Pat Benatar “Anxiety (Get Nervous)” released this month as a single

Anxiety (Get Nervous) Pat Benatar

Writer(s): Neil Giraldo, Billy Steinberg (see lyrics here) Released: July 1983 First Charted: -- Peak: 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.83 video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Singer/songwriter Pat Benatar was born in 1953 in Brooklyn, New York. She started taking voice lessons in grade school and got involved in musical theater in high school. She aborted plans to attend Julliard in favor of Stony Brook University, but dropped out there after a year to marry her first husband, Dennis Benatar. She started working as a bank teller, but quit to pursue singing. She released her first single, “Day Gig,” in 1974 and her first album, In the Heat of the Night, in 1979. The album featured “Heartbreaker,” which became her first chart hit, reaching #23 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was followed by the 1980 album Crimes of Passion, which sold four million copies. Its follow-up, 1981’s Precious Time, hit #1 on the Billboard album chart. She became a favorite at album radio with “Heartbreaker,” “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” “Treat Me Right,” and “Fire and Ice,” all of which became top 40 hits at pop radio. Next up was 1982’s Get Nervous, her fourth of six consecutive platinum sellers and third consecutive top-5 album. It generated three more top-40 hits in “Shadows of the Night,” “Little Too Late,” and “Looking for a Stranger.” A fourth single, “Anxiety (Get Nervous),” was released in Europe and failed to chart but was accompanied by an entertaining video in which Benatar goes insane from a trip to a psychotic dentist’s office. In a review of the album, All Music Guide’s Alex Henderson noted that the album was an effort on Benatar’s part to embrace new wave and put a strong emphasis on melody. She was determined not be pigeon-holed as a hard rock artist. He said that “Anxiety (Get Nervous)” and other songs were “intense, forceful jewels that rock aggressively.” AMG Resources: AMG All Music Guide review by Alex Henderson of Get Nervous Related Links: First posted 10/27/2022.

Asia released its sophomore album

Alpha Asia

Released: July 26, 1983 Peak: 6 US, 5 UK, 10 CN, -- AU Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.06 UK, 1.06 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock

Tracks: (Click for codes to singles charts.) Don’t Cry (7/30/83, #10 US, #33 UK, #1 AR) The Smile Has Left Your Eyes (10/15/83, #34 US, #25 AR) Never in a Million Years My Own Time (I’ll Do What I Want) The Heat Goes On (8/20/83, #5 AR) Eye to Eye The Last to Know True Colors (8/20/83, #20 AR) Midnight Sun Open Your Eyes Daylight * (7/30/83, #24 AR) * bonus track/B-side of “Don’t Cry” The Players: Geoff Downes (keyboards) Steve Howe (guitar) Carl Palmer (drums) John Wetton (vocals/ bass) Total Running Time: 42:16

Rating: 3.208 out of 5.00 (average of 14 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “Alpha is sorely disappointing, especially coming on the heels of a promising debut.” TD It was “a platinum-selling Top Ten hit,” TD but a “disappointment to some fans” WK compared to 1982’s Asia, which had sold 10 million copies worldwide and spent nine weeks atop the U.S. Billboard charts. “Where Asia managed to make old sounds fresh, Alpha fails miserably. Nothing on Alpha packs the sheer sonic force of the band’s debut,” TD although lead single Don’t Cry did give the band their second top 10 U.S. pop hit. “Instead, much of the record is lightweight both lyrically and musically, leaning heavier on keyboard-laden ballads like The Smile Has Left Your Eyes, which managed to scrape into the Top 40, and My Own Time (I’ll Do What I Want). The only real meat on the record comes during the last cut, Open Your Eyes (and only at the end of the song).” TD “Alpha was the product of Geoff Downes’ and John Wetton’s song-writing. Steve Howe was mostly left out of the writing process, causing tensions within the band. Recorded in Morin Heights, Canada, Alpha is Asia’s…last album with Steve Howe as full-time guitarist until 2008’s Phoenix.” WK In the 25-year interim, Howe would go on to form the one-album-only supergroup GTR with former Genesis’ guitarist Steve Hackett, which released one self-titled album in 1986. Howe also frequently worked with former band Yes and occasionally turned in a guest spot on an Asia album. Howe wasn’t the only one who jumped ship. Wetton bailed “before the year was out” (Demalon), replaced briefly by Emerson, Lake, & Palmer vocalist Greg Lake on tour. Wetton, however, would return by 1985’s Astra. The “rumored creative differences, the album’s lukewarm reception, and flagging ticket sales for the ensuing tour” TD effectively ended the band’s momentum. The Asia brand name would soldier on with numerous personnel changes; it would be 25 years before the original four would record together again on 2008’s Phoenix.

