Police - Ghost In The Machine [Digipak]
![Ghost In The Machine [Digipak]](/images/Ghost-In-The-Machine-Digipak-B00008BRDW-L.jpg)
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.32 You Save: $7.66 (64%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.67 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Ghost In The Machine [Digipak]
Free Music Review: A Thousand Rainy Days Since We First Met...
Hit: 4 Stars
"Ghost in the Machine" from 1981 is the band's fourth studio release and the predecessor to the mega-hit "Synchronicity."I've always enjoyed 'Ghost' for its blend of seemingly upbeat instrumentalism and darker edged lyrics. Where "Zenyatta Mondatta" was full of instrumental grooves, "Ghost" has much tighter song structure and the Police depart from their one chord/one groove style but retain the polyrhythmic, reggae-tinged style that made them so successful and unique.
"Spirits in the Material World" has a great bass/drum interplay, with the subtle guitar work of Andy Summers bringing it together. Sting's lyrics reflect the overall general theme of the record, with an anti-technology, anti-modern approach. The overall effect has a haunting quality.
"Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" is the sure-fire hit of the disk. The rolling keyboards, swirling effects and buoyant drums make this one of the more upbeat tunes here. Sting alternates using a bow with a more complex plucked bassline in the chorus. I still love the lines "It's a thousand rainy days since we first met/it's a big enough umbrella/but it's always me who ends up getting wet." Sting seems to have liked these lyrics as well, as he has reused/recycled them in his solo work over the years.
"Invisible Sun" is another dark tune, with layers of guitars and multi-tracked vocals, and lyrics with images of factories, smoke, and dirt.
"Hungry For You" features Sting singing mostly in French, and his accent sounds pretty good. The tune has a peppy beat, a cool guitar rhythm and backing saxophones.
"Demolition Man" has an outstanding bass/drum line, feedback drenched guitars, and droning saxes. This is the original, not the remade movie version.
"Too Much Information" has a bouncy rhythm and horn section, and whenever I think about all of the media and technology overload we experience on a daily basis, I hum the chorus to this song.
"One World (Not Three)" is a strong world-beat tune with Sting's call to unite across class, culture, race and economic situation.
"Omegaman" is Andy Summer's contribution, with bizarre chord washes and post-apocalyptic vision.
"Secret Journey" is an overlooked gem. It has a very atmospheric introduction, dense layers of guitars, and another outstanding bass/drum line. The lyrics involve a student and his blind teacher, but the journey is as much mental as physical.
"Darkness" is a second overlooked gem, as it's a Stewart Copeland number. This one has a somber piano line over bass and drums, with guitar twisting underneath. Fantastic hi-hat work by Copeland. The lyrics are some of Copeland's best, and I'm not sure if he sang on this one, but there's an interesting vocal harmony by Sting.
This is a very strong disk, in lyrics, vocals and instrumentation, and shows the Police before the strains of egos and superstardom fragmented their alliance.
Free Music Review: Life was easier when it was boring
Hit: 4 Stars
So states the final song on "Ghost In The Machine," the album where The Police finally got serious. First thing notably gone was the typical faux-Euro title (I remember some of my college radio mates referring to this album as "Ghostada Machinos" and thinking they were super clever) and then came the socio-political bent of the album. After "Zenyatta Mondatta's" "Driven To Tears," "Ghost In The Machine" drops four message songs into the mix. Also gone were the instrumental workouts that often felt like filler.
Cribbing a little from George Harrison and the prevailing new-wave synths of 1981, the title song makes Sting's first major outright political swipe:
"Our so called leaders speak,
with words they try to jail you.
The subject ain't the meek,
it's the rhetoric of failure."
Coming in the era of Reagan/Thatcher, (and a few years before Live-Aid), it was the harbinger of where the album was heading. "Invisible Sun" is a cosmic mix of Beach Boys desire and goth moodiness wrapped in an environmentalist/pacifist message. "Rehumanize Yourself" angrily rips on the disaffected youth of London that would sell themselves out to The National Front with one hysterically profane line, and "One World" was The Police's final excursion into pseudo-reggae, complete with a great Bob Marley-esque lyric.
