Do I have to tell the story of a thousand rainy days

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

tbc : Ghost In The Machine - The Police


When I reviewed (and was somewhat disappointed in) Synchronicity, Mr Stanniland expressed first surprise that I'd never listened to their previous album and then disgust that I couldn't possibly listen to it because a) it was against the rules and b) I was too busy with Rod Stewart and Cliff Richard albums to find time to listen something I might actually like.  But it's his birthday today, so let's chuck the rulebook out the window!  I'm expecting to like this - but I was expecting to like Synchronicity, and look where that got us?

However, I'm pleased to say I did like it - this is what I think most of Synchonicity should have sounded like. They've lessened their reggae influences and popped/funked things up and I think it works quite well.  They've definitely gone for a strong opening - "Spirits In The Material World", "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" and "Invisible Sun" - and it would be easy for the album to fall off a cliff after that, but I think it manage to hang around nicely.  It helps that I know "Demolition Man" and "One World (Not Three)" from Sting's Bring On The Night album (which I like a lot) but I also found myself enjoying the tracks I didn't know.  All of which is very fortunate, because can you imagine what Mr S would have been like if I'd slagged it off?

I don't know exactly in which week this will slot in to my countdown - I'm guessing mid-January '82 is the most likely candidate when it was last in the top 10 but failing that we'll be going back to closer to its release date in October '81, when it had three weeks at #1.  All in all it managed a 27 week run, but was never seen again after May '82.  Assuming we're talking about mid-January, it had The Human League, Queen, Abba and Adam & The Ants as its illustrious company towards the top of the charts - back in October, it had Shakin' Stevens, Barry Manilow and Cliff Richard!

Wikipedia has a reasonable amount on the album (183 milliPeppers) which tells me that it's named after Arthur Koestler's philosophical psychology book from 1967, with the phrase describing "the Cartesian dualist account of the mind–body relationship".  But you knew that, right?  Something I certainly didn't know was that the album cover depicts the three members of the group.  Which I can just about see, I guess.  The band sound like they were well on their way to hating each other whilst making the album, but it was well received both critically and commericially - #2 in the US, selling over 3 million copies.  It also, somewhat bizarrely, tells us it sold 36.056 copies in Yugoslavia.

"Customers also listened to" Dire Straits, Men At Work, Genesis and Billy Idol - which is a somewhat strange mix.  I like this though - I'm pleased I broke the rules to listen to it and it'll be interesting to see if I remember to update this when I finally get round to meeting the album "for real" :-)

Happy Birthday, Andy!

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