Resources and Related Links: Asia’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry TD Tom Demalon, All Music Guide WK Wikipedia.org Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 4/19/2008; updated 8/6/2021.

The Police’s Synchronicity hit #1 for 1st of 17 weeks

Synchronicity The Police

Released: June 17, 1983 Peak: 117 US, 12 UK, 124 CN, 13 AU, 18 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 8.16 US, 0.3 UK, 20.0 world (includes US and UK), 38.63 EAS Genre: new wave/classic rock

Tracks: Click on a song titled for more details. Synchronicity I [3:26] Walking in Your Footsteps [3:36] O My God [4:02] Mother [3:05] Miss Gradenko [2:00] Synchronicity II [5:02] Every Breath You Take [4:14]) King of Pain [4:58] Wrapped Around Your Finger [5:13] Tea in the Sahara [4:11] Murder by Numbers [4:34] Total Running Time: 44:11 The Players: Sting (vocals, bass, keyboards, etc.) Andy Summers (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, vocals on “Mother”) Stewart Copeland (drums, percussion, backing vocals)

Rating: 4.415 out of 5.00 (average of 37 ratings) Quotable: “The most compelling work of The Police’s career and one of the signature albums of the ‘80s.” – Clarke Speicher, The Review Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Leading Up to Synchronicity “From its beginnings as a New Wave trio in 1977, the Police – [drummer] Stewart Copeland, bassist and singer Sting, and guitarist Andy Summers – did things differently. The band’s first two albums hit upon a reggae-pop sound that spread like wildfire, and over the next four years, the contentious trio crafted albums that offered insanely addictive radio songs as well as darker experimental journeys.” TM “Unlike so many rock successes, the Police evolved creatively at each step. As Sting’s writing matured, reggae became a spice rather than the main groove, and the musical textures broadened.” TM “Though it shares some of the dark tone and the fluid, jazzlike rhythms the Police used on its previous album, Ghost in the Machine (1981), Synchronicity is more revved, more volatile.” TM Album #5 Album #5 for The Police “would be their most commercially successful and lead to a sold-out tour of enormodomes.” AM “Few other albums from 1983 merged tasteful pop, sophistication, and expert songwriting as well as Synchronicity did.” AM Sting thinks it is the group’s best album. UCR “It is a brilliant pop record, but it’s something more, as well.” AZ “Synchronicity is “an elegant and mature work” BN “that creates and sustains a mood in the sensitive listener, a feeling that remains after the last note has died away.” AZ “It’s funny how a group that started as part of Britain’s new wave and punk scene became synonymous with pop music. The lyrics aren’t more accessible than normal, the topics aren’t lighter…and the production isn’t less complicated.” CQ “Sting’s vocals show more depth here as well, almost like he was warming up for his solo career.” CQ “Yet, somehow, Synchronicity just sounds like it was made for MTV.” CQ The Police proved “that it’s possible for a rock band to pursue challenging, defiantly noncommercial musical ideas and still thrill an awful lot of people.” TM The Last Hurrah It wasn’t planned as “the multiplatinum tombstone on the grave of the the Police’s career” TB although Sting has said, “it was very clear to me during the making of this record that this was the end of The Police.” TB Sting, “along with a host of other life factors that got in the way of group harmony – made it so.” CQ “It’s a bold move for the biggest band in the world to not only end their run while on top of the mountain.” CQ The tension of their working relationship in the studio and a lengthy world tour drove wedges between them. Sting ventured out for a solo career and an attempt to reunite in 1986 was short-lived. In Sting’s mind, this album was their pinnacle and there was no way to ever top it. Not for nothing, but he was right.” CQ Synchronicity “remains the most compelling work of The Police’s career and one of the signature albums of the ‘80s.” RV It is “a benchmark album from a tremendously influential band, it will stand the test of time as a genuine classic” AZ and “one of the best swan songs in existence.” GS The Album’s Impact Synchronicity was “the final evolution of their sound” AZ and, as Sting said, “a more refined record than we’ve previously made.” UCR “Rather than just sticking to their playbook of reggae, jazz, and punk, Synchronicity finds the group creating their own path” CQ as they “settle nicely into a balance of pop, punk and new wave.” DV Sting noted, however, that the reggae tones were “more buried” on Synchronicity. UCR “Ambitious and sophisticated,” BN “the album blended unusual ingredients