The Police
Synchronicity

From 1979 to 1982, The Police toured for four years with hardly any breaks. They conquered America almost without realizing it, and the scenes of hysteria at their concerts led many cultural and societal experts to talk about "Policemania" - which was not the absurd and crazy "Beatlemania," but came quite close. Even my father, bless his soul, knew them, and if he knew them, completely ignorant of music, that really shows how great their popularity was between 1979 and 1984.

Now, after three hectic years, the trio takes a break. And here they bring out an album that, although Pop, and musically less imaginative than "Reggatta de Blanc," will always be found in every gold album chart of popular music classics.

"Synchronicity" is "Pop d’Autore": Pop made with mastery. And I use the word "art" advisedly: the "sobriety and measure" of certain songs (especially "Wrapped Around Your Finger") really make one think of the "classical perfection" of certain works of art.

The intro is a whip lash, even though the initial keyboard doesn’t excite me. I prefer the live version, more minimalist. Obviously, the studio version is also a gem. Here, in the lyrics, Sting talks about Jungian synchronicity. The lyrics, frankly, are a potpourri, where Sting, perhaps too enthusiastic about his new readings, wants to reduce everything to Jung's ideas. Anyway, the way words and music are united is remarkable.

"Walking in Your Footsteps" is the first of many "slow masterpieces" on the album. Here is Copeland on toms, and Summers almost imperceptible but, as usual, extremely effective. In the live version, Stewart switches to vibraphone and Andy is more present with more melancholic phrasing. For me, the lyrics are magnificent because they are ironic and bitter at the same time: just as the brontosaurus disappeared due to evolution, we humans risk disappearing because of the madness of the powerful who threaten daily to detonate the atomic bomb ("if we explode the atomic bomb"). In 1982, the threat of a nuclear catastrophe was very real, and this danger was also addressed by U2, in a more direct and less symbolic way, in "Seconds".

"Oh, My God." The music develops with the bass in the foreground, which is then joined by Summers and a slightly "off-note" sax. But here the lyrics are the real jewel, a masterpiece of sincerity. "Everyone I know is lonely, I belong to no one, and so sometimes I pray." Sting admits his inner void and asks God to fill it up in some way: "Fill it up in some way." Although the song is musically great, the deep intimacy of the verses deserved a slower pace. I've always thought the music of "Tea in the Sahara" would have been more appropriate.

"Mother" is a fantastic guitar work by one of the greatest guitarists in popular music, so talented as to receive praise from "master king" Robert Fripp. Lennon (given the terrifying music) would have built upon it a text where he would have screamed his desire for motherly affection. Instead, Summers does the opposite and writes a simple but ironic text against overly oppressive and suffocating mothers: "All the girls I date eventually become my mother. But I don't need her as a friend. Well, I hear my mother calling. Oh dear mother, please listen and don’t devour me." Objectively a masterpiece, although I would never listen to it twice in a row. In fact, I almost never listen to it. Too extreme for me.

"Miss Gradenko" is by Copeland. The musical creativity is beyond question, but that childish, banal melody makes it almost sound like a nursery rhyme. I never listen to this one.

From this moment, despite the poor arrangement of the pieces, every song is a classic.

"Synchronicity II" is an excellent pop-rock. Summers does his job brilliantly again and then elevates it with a "feedback solo." The lyrics are again excellent: they talk about a man's day who observes his family in the morning, with his wife's frustration, the mother-in-law's screams; then he goes to work, finds the secretaries dressed up like prostitutes, faces insults from his employer, and then the factories that continue to pollute the sky, and then the sad return home stuck in traffic. The reference to the "Scottish lake" refers, in my opinion, to the monster reaction of Loch Ness that he might have someday due to the sad routine he is subjected to. Among the best of the group – both musically and lyrically.

And here comes "Every Breath You Take." Sting brought it to the studio in a version with the organ, without pretensions. It was the genius of Andy who saw the potential in it. Knowing the greatness of his bandmate on guitar (see "Invisible Sun"), Sting said to him, "Do whatever you want with it." And Summers invented his timeless staccato... Here Andy truly demonstrates his genius, which is the ability to show the greatness of simple things. As Copeland said in an interview in 1997: "Without Andy, that song would be nothing." What’s sad is that, on the sheet music, it still reads "Music and Words by Sting."

The singing is very beautiful. It's a pity that Sting's second beautiful falsetto in the finale is faded, and you can only hear it if you turn up the volume.

Copeland is intelligently discreet, especially in the final chorus. As he said in an interview: "It’s my favorite performance because it's compact." For me, that "compact" means "without ever showing off." Stuart takes a step back here, as he does in almost the entire album. If he had indulged his imagination in this piece, he would have distracted attention from the singing and the guitar. Here, he silently accompanies the group, like a silent leader guiding a team. Magnificent.

