The Police's "Synchronicity" LP on A&M SP 3735. There's a lot to say about this album but I'm going to have to be brief. First of all, I find it interesting there is no bar code anywhere on the LP cover.. How did they get away with that? Secondly, and this was shocking to me: the LP does not include track 11: Murder by Numbers... apparently that song was only included as a bonus on the cassette and primarily designed to be a B-side... I always saw that song as integral to the album but apparently the Police's real intent was to have the album contain only four songs on side 2 (yeah, six songs on side 1 and four on side 2) and conclude with "tea in the sahara"....

The album itself is a strong one....the Police went out with a bang... Sting's pompousness since the break up of the Police, poseurization, and rodstewardization of his career have led many to now dismiss the Police entirely... but in 1983 when this album came out the police where the world's top rock band and they had the chops and songs to back that up......

The Police was the first good band I was passionate about and this album was a large part of the reason why... their breakup was a huge dissapointment...in the years immediately following the breakup the concensus was Sting had done well as a solo artist but I think in retrospect his career as a solo star has been a big dissapointment..

"Synchronicity" was an album that combined brilliantly executed rock music with brains.... the brain's were not so much Sting's as they were noted psychologist Carl Jung's .... Sting took Jung's synchronicity and based the album on the concept.... the move was a smart one...interestingly he supposedly wrote the album in a house in the caribbean that had belonged to ian fleming on the same old desk that fleming had written 007 stories.. on the album the songs synchronicity and synchronicity II are standout tracks and i prefer them to the three bigger hits: Every breath you take, king of pain and wrapped around your finger.... Andy Summer's "mother" provides some levity..("murder by numbers" in a sense is necessary on this album too as it counterbalances sting's serious/preachy/poseur/whathaveyou tendencies with some dark humour).

andy summers and stewart copeland -his lefthanded drumming technique always gave the police a distinct sound- provided some great soundscapes although sting was no slouch on the bass.... basically the police could really cook but they were also just a bit cleverer than the rest.."men among boys" comes to mind... andy summer was in his mid 30s by the time he joined the police, stewart copeland the song of a high ranking US CIA officer based in the middle east and sting a former schoolteacher... sting superstar would become increasingly annoying but perhaps copeland/summers succeded in keeping sting's ego in check for those five years the police ruled the world.....