#323 - The Police - Ghost in the Machine (1981)

MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:

THE POLICE BIO

The Police formed in 1977 and emerged during the British new wave scene. Their styles throughout their career were influenced by punk, reggae, and jazz. Their 1978 debut album Outandos d'Amour, which included Roxanne and Can't Stand Losing You, peaked at #6 on the UK Albums Chart. Their second album released the following year, Reggatta de Blanc became the first of four consecutive #1 albums. The big singles on that release were Message In A Bottle and Walking On The Moon. Zenyatta Mondatta followed in 1980 (Don't Stand So Close To Me, Driven To Tears, De Do Do Do, De Da Da), leading us to today's release, Ghost In The Machine.

The line-up for this album is the classic 3 piece we all know - Sting on bass and vocals, Stewart Copeland on drums, and Andy Summers on guitar.

After GITM, Synchronicity was their final release in 1983 and sold over 8 million copies worldwide. The band attempted to reunite in 1986 to record an album, but never got that far. Guitarist Andy Summers explains: "The attempt to record a new album was doomed from the outset. The night before we went into the studio Stewart broke his collarbone falling off a horse and that meant we lost our last chance of recovering some rapport just by jamming together. Anyway, it was clear Sting had no real intention of writing any new songs for the Police. It was an empty exercise."

They have sold over 75 million records worldwide, ranking them among the best-selling bands of all time. They've accumulated 6 Grammy Awards, 2 Brit Awards, and an MTV Video Music Award. They were inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. A one-time reunion tour in 2007 and 2008 made them the world's highest earning musicians for 2008.

BACKGROUND – GHOST IN THE MACHINE

Ghost In The Machine was The Police’s fourth studio album, released in late 1981 to international success. It was a top 5 album in ten countries, including the UK, and #2 on the US Billboard chart. It was certified platinum in less than one month in the UK, and under 2 months in the US. This was the first album to feature heavy use of keyboards and horns.

It was recorded on the Caribbean island of Montserrat (and also in Quebec). After having done the previous album, Zenyatta Mondatta, within a tight deadline of four weeks under pressure from the record company to deliver an album to the market, the band had decided to loosen up more for a change when it came around to recording Ghost in the Machine. This time they spent six weeks in Montserrat, which was, according to drummer Stewart Copeland, "a 12 hour flight from the nearest record company"

Sting said the band’s intentions going into the album was to take a ‘fresh new approach’ to the music: "Ghost was, for us, a please-yourself album. In it we pleased ourselves. Our last records were experiments in commercialism. I’d been obsessed with the idea of coming up with a commercial record. ‘Ghost’ doesn’t have that concern. After our first three albums, we wanted to go as far away from the sound we’d already created. I was determined to play some saxophone. Generally we wanted to go off the beaten path, to take a fresh new approach and see what happened."

Much of the material on the album was inspired by Arthur Koestler's The Ghost in the Machine, which also provided the title. It was the first Police album to bear an English-language title.

The album cover is three symbols representing the band. Stewart Copeland is on the left, Sting is in the middle, and Andy Summers is on the right. "We were the ghosts in the machine," Sting explained in Lyrics By Sting, "and while some of the songs are a plea for sanity, others are an expression of that malevolent darkness that haunts us all."

With the Ghosts in the Machine album, Sting says, he used densely layered multi-tracked vocals, synthesized keyboards, and horn riffs to "create the impression of something struggling to the surface, something hidden in the recesses of the mind, something from our dark subconscious wanting to be seen."