The Police’s “golden moment” came in 1983, according to Sting
Even though The Police are regarded as one of the finest bands of their time, having helped solidify the new wave movement while incorporating elements of punk and reggae into their sound, it’s remarkable to think that they weren’t actually together for long.
All of their five studio albums came out in quick succession, with 1978’s Outlandos D’Amour being followed by three other records in consecutive years, all of which seemed to outperform the previous one in a remarkably consistent fashion. It wasn’t straightforward music that the trio were producing either, with there being an increasing level of complexity being injected into their sound, particularly from a rhythmic standpoint, all while attempting to maintain some of the pop credentials that they’d earned.
The group eventually took a well-earned break from releasing in 1982, but returned in 1983 with Synchronicity, perhaps their most concise effort as a group, featuring what would go on to be regarded as their signature song in ‘Every Breath You Take’, for better or for worse.
However, the toil that went into the record, and indeed into its predecessor, Ghost in the Machine, ended up taking it out of the group and causing a significant rift between the three members. They’d been personally underwhelmed by the overall quality of their fourth album, even though it still performed just as well as their previous efforts had done, and in their eyes, their fifth album would be a make-or-break moment for the band.
It ended up being the ‘break’ moment, with Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers choosing to go their own separate ways after the release of Synchronicity. Sting ultimately chose to pursue a solo career that was even more rewarding for him as an artist, and the trio have rarely ever looked back, only ever briefly reforming on two occasions.
For all of the troubles that this final collective effort put the band through, Sting still believes that it was a mark of a band operating at the top of their game, and that it demonstrated just how untouchable they were in their field upon the album’s release.
“I think there is a golden moment in a career when, very naturally, you put your finger out in front of you and you automatically touch the pulse of a lot of people,” he claimed in a retrospective radio interview. “Like a kind of collective pulse. And you feel that, you feel your connection with it and therefore what you do, very naturally, is connect with it through your music and so you keep writing while you have your finger on this pulse.”
He continued: “It’s a very happy feeling – it’s like the height of your popularity, you know what you do is going to connect in a very big way with a large group of people, and while that period lasts – and it can’t last forever – everything you touch turns out this way.”
Perhaps he simply thought that there was no way the band could progress and sought a new challenge in trying to make his solo career work out for him, allowing the band’s legacy to remain untarnished. However, regardless of whether The Police were capable of topping Synchronicity, it remains one of the strongest swan songs that any band of that period were ever able to produce.
