Last time I checked, this album was in the top 20 sellers of all time, with semi-hit single "Every Breath You Take" in the top 20 singles of all time. Such numbers must indicate a classic album, right? Well, sort of.
Granted, "Every Breath" is a wonderful piece of pop, a darkly
evocative tale of passionate stalker love. But it's not the best
song on here. That honor belongs to "Synchronicity II," another
dark story of the mendacity of daily life and one man's desire to
break free from the monotony. The song careens from the somewhat
upbeat verses to the dark pre-chorus and then finally the chorus
itself, which talks about monsters in a Scottish loch and has
nothing to do with the song. But since Sting was not taking himself
as seriously in 1983 as he does now, the random lyrical shift
works. But credit must be given to Andy Summers for creating some
inventive chord changes. On my 12-string, it sounds great.
Oh, if only the rest of the album was as good as this song. "Synchronicity I" has very quiet production and sounds like many generic '80s pop songs, while the otherwise creative "Walking in your Footsteps" is marred by silly lyrics and "Miss Gradenko" is just average. I do not know what to make of "Mother," but I know I never want to hear it again, and neither does the rest of the world. "O My God" is a pretty good song, a precursor to King Crimson's Three Of A Perfect Pair album, but Copeland, Sting and Summers are nowhere near as quirkly as the Crim.
The Police settle nicely into a balance of pop, punk and new wave on this album, which makes it hard to categorize and interesting to listen to. "King of Pain" is a sad-sounding, well-written song, and "Wrapped Around Your Finger" merges a few different styles in one of the band's best love songs. "Tea in the Sahara" is a decent ballad and the band wraps things up with the off-kilter guitar sprinkled behind lyrics about murder in "Murder by Numbers." This actually sounds a lot closer to King Crimson, but by this time the listener has probably fallen asleep.
Synchronicity is a very sophisticated album, missing the fun of Regatta De Blanc and Zenyatta Mondatta. The muted, treble-heavy production favors Sting's high voice and Summer's guitar riffs but leaves Copeland and Sting's bass out in the cold. This is worth purchasing for most of side 2 and "Synchronicity 2," but the rest is an example of just how mundane the Police actually were on a given day.
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