for an arena rock band: odd time signatures, spare arrangements, [and] reggae grooves.” BN “In a way, ushered in the sound of the decade. The album’s heavy reliance on synth showed the world the future, as the group created music truly as big as their reputations.” CQ The Recording Just as they had done for Ghost in the Machine in 1981, The Police reconvened at George Martin’s AIR Studios in the Caribbean to start work on their fifth studio album. UCR Recording began on December 5, 1982. Sting was breaking up with his wife, actress Frances Tomelty, and Andy Summers’ marriage was on the rocks. Co-producer Hugh Padgham said, “Though the island is a kind of tropical paradise, making the album turned into a nightmare.” TB He said Sting and Copeland hated each other and Summers was “grumpy.” UCR The group nearly broke up twice during the making of the album. UCR Padgham said, “For acoustic reasons, all of the band members played in different rooms…but I’d have to admit that it was also a very convenient way of keeping them all apart.” TB He also said the friction gave the fast songs on side one “a incredible energy” UCR because they were “born out of anger.” UCR One of the most significant changes was to get back to working with just three instruments after using a lot of keyboard on Ghost in the Machine. Summers said “everything we play with dense keyboard parts…end up sounding like Yes on a bad day.” UCR At one point, Summers reached out to the famed Beatles’ producer George Martin for advice. He told them “it’s typical group-stuff – seen it all before” and said they needed to work it out for themselves. UCR Copeland asserted that they weren’t fighting all the time, but that “being in the Police was like wearing a Prada suit made out of barbed wire.” UCR He has also acknowledged that while Sting angered him by telling him how to drum, he “does actually know how to arrange a song and arrange the band and his ideas are pretty good.” UCR Despite the tensions, the group worked efficiently, taking only six weeks to record the album and two more to mix it. Sting said they came prepared with at least twenty demos written and recorded when they entered the studio. UCR The band’s manager, Miles Copeland, said it took two weeks before the band had anything committed to tape “that we could call a song.” UCR He met up with the band in early 1983 when they moved recorded to Le Studio at a ski resort near Montreal. TB The Concept ”The singles…while pure gems by themselves, are an integral part of the album's musical and lyrical texture.” AZ “The album works best if taken as a cohesive whole.” RV The album was loosely built around Carl Jung’s synchronicity concept which suggested an interconnectedness amongst seemingly non-related occurrences. It was Sting who was first influenced by Jung’s book, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, but Summers also grew to love Jung. UCR The concept “manifests lyrically in some of the most evocative imagery Sting has ever created.” AZ “Paranoia, cynicism and excruciating loneliness run rampant” RS in the lyrics. “Synchronicity…is about things ending – the world in peril, the failure of personal relationships and marriage, the death of God.” RS Sting was also a fan of Arthur Koestler (whose works inspired the title for the previous album, Ghost in the Machine) and his book The Roots of Coincidence. UCR The Cover “The album cover features a series of precisely positioned photographs, with a swath of red, yellow, or blue overlaid.” UCR However, there are many variations. Collector Jay Matsueda said there are at least 40. Goldmine magazine says there are at least 93. UCR It was Sting’s idea to have each band member come up with his own photos for the album sleeve without the others knowing what they had in mind. UCR Reissue In 2024, a six-disc super deluxe edition of Synchronicity was released in celebration of the album’s 40th anniversary. It includes a remastered version of the original album along with B-sides, early demos, rare covers, and two discs capturing a live concert performance at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum on September 10, 1983. The Songs “The songs are constructed from delicate arpeggios and eerie washes of guitar, sinuous keyboard lines, solid, repetitive bass figures, and the signature Stewart Copeland drum sound, all topped by Sting's voice moving through a wide range of pitch and sentiment.” AZ This makes the album “hard to categorize and interesting to listen to.” DV “Each cut…is not simply a song but a miniature, discrete soundtrack.” RS The album’s singles are “made for stadiums that foreshadowed Sting’s future.” CQ Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Synchronicity I The Police

