Thrifty Tunes: 08.08.09: The Police - Ghost In The Machine
Posted by Paul Hollingsworth on 08.08.2009
Over the course of five short albums, The Police explored a vast musical landscape. Of those five, Ghost In The Machine is the most varied and challenging. Almost 30 years later, does the record still hold up?
One of the more interesting things I've learned since I began haunting thrift stores for records is how some albums seem to have been owned by just about everyone on the planet. I've seen loads of copies of Meat Loaf'sBat Out Of Hell , The Eagles' Greatest Hits and Michael Jackson's Thriller . Perhaps the oddest album, however, I've come across the most is The Police's Ghost In The Machine . If I had to guess which of their albums I would have expected to see lots of copies of, it would have been Synchronicity , full of hits like "Every Breath You Take", "King of Pain" and "Wrapped Around Your Finger" or maybe their first greatest hits collection, Every Breath You Take: The Singles . However, it seems more people owned, at least at some point in their life, the more musically ambitious predecessor than the one with their biggest hit. (The criminally misunderstood "Every Breath You Take") So far, I've bought four copies of the album, two from 'I'll give you twenty five bucks for the box' lots and two because the covers and the vinyl were in excellent condition. I've seen scores of others, all in various states of decay and disrepair. If everyone loved it, there must be something to it, right?
The album opens with three well known tracks, the anti-sunshine pop "Spirits In The Material World", the cheery "Every Little Things She Does Is Magic" and the Northern Ireland manifesto, "Invisible Sun". The first two were radio hits, ("Magic" went to #3 and"Spirits" went to #11), but it's "Invisible Sun" which is the most interesting, both musically and lyrically. Politics, particularly European politics, rarely receive much attention in pop songs, except in the vaguest of ways, and it's unusual for a song to deal with a very specific situation, that of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland. For an English band to bring attention to "The Troubles"as they were known, was something that just wasn't done at the time. "Sun" was the lead single in Britain, where it peaked at #2 on the single charts. The Police were a political band, but unlike most punk bands, they actually had a message to deliver. Although they are often classified as 'New Wave', I think the band belong just as much to the punk world as to any other genre. Although musically they are worlds away from The Sex Pistols and The Ramones , the aesthetic of punk, of refusing to conform, of upsetting the status quo, is evident on many of the band's songs, and seldom is more front and center than on this song.
After "Sun", the highlight of the first side of the album is "Demolition Man", a song Sting was so impressed with he rerecorded it when he went solo. "Demolition Man" is the closest I think the band ever got to fully embracing the sounds of punk. While the reggae influences remain, there's a sense of chaos to the tune, a sense that the whole thing might burst apart at the seams at any moment. Sting doesn't sing the lyrics as much as he spits them out, rapid fire, especially during the verses. Stewart Copeland , one of the best drummers of all time, keeps up the frantic pace, and Sting's bass has a raw, unsettling edge to it. (It's hard to imagine he's gone from this to recording chants and folk songs from the Middle Ages.)
Side two opens with "Too Much Information", one of the few songs on the album where guitarist Andy Summers is given something to do besides keep time. The entire trio almost seems backwards in the logic of pop bands. Usually it's the guitarist who is the lead player, but because of Sting and Copeland's extraordinary chemistry (musically at least, if not personally) that the guitar player is almost an afterthought in most of their work. In any other band, I think, Copeland would have been the biggest attraction, because he has a very unfussy but heartfelt style, particularly on solos.
"Rehumanize Yourself" and "One World (Not Three)" head into politics again, but without the success of "Sun". On these songs, the protests are vague and indistinct, entirely different than the concrete images found in the earlier song. Perhaps it's the mix or it may have been a conscious choice, but Sting's voice sounds sped up, even for him. (I realize it may have been on purpose, as the song concerns people turning into machines, but it draws too much attention to itself and takes away from the mood of the song.) "One World (Not Three)" shows why it's good and noble for Englishmen to be influenced by reggae music, but its bad when they try to record a straight Bob Marley-ish song. (See also any of U2's increasingly bad attempts or even a few of The Clash's less inspired interpretations. Copeland, however, is given a pass, because, as on all the band's songs, his drumming is top notch.
"Omegaman" is interesting as it serves as the foundation for the more pop friendly sound the band explored more fully on Synchronicity, The chorus is hooky, the beat (relatively) uncomplicated and the lyrics are vague enough to be idle background noise to the radio friendly vibe. "Secret Journey" and album closer "Darkness" are easily the best songs on the album, and not solely because of the unfamiliarity. "Darkness", in particular, sounds like nothing else the band recorded. It is, well, dark and haunting, both in lyrical content and musically. 'but darkness makes me fumble/for a key to a door that's wide open' hardly sounds like the man who later sang "Fortress Around Your Heart" and other romantic drivel.
Complete Track Listing: (1981 on A&M Records)
Side One:
1. Spirits In The Material World
2. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
3. Invisible Sun
4. Hungry For You
5. Demolition Man
Side Two:
1. Too Much Information
2. Rehumanize Yourself
3. One World (Not Three
4. Omegaman
5. Secret Journey
6. Darkness
If it were possible to remove nostalgia from music, very little of the pop produced in the 1980's would survive and be considered classic and/or timeless. With few exceptions, (Prince , The Clash , early U2 , Metallica, The Talking Heads and Guns 'N Roses are obvious examples) much of the music was as disposable and as disheartening as the decade itself. The Police straddle the line between classic and superfluous, (does anybody on the planet really need to hear "Every Breath You Take" ever again?) but this album moves the band much closer to the classic side of things. However, nostalgia is a huge, inescapable part of music, as the band's recent multi-million dollar reunion and tour clearly shows. I'm not sure how many new fans were made on the first big band Generation X-nostalgia cash in, but if there were some made, this is the album most likely to keep them interested.
Pickett Stars : Four out of Five
Next Week : I go blazing into the world of black metal with Venom'sWelcome To Hell .
New Wave was punk. The original punk bands were those playing at CBGB in the mid to late 70s, with a real DIY aesthetic. The Ramones were there, but so were Blondie and the Talking Heads. After punk went UK, it was associated with acts like the Sex Pistols -- what we think of now as punk. A record exec decided that he needed a new name for the other bands, and pulled New Wave out of his hat.
Actually, if you want to put the Police in any scene, you should look into the second wave Ska bands that were popular at the time, like Madness, the English Beat and especially the Specials. They sound so much like the Police (and not in a Men at Work sort of way) that it's a surprise that they weren't more popular at the time. Incidentally, ska groups were and are really popular with punk fans, too.
Posted By: Sly Reference (Guest) on August 08, 2009 at 06:37 PM
