Customer Reviews

Synchronicity

5 star:		(105)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

How do I rate Synchronicity? I'd have to put it in perspective with the other 1,999 cds I've collected over the years. I have all 5 Police cds as combined on their Message in a Box set. I have all 6 Sting solo cds. It's Synchronicity that I keep coming back to. It's 17 years old now and I was just 10 1/2 when it came out. At the time I hated "Every Breath You Take" and "King of Pain", but what does a ten year old know! As I matured, I began to understand what Sting was saying. This is one of those rare albums where music and lyric combine and compliment each other. Psychologically this album never becomes dated or out of touch. It's as tough a disc as Peter Gabriel's 1992 cd "Us" or Jane Siberry's 1993 cd "When I Was a Boy." All 11 tracks on Synchronicity deal with the theme of love and relationships. The metaphorical take on nuclear war in "Walking in Your Footsteps", the mother-son emotional damage playing itself out in future relationships in "Mother", the stress of working and having a family leading to emtional turmoil on "Synchronicity II", the obsessiveness of stalking a loved one on "Every Breath You Take", the isolation and pain of being in a relationship on "King of Pain" and the psychological/emotional damage of the games we play in relationships on "Wrapped Around Your Finger." Few popular albums have ever achieved such depth in lyric and richness in sound as the Police did on Synchronicity. It's digitally remastered too to bring forth all the best elements of this disc. To be fair, all Police albums are at least good. Synchronicity avoids the repetitiveness of their first 3 discs and takes a step further than Ghost in the Machine. Sting as a solo artist hasn't been this lyrically provoking. The closest he's come is on 1991's Soul Cages disc in which the music kind of fell short. Synchronicity is a disc that our grandchildren will know about like Led Zeppelin's IV or Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Definitely worth having in your cd collection.

Bias - Synchronicity was the first rock album I ever received (alongside of VH 1984) and it blew me away then, as it still does now.

The biggest thing that hit me - after purchasing the CD years after I lost the tape - is how well the production fits the music. Everything is so lush, its like stepping into infinite sonic space while bumping into pieces of sound floating all around you. The depth of this album is amazing. It, like Peter Gabriel's _Security_, was made for CD.

The songs - To me the only throwaway is "Murder by Numbers" - the definitive version of that song was done by Zappa on the "Broadway the Hard Way" (with Sting at the helm, of course). I think Summers is too clean and sloppy for this song to work. I love the arpeggiated riffing by Summers on "Miss Gradenko", and I must be the one person that loves the swirling, arabesque "Mother" - primarily because when you break down the music, its turns out to be a very cleverly disguised 12-bar blues riff! Such is the majesty of this album.

The best songs for your hi-fi have to be "Walking in Your Footsteps" and "Synchronicity II". The former sparkles and tantalizes with strange percussive synth noises (why does everything on this album sound so different from every synth-pop band of the same time frame? Its still modern after almost 15 years). The latter, a grungy, daring escape into pure musical darkness, is the best performance of the Police's - and especially Andy Summers' - careers. The feedback "guitar solo" and the ripping 16-th note solo that fades in at the end of this track are utterly gripping.

The best part about this album though, if you are a gloomy gus like me, is the lyrical work by Sting. The images in "King of Pain" stick with you long after the music leaves your mind - "A skeleton choking on a crust of bread" is my favorite. You don't have to be some erudite Jungian analyst to appreciate the sense of lyrical foreboding in "Synchronicity II" - the polemic dedicated/dessicating the the suburbanite animal is bitter and acidic in its exactness and realism. What does old Nessie have to do with Dad and Grandmother screaming at the wall? I don't know, I still don't know, but the song still sends a shiver up my spine 15 years after I first heard it.

Its a bona fide classic, like Zeppelin IV. Unlike that album though, repetitive play and ultimately time doesn't diminish its power. If you love music you simply must own this album. It is the definitive rock statement of the 80s, and one of the best rock albums ever made.

The Police don't need any introduction and I doubt this album does either. I had it on (very worn) vinyl for years but finally decided to upgrade to CD. In light of their recent announcement of a reunion tour, it may not be long before this becomes harder to find and/or more expensive than it is at the moment. It's great rock music delivered in the way only The Police know how but it's also classic 80s pop.

My favourite tunes are "Every Breath You Take", "Synchronicity II" (I absolutely loved the video!), "Tea In The Sahara" and "Wrapped Around Your Finger" but it's a great CD all round. Even back then, it was easy to see that Sting would become the megastar that he eventually did. I hope the reunion works out. I'd pay good money to see these guys play live.

The last and greatest work in the Police catalogue, "Synchronicity" shows the now legendary band transcending pop music and becoming much more comfortable with following their own artistic visions.

For the most part, the song line-up is rock solid. It opens with the fast paced "Synchronicity I" before gliding into the softer yet very pointed "Walking In Your Footsteps" and "O My God", both of which have much sparser music and phenomenal lyrics. The next song, "Mother", is one of the most appalling songs available, and it jars very harshly with the smoothness of the rest of the album . . . and after many many listens, I have to believe that was the entire point, and although it's abrasive as sandpaper, I just can't bring myself to hit the skip button.

Subsequent to the sonic assault of "Mother" comes the best part of the album. The next 6 songs, starting with "Miss Gradenko" and ending with "Tea in the Sahara" are what make this album so special. "Every Breath You Take" is one of the most beautiful songs ever written, and melds perfectly with the aching sparseness of "King of Pain" and the wry humor of "Wrapped Around Your Finger". Simply an incredible set, and saddening in retrospect that this was the final collaboration between these three gifted musicians.

For those new to the police, this or the "The Classics" is definitely the album to start with, but their earlier work, especially "Zenyatta Mondatta" and "Ghost in the Machine" are not to be missed. "Synchronicity"; however, is the album for which they will forever be remembered, and one listen is enough to see why.