Writer(s): Sting Released: 10/26/1983 as a single (Japan), Synchronicity (1983) Peak: 5 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: The only songs to expressly reference “Carl Jung’s ideas about coincidence and the undetected connections between people and events” TM are Synchronicity I and ‘Synchronicity II.’ The former, with its “clanging chaos,” RS opens the album, “hurtling along at a hundred miles an hour, carrying word of a ‘connecting principle’ and strange occurrences happening far away.” TM It is “a jangling collage of metallic guitar, percussion and voices that artfully conjures the clamor of the world.” RS “The energy, catchiness and band tightness…simply can't be beat.” GS “Its finale is two or so minutes of deliciously pulverizing rhythm unlike anything in rock, the snapping backbeat of a gospel jubilee gone haywire.” TM

Walking in Your Footsteps The Police

Writer(s): Sting Released: Synchronicity (1983) Peak: 10 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: The “clever reggae tune” DBW Walking in Your Footsteps about “apocalyptic doom” TM has the feel of “a children's tune sung in a third-world accent and brightly illustrated with African percussion and flute, contemplates nothing less than humanity's nuclear suicide.” RS This “otherwise creative [song] is marred by silly lyrics.” DV “‘Hey Mr. Dinosaur, you really couldn’t ask for more/You were god's favorite creature but you didn't have a future,’ Sting calls out before adding, ‘[We're] walking in your footsteps.’” RS Despite its detractors, the song features a “catchy vocal melody [and] Copeland is really going nuts with that electronic percussion set.” GS

O My God The Police

Writer(s): Sting Released: Synchronicity (1983) Peak: 18 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: “In O My God, Sting drops his third-world mannerisms to voice a desperate, anguished plea for help to a distant deity: ‘Take the space between us, and fill it up, fill it up, fill it up!’ This ‘space’ is evoked in an eerie, sprinting dub-rock style, with Sting addressing not only God but also a woman and the people of the world, begging for what he clearly feels is an impossible reconciliation.” RS The song “shows signs of self-plagiarism (hmm, haven’t we already met that bassline before? ‘Demolition Man’? ‘Driven to Tears’?). GS It actually takes its first verse and chorus from an unreleased Police song called “3 O’Clock Shot” and also quotes “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” at the end. UCR While “the critics are right when they pinpoint the song as one of the weakest links on the album” GS it is also “one of the most deeply felt cuts on the album, and while it lacks an immediate hook, it’s…disgustingly sincere.” GS

Mother The Police

Writer(s): Sting, Andy Summers Released: Synchronicity (1983) Peak: 19 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: While “O My God” is the weakest of Sting’s contributions to the album, it isn’t the weakest song. “The mood of cosmic anxiety is interrupted by two songs written by other members of the band.” RS Summers “gets the bad luck to contribute” GS “the almost unlistenable Mother.” AM The song “inverts John Lennon's romantic maternal attachment into a grim dadaist joke.” RS Summers explained, “I had a pretty intense mother who was very focused on me…I Was sort of ‘the golden child’ and…was sort of fulfilling all her dreams by being this pop star in the Police. I got a certain amount of pressure from her.” UCR p> He credited Captain Beefheart with influencing the tone of the song and said it “was written to be ironic, funny, and crazy.” UCR However, with its “gloomy repetitive melody [and] Andy’s paranoid screamings,” GS it is “the worst clunker in the band’s catalog.” GS “The rhythm track itself isn’t that bad, and there's no serious problem with the lyrics…but Andy simply cannot wail in a paranoid manner… A well-placed scream can be goofy and funny, or it can be scary and creepy, but this is just ridiculous and bleeding on the ears.” GS