"Ghost In The Machine" is also a dark album. The world-weariness that "Driven To Tears" hinted at implodes on "Invisible Sun," "Secret Journey" and "Darkness" (possibly my favorite Stewart Copeland Police song). Even a poppy song like "Too Much Information" twists cynically, stating "seen the world six times over, seen the Cliffs of Dover...overkill overkill, over my dead body." While "Secret Journey" is dark in hue, it is also meditative - and points to the more contemplative "Synchronicity" album to follow.
But once again, it was one of Sting's brilliantly catchy pop-songs that caught everyone's attention. "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" is - well - magic. Like "De Do Do Do" or "Every Breath You Take," it contains that certain element of timelessness. You can't kick it out of your mind, and it lifts "Ghost In The Machine" out of the doldrums where it occasionally mires. An additional kick comes from the rocking "Omega Man" and "Demolition Man" (a song Sting would eventually re-record for a Sly Stone/Wesley Snipes movie of the same name!).
Like on the other Police re-masters, the sound here is crisp and clear. I am happy there are no "bonus tracks" tacked on the mar the album's flow. You could sense the band was at a turning point, and "Synchronicity" would be coming soon.
Free Music Review: Some Excellent Individual Tracks but Not Their Best By Far!
Hit: 4 Stars
Coming after the brilliant "Zenyatta Mondatta" it was always going to be difficult to top what would turn out to be their best ever album, one that flowed and where every track fit together cohesively to produce a great overall album rather than just a collection of tracks. The tracks on this album don't seem to run very cohesively or flow as well together.
There are some brilliant tracks here, a couple of which represent The Police's best ever tracks such as "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" and the brilliant "Invisible Sun" but then after a very promising trilogy of great opening tracks, the flow is disrupted by very poor album filler material like "Hungry For You" and "Demolition Man" before ending again with another great trilogy of "Omegaman" (simply brilliant guitar work by Andy Summers and his best ever composition for the band), "Secret Journey" and their most underrated ever track that never made it as a single, the gem, "Darkness" closes out the album.
6 great all-time best ever Police tracks as bookends to 5 truly mediocre fillers is why this album although slightly better than "Outlandos D'Amour", their debut album, and "Synchronicity" their best selling one (mostly because of "Every Breath You Take" and for similar reasons) still falls behind "Zenyatta Mondatta" and "Regatta De Blanc". Still, this is worth getting for the much improved remastered sound quality and for the brilliant 6 tracks; just skip the 5 other tracks. Recommended.
Free Music Review: The Police becomes techno and political
Hit: 4 Stars
After their (cheekily) punk debut Outlandos D'amour, after the reggae-ish Regatta de Blanc, after the fine but somewhat aimless Zenyatta Mondatta, came one of the strongest albums of The Police, Ghost in the Machine, before their swan song "Synchronicity". The title derives from a derogatory description by Gilbert Ryle of the Cartesian belief in the mind-body dualism (we think that Sting and the boys just like the phrase, as we don't think they are experts or even knowledgeable on the subject of philosophy of mind). Here they try a more techno sound, with the use of keyboards and synthesizers. This is also their most political album, even if their politics seems sometimes to be somewhat naïve and confused. There is the catchy, calypso-inspired hit single "Every little thing she does is magic", the ominous "Spirits in the Material World" (the title is another Cartesian reference, though the lyrics seems too muddled in their attempt to be politically significant), there is the prophetic "Too Much Information" (written more than a decade before Internet), there is "Invisible Sun" (a political song about the Northern Ireland troubles, that doesn't add much but posturing), the nice "Rehumanize Yourself", the utopical if nice ska "One World (not three). There are other songs, generally nice if not very memorable.Free Music Review: The Police - More Political With Keyboards Added
Hit: 4 Stars
This album saw The Police move in a distinctly different direction from their earlier stuff. The reggae influence was pretty much gone here and the overall sound is slicker in general. Many fans sight this as the band's weakest effort and at the least it is definitely a transitional album. It is one of the bands most somber efforts with politics taking the lead over relationships in the lyrics. Keyboards are also introduced on this album to varying degrees of success. More huge hits came from this one, "Spirits In The Material World", "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", "Too Much Information" and several more tracks got significant AOR airplay. I almost have the opposite reaction to this album as I have the 3 that preceded it. It does not seem to have aged as well to me. While the first 3 have grown on me over the years, this one I seemed to like more when it first came out. Oh well, either way this is another essential Police album if you are a fan of the band.