[A connecting principle] -- Earlier this week, I saw a Facebook post about Synchronicity, the final studio album from The Police. According that particular write-up, The Police released this album on 6/1/1983. I thought, "Perfect! There's my topic for this week's Flashback!" However, in compiling notes for my own post, I found that other sources, Wikipedia and AllMusic among them, list 6/17/1983 as the release date. Either way, this album hit the charts 38 years ago this month. But if you're interested, the band's own website lists 6/1/1983 as the release date, so I could just as easily say the record came out 38 years ago this very week, if I wanted to be that much more topical (or synchronous, I suppose).
Anyway, after spending most of 1982 on non-Police endeavors, the band reconvened to hammer out the details of their next studio record. The three of them had outlines of roughly 20 different songs. After their usual battles, they pared the list down to 11 tracks. This tally worked out to their typical balance of songwriting credits -- one Copeland song, one and a half from Summers, and the rest by Sting, who was largely regarded the best songwriter among them. As such, according to Summers, there were "hardly any broken hearts" over the final song selection.
Synchronicity (1983) was named after Arthur Koestler's book, The Roots of Coincidence, which mentions Carl Jung's theory of Synchronicity. This was The Police's most successful album to date, spawning four hit singles and winning a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Early in the tour, just before playing to a crowd of 18,000 in New York's Shea Stadium, the band realized that things couldn't get much bigger. According to Sting, this was "the beginning of the end."
Well, I guess if you have to end a musical collaboration, you might as well go out on a high note like Synchronicity, quite likely as close as a group can get to a perfect record. And because I truly believe Synchronicity is nearly perfect, I have to feature all 11 tracks for this post, right? Right!
Flashback: The Police, Synchronicity (1983)
Here are the tracks embedded in this week's video playlist (which is your favorite?):
- 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
That's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.
I'll see you in seven!
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