Miss Gradenko The Police

Writer(s): Stewart Copeland, Sting Released: Synchronicity (1983) Peak: 18 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: Meanwhile, drummer Stewart Copeland contributes Miss Gradenko, which doesn’t evoke the fingers-on-a-chalkboard feeling of ‘Mother’, but “is just average.” DV It is “a novelty about secretarial paranoia in the Kremlin, is memorable mainly for Summers' modal twanging between the verses.” RS

Synchonicity II The Police

Writer(s): Sting Released: 10/28/1983 as a single, Synchronicity (1983) Peak: 16 BB, 15 CB, 18 GR, 9 RR, 9 AR, 17 UK, 21 CN, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: As a companion to “Synchronicity I” this is “the somewhat more complex” GS “cacophonic rocker Synchronicity II” AM “give[s] this record the edge.” CD It is a “brutal slice of industrial-suburban life, intercut with images of the Loch Ness monster rising from the slime like an avenging demon.” RS “Since Sting was not taking himself as seriously in 1983…the random lyrical shift works.” DV The two songs “rank among the best rockers the Police ever did, even if they're widely different from the earlier stuff – the punkish aesthetics has been swept away, replaced by a ‘clean-cut’ New Wave punch and numerous artsy overtones, with atmospheric synthesizers and Andy's guitar assuming a totally otherworldly role” GS with “some inventive chord changes.” DV

Every Breath You Take The Police

Writer(s): Sting (see lyrics here) Released: 5/13/1983 as a single, Synchronicity (1983) Peak: 18 US, 17 CB, 18 GR, 18 RR, 5 AC, 19 AR, 1 CO, 14 UK, 12 CN, 2 AU, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 1.8 UK, 5.02 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 15.0 radio, 1376.91 video, 1938.58 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: If there was an award for misunderstood songs, “Every Breath You Take” would clearly be vying for the prize. Police drummer Stewart Copeland explains, “People often choose this...as their wedding song. They think it’s a cheerful song. In fact...it’s a very dark song.’” KL Sting, the band’s singer and chief songwriter, confirmed that, telling Rolling Stone it is “a fairly nasty song…about surveillance and ownership and jealousy.’” FB “The narrator…tracks his lover’s tiniest movements like a detective, then breaks down and pleads for love, the light pop rhythm becomes an obsessive marking of time.” RS Ah, nothing expresses wedded bliss like a tale of an obsessive stalker. Sting penned his very un-romantic song in the wake of his breakup with Frances Tomelty. FB He said, “I do my best work when I’m in pain and turmoil.” TC He was dealing with more than the end of his seven-year marriage. The sessions for the Police’s Synchronicity album was “frought with conflict.” TC “Few contemporary pop songs have described the nuances of sexual jealousy so chillingly.” RS Often mocked for pretentiousness, Sting whittled the lyrics for “Breath” down to bare essentials as well. The words are “pulled from the rock & roll cliche handbook” RS500 or “straight out of a rhyming dictionary.” TB He wrote the song “in ten minutes in a middle-of-the-night inspiration, after which he went back to sleep.” CD According to various claims, was influenced by the Gene Pitney song “Every Breath I Take,” Leo Sayer’s “More Than I Can Say,” and the opening lines of Judith Merrill’s sci-fi short story “Whoever You Are.” WK Structurally, the song thrives on its simplicity. To avoid distracting from the song’s “hypnotic bass line,” RS500 the Police jettisoned an intricate synthesizer piece. When he presented it to the band it had what Summers called a “huge rolling synthesizer part.” UCR Copeland and Sting argued “extensively about how the bass and drums would be positioned to best serve the vocal.” UCR Summers got the guitar part, influenced by composer Bela Bartok, down in one take. UCR Regardless of where it came from, “Every Breath You Take” became the biggest pop song of 1983. CPM To continue the grand that-song-came-from-this-one tradition, it was memorably sampled in “I’ll Be Missing You,” the chart-topping 1997 tribute to slain rapper the Notorious B.I.G. helmed by Puff Daddy.

