One thing about being a music snob is that there are records and bands you're not supposed to like; but the nice thing about being the kind of snob I am, I don't give a shit about whether or not I'm supposed to like something or not. So I end up able to enjoy an album by The Police that isn't Outlandos d'Amour. In fact, when Synchronicity came out for half a summer in 1983 I thought it was their best album, and 1983 me really liked The Police so that was saying something. One of the things I think I liked is that this is a really good sounding record, even though it has some dorky 1980's production on it. If it didn't, I'd probably put an Audiophile Alert on this. But I just let a little of the sound get under my skin, I guess.
In 1983 I had been at the printing press I used to work at for over a year, and my oldest son was just about a year old when this came out. That means I was making just over four dollars an hour and buying a record was a big deal, because that's not much money for raising a family on, in just about any era during my lifetime. Minimum wage is just over eight bucks now, I think. So if I had to raise a family at about 5% over minimum wage I probably wouldn't be able to afford any records. That's bullshit. Anyway, even though times were tight I did manage to get a few new records now and then, and this was one of them.
I think I took this to a friend's house and taped this. He had moved into his own place, above his girlfriend's grandparent's old house. We used to hang out there a lot, and he bought a JVC stereo on credit. I went with him and tried to convince him that we could do a better system with components from other companies, but this came in a rack with a glass door (worthless if you ask me), and all the lights were the same color of green. I didn't dislike it, but it didn't last very long and a few years later we were replacing things one component at a time. I had spent the same amount of money on my system and that lasted into the next century! He didn't know how to use his cassette deck, so I used to record things for him if he'd let me record what I wanted so I could listen to it on my little boombox in my crappy car. I think this was one of the first albums we could both agree to actually liking.
This sucker was packed with the hits, too. Man, I think you could make a case that this album is the sound of the first half of the 80's. Every Breath You Take was huge. I mean, I can't hardly imagine a bigger hit song. Sure Fleetwood Mac's Rumours had spawned hits like this a few years earlier, but this song was ubiquitous. I heard it in the morning, I heard it late at night (I think that's when I still like to hear it - it's a good late night song). It took me a long time to get really tired of it, too. I swear the radio just started letting side two of this record play. King of Pain was a giant smash, Wrapped Around Your Finger was a monster hit and Synchronicity II was a big hit, and much more of a rocker than the other songs. I never figured out why they called it Synchronicity II, since Synchronicity I is really kind of a cool Prog Rock kind of song (which I always liked, much to my Punk Rock brother's chagrin). Considering how many hits this had and how often I heard the album, I still played it quite a bit.
Nowadays it doesn't seem to get out much, but when it does I enjoy it, and it's not just a nostalgia thing. It doesn't make me think of feeding pockets in a bindery, or working all three shifts in a week (plus overtime) and drinking the cheapest beer I could find (Busch, mainly - that stuff sucks but I like the looks of the old labels). We used to hang out at a softball field and drink beers most nights I didn't have to work. That's one of the things I liked about my wife, she was okay with grabbing a twelve pack and hanging out. On Sundays we used to play softball. It was fun. My wife and I never played on the same team because that way one of us could watch the kid. Things weren't easy, but things were good. I still have some of the same friends, but there's a lot of them that have drifted away due to divorces or taking a job in another place to keep food on their family. A couple of them have died or found Jesus, which doesn't seem much different to me. It's funny how Synchronicity makes me think about that stuff for a minute, but mostly I just enjoy it and think about all the crap I've gotten over this through the years from my friends that are snobs.
Trust me, that crap is well deserved! You won't hear me go off on how I hate some band with every fiber of my being here because I always grab one of my records to write these inane little essays and I don' t really have many records I don't like. I have a few things that some other people have given me that I maybe don't love, but there's no Eagles records here. I can take the heat from the snobs, because I think you have to be willing to do that if you're going to piss all over someone's snob parade (and I have). I know a guy that tried to tell me that The Police were one of my "guilty pleasures." but I don't have musical guilty pleasures. I don't care if someone thinks I've got good taste because I like The Pagans or Deer Tick, because one minute later I'll admit to an undying devotion to Bachman Turner Overdrive and Grand Funk. My dad thought everything I listened to sounded the same and he could never understand just what it was that made me turn up my nose at one band, and buy every bootleg with every burp and fart of another band. So I'm really not some ironic hipster when it comes to Synchronicity, and I'm not just nostalgic for it. I just like it.
Did you ever notice the Allmusic review of this? It pretty much says half the record is filler or crap, then give it 4 1/2 stars! WTF?
My copy of this is still in decent shape and plays pretty quietly. There's a little noise between tracks but it's inaudible when the music starts. I could probably clean it next time I get a stack of records to clean, but if I forget it will still be okay. I'm sure it's worth three bucks these days.