The lyrics concern a man who can't stop "looking with the eyes of his mind" at the woman who left him, i.e., being unable to stop thinking about her. It’s not a sappy or sugary song. The lyrics describe a sick obsession of a man stuck in the past, unwilling to move forward. And for this reason, the dark music perfectly matches the words, which are those of a maniacally obsessed and depressed person. Regarding the lyrics, at some points, they’re a bit adolescent ("I keep crying baby, please") and also incoherent when he says "Every night you stay" (as if she’s still there), when it’s clear she’s gone ("Since you have gone"). Absurd is the title - it should obviously be "I'll Be Watching You," because that's what the text is about. Rationality is often optional. Terrible, really terrible, the positioning. Such a song can only be in one place: at the end of the album. Because after such a song, there is only silence.

Back to earth with "King of Pain", which remains a beautiful pop song nonetheless. Here Copeland on vibraphone, with the piano in plain view which then yields the scene to Summers with his typical phrasings and one of his few solos. But it's the lyrics that are a masterpiece. Here Sting shows a good talent as a symbolist, when describing how he feels "a king on a throne with torn eyes, a frozen dead salmon in a waterfall, a whale stranded on the beach by the ebb of the great tide, a butterfly trapped in a spider's web, a black-winged seabird with a broken back, a rich man sleeping on a golden bed." These images describe his soul ("That’s my soul out there"). He concludes sadly: "I will always be the king of pain," meaning he sees no way out of his alienation (see the stranded whale, representing a fish out of water), and his pain. Rarely have I heard praise for this song’s text. It deserved it.

"Wrapped Around Your Fingers": when slow becomes art. Here there is such a clever use of electronics, guitar, and even drums that I am led to talk about Pop art. The keyboard is magnificent, as are Summers' very delicate phrasings. Copeland himself makes the drums almost "sing," with his very measured work on the rim and the cymbals. No one goes "over the top." If I had to give a title to this song, I would say: sobriety.

"Tea in the Sahara" talks about a group of sisters who end up burned in the desert after having fulfilled a final wish. The verses are very beautiful in imagery, but useless. It's the banal recounting of a story. Such a beautiful melody should not have been wasted this way. Setting the text aside, the song is another slow masterpiece. Originally, the album ended here. It’s not the ending I would have chosen, but still a great conclusion.

"Murder by Numbers" was the B-side of "Every Breath You Take." It was later added in the CD version. The lyrics are chilling, although ironic, and only become clear in the third verse: if you want to kill without spilling a drop of blood, become a politician. The music is good, but it’s clear that after the previous songs, this is a really minor song, closing the Masterpiece on a minor note.

“Synchronicity” sold 16 million copies and was brought around the world between the summer of 1983 and March 1984. March 1984 marks the (unofficial) end of The Police as a group. Their historic concert in August 1983 at Shea Stadium is famous, the same venue that saw the maximum triumph (in popular terms) of the Beatles (August 1965). Sting said: “That night at Shea Stadium I realized we couldn’t do anything better... We ended at the top, and the legend remains intact.” It would be lovely if their breakup had been that smooth and noble...

The truth is quite different. As Sting himself said years later: “I had reached the point where if I brought 12 songs to the studio, I wanted all 12 songs to be on the album. I no longer felt like fighting for every piece.” This “delusion of omnipotence” is the real reason for the end... Almost all of the songs on this album stem from Sting’s ideas. But without the other two, they’d have remained just beautiful ideas. Sting should have realized this by thinking about what "Every Breath You Take" would have been without Summers. The delusion of omnipotence led him to believe that he would be able to make other "Synchronicity" albums alone. Of course, there was never any “Synchronicity” signed Gordon Summers.

To this, one adds the (literally) wild quarrels with Copeland. The fights during the making of "Synchronicity" are almost as famous as the album itself. Insults and even punches flew between the two hotheads, and they were on the brink of breaking up. As one of the album’s collaborators said: “Stewart and Sting, at that time, hated each other.” It was only with the intervention of Miles Copeland, the group's manager, that it was decided to finish the album.

Copeland was, and is, a man of utmost modesty, kind, and always smiling. But he did not tolerate Sting considering him a sidekick, and he certainly wasn’t someone with any reverential fears – being a composer superior to the "sting." And so, Stuart would always deflate the EGO balloon of his mate when it got too inflated. Sting couldn’t stand it and reacted badly. At a certain point, “gold-hearted Summers” could no longer mediate between the two, and it was the end.

From this moment, the two continued each their own ways. Copeland would do very creative things - there are people who literally adore him and consider him a compositional genius even more than a great drummer - but without the ability to touch the heart of the people. Sting, after beautiful things at the beginning, would fall into easy pop.

The Police gave me the impression of a “natural creativity” - as if their records were made without real effort. If they hadn’t hurriedly made “Zenyatta Mondatta” due to record company demands but instead took the time to make just one album in 1981, today we would have 4 great albums in 5 years.

I’ll say it: the breakup of The Police gives me more regrets than that of The Beatles, because I believe that The Beatles, despite the disparity of outcomes, gave truly so much during their seven years of collaboration. They could have done much more, but what they did is still a lot – not to mention splendid. In the case of The Police, it seems to me that the great things they could have done together are much more than what they did. What they did, for me, is just the tip of the iceberg. It went this way.