King of Pain The Police

Writer(s): Sting (see lyrics here) Released: August 1983 as a single, Synchronicity (1983) First Charted: July 9, 1983 Peak: 3 US, 5 CB, 12 RR, 33 AC, 15 AR, 17 UK, 11 UK, 44 AU, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 19.8 video, 31.66 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: In their native UK, the Police had landed four #1 songs and another four top-ten hits prior to 1983’s Synchronicity. They’d also had three consecutive #1 albums. In the United States, the band weren’t quite as big but they had landed three top-10 hits and two more top-40 hits. Their last two albums had reached the top 5 on the Billboard album chart. Still, no one was quite prepared for the blockbuster that was to come in 1983’s Synchronicity. The lead single, “Every Breath You Take,” was a massive hit in the United States, logging eight weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100. Thanks to that song and three more top-20 hits, the album spent a whopping 17 weeks at #1 in the United States and went eight times platinum. In the United States, “King of Pain” was released as the follow-up to “Every Breath You Take” while “Wrapped Around Your Finger” was the second single in the UK. Both songs entered the Billboard album rock track the same week “Every Breath You Take” landed at #1 on the Hot 100. On August 27, “King of Pain” debuted inside the top 40 on the Billboard charts. On October 1, it leapt from 11 to 6 a week after “Every Breath You Take” had exited the top 10. The song grew out of lead singer Sting’s separation from his first wife, Frances Tomelty. He said, “I conjured up symbols of pain and related them to my soul.” WK He explained that while on vacation in Jamaica with future wife Trudie Styler he looked at the sun and said, “There’s a little black spot on the sun today…That’s my soul up there.” WK She responded, “There he goes again, the king of pain.” SF Those ended up as lyrics in the song, which was also fueled by his fascination with psychoanalyst Carl Jung and author Arthur Koestler, both of whom had explored the unexplained workings of the mind. WK “The rejected narrator…sees his abandonment as a kind of eternal damnation in which the soul becomes "a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall/ ... A dead salmon frozen in a waterfall.’” RS Despite the words and tone, the song still evokes as “Beatles-quality vocal melody” GS even as Sting sings lines like “there’s a little black spot on the sun today.” The song starts with a xylophone simulating a steady heartbeat before “shifting to a more percussive beat as the song kicks in.” UCR Copeland said, however, that those chords were initially written by Sting on a Casio synthesizer before the band decided it sounded more organic on the xylophone. UCR Weird Al Yankovic recorded a parody of the song in 1984 called “King of Suede.” Alanis Morissette covered the song in 1999 on her MTV Unplugged album.

Wrapped Around Your Finger The Police

Writer(s): Sting (see lyrics here) Released: 7/8/1983 as a single (UK), 1/2/1984 as a single (US), Synchronicity (1983) Peak: 8 BB, 11 CB, 4 GR, 4 R, 9 AR, 13 AC, 7 UK, 10 CN, 26 AU, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 41.7 video, 21.27 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: The Police exploded in 1983 when the song “Every Breath You Take” became a smash, spending eight weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. The group’s fifth album, Synchronicity, racked up 17 weeks atop the album chart on its way to eight million in sales. “Every Breath You Take,” however, was only the beginning. In the UK, the follow-up single, “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” gave the band their tenth top ten hit there. However, in the United States, the second single was the #3 hit “King of Pain,” followed by the top-20 hit “Synchroncity II.” “Wrapped Around Your Finger” was the fourth single in the U.S. On February 25, 1984, the song entered the top 10 on Billboard Hot 100, the third song from Synchronicity to do so. Sting explained that “Wrapped Around Your Finger” was “a spiteful song about turning the tables on someone who had been in charge.” WK He said it is about “a professional psychic and my tutor in tarot, with bits of Doctor Faustus and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice thrown into the pot for good measure.” WK The former is a 1947 Thomas Mann novel inspired by a classic German legend about a scholar who makes a deal with the Devil. SF The latter is a 1797 German poem by Goethe about an apprentice trying his hand at magic while the sorcerer is away. SF The song also references Scylla and Charibdes of Greek mythology. Scylla was a nymph turned into a six-headed monster who destroyed any boats that passed by where she lived on the Straits of Messina. Charibdes was a monster who lived in a whirpool across from Scylla. The Odyssey tells the tale of Odysseus, one of the few who made it through without being killed. SF All Music Guide’s Steve Huey called the song “a complex take on power dynamics in relationships…revolving around an older and/or more experienced woman selecting a naïve, easily dominated male partner…whom she can wrap around her finger. Things backfire when…he learns her tactics…and uses them against her.” AMG Huey also said, “the song was full of subtle reggae syncopations…and this rhythmic emphasis perked up what might have turned out a straight-ahead ballad.” AMG That song and Wrapped Around Your Finger both “carried the venerable theme of tortured romance to further heights on the airwaves.” BN “Wrapped,” a “tale of power and betrayal,” TM “takes a longer, colder view of the institution of marriage. Its Turkish-inflected reggae sound underscores a lyric that portrays marriage as an ancient, ritualistic hex conniving to seduce the innocent and the curious into a kind of slavery.” RS The song “also has Sting assuming the A-A-B-B rhyming scheme for his verses instead of the traditionally classic A-B-A-B scheme. How clever.” GS

