Ghost in the Machine
This is The Police's Use Your Illusion
(Outlandos being their Appetite for Destruction
and Zenyatta their Lies) as they really expand
their sound to include strings and synths, horns and all sorts
of gobbledygook. This is their rock opera, their shining moment.
This is the one that put a Police t-shirt on the back of every
kid between the age of 12 and 25. Shit, these guys get away
with singing in French! They spawned an awful Sylvester Stallone
movie with one of their songs, and rang in the era of the nerds
taking over the world. But again, I don't love this album. Maybe
I'm just a contrarian or a stick in the mud, but the thing is
too produced for my taste. Don't worry, I didn't like that Guns
n' Roses stuff either. |
Outlandos D'amour
Best debut ever. Figures I would like the
first, and the rawest, of The Police's albums the best. This
thing just has so much urgency and verve, it's sick. I could
listen to "So Lonely" on repeat for days on end. I mean "Roxanne"
was genre-busting, and the whole reggae flavor gave a little
something for hipsters, stoners and rockers alike. These guys,
despite some calling them punks or mods or whatever, were really
nothing but jazz nerds, but this was the closest a bunch of
music dorks could get to rock "n roll glory. "And you're brother's
gonna kill me and he's 6'10" was heard again and again on my
sweet, beige Fisher Price record player, and it never failed
to elicit giggles of glee. Awesome. |
Reggatta de Blanc
My "band" in high school played "Message
in a Bottle" at a talent show. We sucked. We did worse than
suck, we super-sucked. I was actually the singer and have a
pretty hard time memorizing lyrics. I lost my lyric sheet and
basically kept screaming blahblahblah-o through a tiny Gorilla
amp. We were punk, dammit! You can tell by the cover of this
thing that the guys have matured quite a bit in the one album
since their debut, Outlandos D'amour. The sound on
this one is much more dense (despite remaining a trio), but
the songs much less memorable (aside from the aforementioned
"Bottle"). They just don't seem to be having as much fun here.
Don't get me wrong, the album doesn't suck or anything, but
they certainly hit a mini sophomore slump in my opinion. |
Synchronicity
Listening to this, The Police's last album,
in the context of their other albums, you'd almost think this
was a different band. Where's the light? This layered, dark-ass
album is obviously a break up album, a last in a storied career,
but it's so much deeper and darker than their others, you'd
think something horrible happened to these guys. Not that this
stopped them from somehow getting even bigger than they were
after Ghost in the Machine came out. They were omnipresent
after the release of this album. You couldn't pick up a magazine,
change a channel or walk into a store without seeing images
of Sting (and the other two). I had this thing on constant repeat
in my mom's car and the Sanyo tape deck at home. Everyone fast
forwards through "Mother," but the rest of the agoraphobic,
paranoid, semi-nuclear album is a really weird amalgam of death
and pain and stalking and odd key signatures and a really forward-thinking
album that was way ahead of its time. |
Zenyatta Mondatta
There we go. Let's put Reggatta
behind us and get down to business. We're no longer the punk
kids having a ball on Outlandos D'amour; we're a genuine
band with a serious streak. We've hit our stride and found our
voice. We're a pop rock band with a world music lilt. We use
a rock base and throw in the kitchen sink. We're a good time,
but in a serious musician kind of way. We want people to enjoy
music, not be challenged by it. We make memorable tunes that
can be hummed and loved by men, women and children alike. We
have broken into the main stream cool with this album, and we
ain't looking back. This is the album that made you want that
Police poster on your wall (despite "De Do Do Do, De Da
Da Da"). |
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