Thirty years later, Synchronicity still holds up as a high-water mark in the world of pop-rock. Though not my fave Police album (that honor would go to Zenyatta Mondatta), I have many fond memories of June of '83...I had just finished 6th grade, summer vacation was beginning, and Synchronicity would not leave my turntable.

We all know the hits..."Every Breath You Take", "King of Pain", "Wrapped Around Your Finger" and "Synchronicity II"...and also the great album tracks like "O My God" and "Tea in the Sahara". But I see a lot of people on this site talking smack about "Mother". Sure, it's, um..."not conventional." Yeah, it's in an "odd time signature." No, Andy Summers doesn't exactly have a "golden throat." But for me, the song works. In fact, it ought to work for anyone whose mom has ever driven him/her nutso. We are made to feel the effects of Andy's smothering mother through the over-the-top performance. Besides, my mom HATED the song, so that was understandably good enough for me.

My one gripe about this new CD reissue (and ones that have come before) is that it keeps "Murder By Numbers" as the final track. Those of us old enough to know what a turntable is remember that "Murder" was NOT a part of the original LP. By tacking it onto the end of the CD, the desolate, reflective mood created by "Tea in the Sahara" is ruined. "Murder by Numbers", originally the B-side of "Every Breath You Take" and a great track in its own right, clearly does not fit the mood of Synchronicity.

Otherwise, this new 2003 reissue is great, with big, punchy sound. A vast improvement over disc 4 of Message in a Box.

"Synchronicity" is a great album in many ways. It has three top 10 hits in "King of Pain," "Wrapped Around Your Finger," and of course one of the best songs ever made, "Every Breath You Take," which stayed at number 1 on the Billboard charts for six weeks. The other songs are also good in their own way. In some of the songs, you might actually see a picture in your head because the lyrics that Sting uses has good imagery and imagination. My favorites other than the three hits were "Synchronicity parts I & II," "Walking In Your Footsteps," and "Tea In The Sahara." The song, "Mother" might even make you laugh when you listen to it because of the words and the way the singer says them.

The Police couldn't have made a much better album to be their final one with Synchronicity. If you like 80's pop/rock, or The Police, I recommend getting Synchronicity to add to your collection.

People are too hard on this record. It's not the best LP ever, but it's not the trash basket some people claim. I love "Roxanne," but classic rock radio has harmed that song now in my book. The same for "Message in a Bottle." Great tunes by a great band, but radio continues to push these tracks so much that it's overkill. The "Synchronicity" cuts, despite being played on radio more than their earlier hits, in 1983 and 1984, aren't played to death on radio these days. In fact, when The Police played "Wrapped Around Your Finger" in Dallas last month, it was magical. And say what you want about "Every Breath You Take," but that guitar part and tone are amazing. Yes, the song was played to death back in the day on radio and on MTV, but stay away from the song for 20 years, then go back to it. It's unique, it's inspired and it, like the LP, isn't as bad as the nay-sayers say. Not a perfect score, but no grade F, either.

Synchronicity -- the Police.

This is arguably the best album by the Police; it is certainly the one that fixed them into immortality on the charts in the `80's. Despite several Top 40 hits to its credit (Synchronicity II, Wrapped Around Your Finger, Every Breath You Take, King of Pain), Synchronicity is nevertheless one of the more original sounds from that era, or even since.

The Police are distinguished by a heavily Reggae-influenced style in a decade when Reggae was all but unknown in the U.S.A. Sting is magnificent as the lead singer, his voice spiraling out of his natural range in a weirdly perfect complement to the music. Sting also has the credit for most of the music and lyrics, which tend toward the politically- and environmentally-conscious :

"Another industrial, ugly morning Grandmother screaming at the wall
We have to shout above the din of our rice crispies, We can't hear anything at all
Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration, but we know all her suicides are fake...
Another working day has ended, Only the rush hour hell to face
Packed like lemmings into shining metal boxes, Contestants in a suicidal race."
--Synchronicity II

. His thoughtful, poetic style, which later matures in his solo albums, is in evidence:

There's a little black spot on the sun today, that's my soul up there...
...There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop, that's my soul up there...
There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt,
There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed, There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread."
--King of Pain.

Yet in keeping with the upbeat style of music, there is no trace of melancholy in Synchronicity, whatever the subject. The lines are delivered with ironic flair, as if the Police are daring the doomsayers of the 20th century to take heart and find energy and hope in themselves anywhere they can.

Synchronicity is not only a standout in any `80's collection: I would especially recommend it for anybody who would appreciate unusual, smart pop music with Reggae and Jazz overtones.

-Andrea, aka Merribelle.

this is propably the finest Police album up to this day.
Sting,Andy and Stewart created an album that contains many more commercial rockers but without a lack of their own style and experiments."Mother" (short and wierd chaotic piece shouted by Andy)is the best example that they were not afraid of conroversies and loose of fans.
as far as the time goes songs like "Miss gradenko","Every breath you take","synchronicity" or "wrapped around your finger" are sounding fresh,groovy and ,what is the most important, they all have the spirit of true genius in it.
The police splited up after they recorded "Synchronicity" - propably because they coulnd't record anything so great as this album.only once you can do revolution in rock music without copying yourself. Police did it - and they gave us this timeless album.

How nice to see an album sell a bajillion copies, while at the same time pushing the envelope of what pop music can be. Almost 20 years later, this still sounds incredible. The lyrics have even more meaning nowadays, more so than to my 13 year old brain back then. "Tea in the Sahara" and "Walking in Your Footsteps," though not hits from the album have lost none of their luster with age. Sting has an amazing ability to write songs that LAST!! We're lucky to have him around.