Synchronicity

I liked pretty much the entire album with the exception of "Mother," that was just rough. 4/5

This is my second Police record I've gotten on this generator. This one, unlike the other one, is extremely experimental! Mostly gone are the heavy reggae sound, and instead, it's been replaced with new wave garbage.

I don't know what the hell happened on Mother, but it is almost unlistenable. Just Sting moaning. Truly painful.

Truth be said, I'm not a huge fan of The Police, and moreso of Sting. He is the same kind of douchebag frontman as Bono from U2. I just find that reggae sung by white people loses something. It's like it isn't genuine or something. Also, whatever the fuck is happening on most of this record is also not up my alley.

Overall, not a great album today. It was a struggle to get through. It is definately stacked in the middle of the record. Once Every Breath You Take comes on, the record gets leaps and bounds better, until Wrapped Around Your Finger, then it returns to its regularly scheduled trash for the last few songs on the record.

Favourite songs: Every Breath You Take, King of Pain, Wrapped Around Your Finger

Least favourite songs: Mother, Walking in Your Footsteps, O My God, Tea in the Sahara

2/5

Such unexpectted diversity in sound, incredible songwriting.

I like some of the songs a lot. But I don't love the album as a whole. It's fine, some of the songs I'll add to a playlist but I don't see listening to the whole thing again anytime soon.

Classic touchstone of Dad rock (maybe Mom rock actually? I think the Police albums we had on the shelf were hers in any case). I thought I knew what I was in for with this based on knowing only "Every Move You Make" and "King of Pain", so I was impressed with how different most of it was from those, like the A-side was often discordant and evil in a way that was really interesting

What the fuck is Mother? The opening of this album is fun up to that song. Every Breath You Take is a creepy fucking song. Tea In The Sahara is cool.

They quit at the height of their powers and left a nearly perfect discography behind them. I say NEARLY perfect, as each Police album has at least one cringey song. It's a weird part of their musical signature that I've come to accept, allowing them that indulgence to get their ya yas out, and not letting it interfere with my enjoyment of the rest of the album. On this album it is of course "Mother." Beyond that, "Synchronicity" is a worthy Swan Song for them, featuring some of their finest work. I can't say it's my personal favorite, but it's probably their most musically varied and refined album.

I love their sound and think it is largely due to the space they give each other as a trio. You can hear each instrument so distinctly in a way that you don't get from most other bands. Never simply washes over me. Each player has such a unique playing style of their own, and they are all adding really interesting touches throughout, but not in a showboating or proggy way. It's all in service to the songs.

I believe another strength of theirs is that, in so many ways, they are such different people; ages, backgrounds, influences, temperaments, etc. They were able to bring all that together so fluidly, especially here in their later work.

Definitely an album of two halves for me. First half, the Synchronicity bookends were good, but Mother seemed to derail it for me, WTF?! Second half, much more familiar - when I was starting out playing bass, I'd learn a bunch of Sting's riffs, they were always simplistic but effective.

The band's final and best album, Synchronicity blueprints all the cynicism of the 80s in one artistic statement, focusing on the uniformity driven into us by the tendencies of societal conformity, and how though we may all look alike, we are alienated and dissociated from one another, in some dystopian world where God isn't dead--He's sadistic. And where you have to yell over your Rice Krispies if you expect anyone to pay attention to your bogus suicide attempts.

I find The Police enjoyable if somewhat unremarkable. I enjoyed this album but I don't think I would ever really deliberately seek it out either. I can appreciate that it takes some risks though for such a mainstream group.

Every breath you takeee

Reminded me of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts a little bit. Sting really fancies himself though.

A tale of two sides. Side A and Side B.
Side A of this album is probably the weakest The Police have released in their career. Synchronicity I and II are both nicely rocking songs and save this side a bit. Especially II.
The songs "Mother" and "Miss Gradenko" take away at least one star from the album. So incredibly bad.

Then comes part B, starting with the overplayed "Every Breath You Take," followed by everything The Police became admired for in "The King Of Pain."
"Wrapped Around Your Finger" and "Tea In The Sahara" belong to the best that the Police have ever done and the jazzy "Murder By Numbers," which was, iirc, a b side to Every Breath finished this side strong.

2* for the first half of the album, 5* to the second half.