Tea in the Sahara The Police

Writer(s): Sting Released: Synchronicity (1983) Peak: 10 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: Tea in the Sahara is the album’s “moodiest, most tantalizing song…[it] is an aural mirage that brings back the birdcalls and jungle sounds of earlier songs as whispering, ghostly instrumental voices.” RS Sting taught himself how to play the oboe for the song. UCR “In this haunting parable of endless, unappeasable desire, Sting tells the story, inspired by the Paul Bowles novel The Sheltering Sky, of a brother and two sisters who develop an insatiable craving for tea in the desert. After sealing a bargain with a mysterious young man, they wait on a dune for his return, but he never appears. The song suggests many interpretations: England dreaming of its lost empire, mankind longing for God, and Sting himself pining for an oasis of romantic peace.” RS

Murder by Numbers The Police

Writer(s): Sting Released: Synchronicity (1983) Peak: 4 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: Murder by Numbers, the album closer, wasn’t on the original LP version, but was added to the cassette as a bonus track and is standard on the CD. This “cool little jazzy tune” GS with its ”off-kilter guitar sprinkled behind lyrics” DV about a contract killer is simultaneously creepy for its content and joyous in its delivery. The song came about in a matter of minutes. Copeland said Summers “absent-mindedly played some jazz chords on his guitar…Sting perked up and said he might have lyrics.” UCR The trio hit the studio and recorded the song in one-take without even doing a run-through first. UCR

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Greg Prato of Synchronicity AMG AllMusic.com review of “Wrapped Around Your Finger” AZ Amazon.com review by Al Massa BN Barnes & Noble review by Michael Hill FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 574. BC Brad Carl (2015). 50 Songs from the 70s and 80s That Still Hold Up. Pages 29-30. CD CdUniverse.com CQ Consequence.net (9/12/2022). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Page 242. DV Daily Vault review by Benjamin Ray DJ David Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 54. KL Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh (2005). 1000 UK Number One Hits: The Stories Behind Every Number One Single Since 1952. London, Great Britain: Omnibus Press. Page 291. TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. Pages 603-4. RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher RS Rolling Stone review by Stephen Holden, originally in print issue 398. RS500 Rolling Stone (12/04). “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” SF Songfacts page for “King of Pain” SF Songfacts page for “Wrapped Around Your Finger” GS George Starostin TB Thunder Bay (2005). Albums: The Stories Behind 50 Years of Great Recordings. Thunder Bay Press; San Diego, CA. Page 218. TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 205. UCR UltimateClassicRock.com (6/17/2023). “The Police’s ‘Synchronicity’: 40 Facts You May Not Know” by Matt Wardlaw CPM Joel Whitburn (1999). A Century of Pop Music. Record Research, Inc.: Menomonee Falls, WI. Page 112. WK Wikipedia.org page for “Every Breath You Take” WK Wikipedia page for “King of Pain” WK Wikipedia page for “Wrapped Around Your Finger” DBW David Bertrand Wilson, Wilson & Alroy’s Record Reviews Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/22/2008; last updated 8/13/2025.