Thoughts listening to The Police's Synchronicity while driving home:
This is such a superb CD. Loved it when it came out, might love it more today. There's a reason I have all of their studio CDs.
The three big hits are the least interesting songs on it. They aren't even the best songs on the "second side" (those would be "Tea in the Sahara" and "Murder by Numbers."). They are, however, gloriously constructed pieces of lush pop that deserve all the play they get. They also had terrific videos
It's tempting to want to construct the following analogy:
"Mother":Synchronicity::"Ignoreland":Automatic for the People as I'm sure many folks think "Mother" (like "Ignoreland") seems out of place and offputting compared to the rest of the CD. They would be wrong. "Mother" is lyrically hilarious and musically complex (you try to copy Stewart playing that 7 time), while "Ignoreland" is lyrically ham-handed and musically dull. There I said it. "Ignoreland" is a whitehead on the beautiful face that is AftP. "Mother" is a dash of delicious spice in a beautiful recipe. (And before you flame me, I adore the rest of Automatic.)
"Synchronicity II" is The Police's best imitation of Rush and "New World Man" is Rush's best imitation of The Police.
Am I the only person who listens to "Walking in Your Footsteps" and constantly wants to make that last word "Vootschtaps?"
("What?!" "He is following in his grandfather's vootschatps. Vootschtaps...vootschtaps..vootschtaps!")