni in Atlanta and a full show from the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum that showcase the band’s live vitality and slickness. Onstage at Shea Stadium in New York, Sting quipped “we’d like to thank The Beatles for lending us their stadium”, but mentally took the decision there and then to quit the band, likely hastened by a pre-gig fight with Copeland that left the latter with a fractured rib.
By the end of the Synchronicity campaign, The Police were indeed the most successful band in the world, with 10 million sales of the album and another three Grammys in the bag. Which is all the more remarkable really since, listening back to it now, it remains a pretty weird mainstream record, by an altogether underrated group.
Synchronicity is out now on UMC/Polydor
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Tracklisting
6 X CD Boxset:
CD 1
Synchronicity I
Walking In Your Footsteps
O My God
Mother
Miss Gradenko
Synchronicity II
Every Breath You Take
King Of Pain
Wrapped Around Your Finger
Tea In The Sahara
Murder By Numbers
CD 2 (Bonus)
Truth Hits Everybody (Remix)
Man In A Suitcase (Live At The Variety Arts Theatre, Los Angeles, USA / 16th January 1981)
Someone To Talk To
Message In A Bottle (Live At The Gusman Cultural Center, Miami, USA / 26th October 1979)
I Burn For You
Once Upon A Daydream
Tea In The Sahara (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983)
Every Breath You Take (Backing Track)
Roxanne (Backing Track)
Wrapped Around Your Finger (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983)
Every Bomb You Make
Walking On The Moon (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983)
Hole In My Life (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983)
One World (Not Three) (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983)
Invisible Sun (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 2nd November 1983)
Murder By Numbers (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 2nd November 1983)
Walking In Your Footsteps (Derangement)
Tea In The Sahara (Derangement)
CD 3 (Unreleased Part 1)
Synchronicity I (Demo)
Synchronicity I (Alternate Mix)
Synchronicity I (Instrumental)
Walking In Your Footsteps (Alternate Version)
Walking In Your Footsteps (Alternate Mix)
O My God (Demo)
O My God (Outtake)
O My God (OBX Version)
O My God (Alternate Mix)
Mother (Alternate Version)
Mother (Instrumental)
Miss Gradenko (Alternate Mix)
Synchronicity II (Demo)
Synchronicity II (Outtake)
Synchronicity II (Extended Version)
Synchronicity II (Alternate Mix)
Synchronicity II (Instrumental)
CD 4 (Unreleased Part 2)
Every Breath You Take (Demo)
Every Breath You Take (Outtake)
Every Breath You Take (Alternate Mix)
King Of Pain (Demo)
King Of Pain (Alternate Version)
King Of Pain (Alternate Mix)
Wrapped Around Your Finger (Demo)
Wrapped Around Your Finger (Alternate Mix)
Wrapped Around Your Finger (Instrumental)
Tea In The Sahara (Demo)
Tea In The Sahara (Alternate Mix)
Murder By Numbers (Demo)
I’m Blind (Demo)
Loch
Ragged Man
Goodbye Tomorrow
Truth Hits Everybody (Remix) (Outtake)
Three Steps To Heaven
Rock And Roll Music
CD 5 (Live Part 1 – Unreleased)) Live At The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, California, USA / 10th September 1983)
Synchronicity I
Synchronicity II
Walking In Your Footsteps
Message In A Bottle
Walking On The Moon
O My God
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
Wrapped Around Your Finger
Tea In The Sahara
Spirits In the Material World
CD 6 Live Part 2 – Unreleased)) Live At The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, California, USA / 10th September 1983)
Hole In My Life
Invisible Sun
One World (Not Three)
King Of Pain
Don’t Stand So Close To Me
Murder By Numbers
Every Breath You Take
Roxanne
Can’t Stand Losing You
4 x LP Vinyl:
LP 1
Synchronicity I (Side 1)
Walking In Your Footsteps (Side 1)
O My God (Side 1)
Mother (Side 1)
Miss Gradenko (Side 1)
Synchronicity II (Side 1)
Every Breath You Take (Side 2)
King Of Pain (Side 2)
Wrapped Around Your Finger (Side 2)
Tea In The Sahara (Side 2)
LP 2 (Bonus)
Murder By Numbers (Side 1)
Truth Hits Everybody (Remix) (Side 1)
Man In A Suitcase (Live At The Variety Arts Theatre, Los Angeles, USA / 16th January 1981) (Side 1)
Someone To Talk To (Side 1)
Message In A Bottle (Live At The Gusman Cultural Center, Miami, USA / 26th October 1979) (Side 1)
I Burn For You (Side 1)
Once Upon A Daydream (Side 2)
Tea In The Sahara (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983) (Side 2)
Every Breath You Take (Backing Track) (Side 2)
Roxanne (Backing Track) (Side 2)
Wrapped Around Your Finger (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983) (Side 2)
Every Bomb You Make (Side 2)
LP 3 (Unreleased)
Synchronicity I (Alternate Mix) (Side 1)
Synchronicity I (Instrumental) (Side 1)
Walking In Your Footsteps (Alternate Mix) (Side 1)
O My God (Alternate Mix) (Side 1)
Mother (Instrumental) (Side 1)
Miss Gradenko (Alternate Mix) (Side 1)
Synchronicity II (Outtake) (Side 2)
Synchronicity II (Extended Version) (Side 2)
Synchronicity II (Instrumental) (Side 2)
Every Breath You Take (Alternate Mix) (Side 2)
LP 4 (Unreleased)
King Of Pain (Alternate Mix) (Side 1)
Wrapped Around Your Finger (Alternate Mix) (Side 1)
Wrapped Around Your Finger (Instrumental) (Side 1)
Tea In The Sahara (Alternate Mix) (Side 1)
Loch (Side 2)
Ragged Man (Side 2)
Goodbye Tomorrow (Side 2)
Truth Hits Everybody (Remix) (Outtake) (Side 2)
Three Steps To Heaven (Side 2)
Rock And Roll Music (Side 2)
2 X CD:
CD 1
Synchronicity I
Walking In Your Footsteps
O My God
Mother
Miss Gradenko
Synchronicity II
Every Breath You Take
King Of Pain
Wrapped Around Your Finger
Tea In The Sahara
Murder By Numbers
CD 2
Truth Hits Everybody (Remix)
Man In A Suitcase (Live At The Variety Arts Theatre, Los Angeles, USA / 16th January 1981)
Someone To Talk To
Message In A Bottle (Live At The Gusman Cultural Center, Miami, USA / 26th October 1979)
I Burn For You
Once Upon A Daydream
Tea In The Sahara (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983)
Every Breath You Take (Backing Track)
Roxanne (Backing Track)
Wrapped Around Your Finger (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983)
Every Bomb You Make
Walking On The Moon (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983)
Hole In My Life (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983)
One World (Not Three) (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 3rd November 1983)
Invisible Sun (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 2nd November 1983)
Murder By Numbers (Live At The Omni, Atlanta, USA / 2nd November 1983)
Walking In Your Footsteps (Derangement)
Tea In The Sahara (Derangement)
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Picture: Duane Michaels