Day 0529 - Synchronicity

The Police "Synchronicity" (1983) - got it

 The Police were more or less sick of each other by this point, recording their parts in separate rooms of the studio, and even being symbolically 'separated' on the album cover.

The music seemed to be separating and stretching to the four corners too, with less of their reggae sounds, increased synthesizer presence, and touches of world music.   Sting's songs were sounding more and more like the de-clawed pop that he'd perfect later on.  He and drummer Stewart Copeland nearly fought aggressively because Sting wanted some simple, straight-ahead drumming on "Every breath you take" and Copeland wanted to do his thing (which he would go on to do to great effect in the band Oysterhead with members of Primus and Phish).

Andy Summers' two tracks are possibly among the more interesting: "mother" is a demented ode to the most important woman in his life, and 'Murder by numbers' is my favourite track on the album and (to my mind) the best mesh of the pop and experimental sides of the band's sound.

The band split after one last tour and, though they reunited for a series of shows, never rekindled their spark enough to want to record together again.

Day 0433 - Regatta De Blanc

The Police "Regatta De Blanc" (got it)

The second album from The Police. After the moderate success of "Outlandos D'Amore" the band's label wanted to set them up in a flash studio with a high profile producer, but the band chose instead to stick with the same recording setup as their first album, the used the profits of the first album to pay for the recording of this one, whichj meant that the label had less control over what the band recorded.

The album that resulted was regarded by Stewart Copeland as the best that the Police ever made. It was the album where they fully embraced reggae to supplement and even supplant their post-punk pop sound of the first album. The influence of reggae also helped shape Copeland's drumming style significantly with his floating backbeats.

Regatta (the album title is pidgin for 'white reggae') was also a relatively even spread songwriting-wise. Sting wasn't lord and master, with Copeland contributing just as many songs, and Andy Summers putting in some too.

"Message in a bottle" is a brilliant track. The Police always had an ear for a pop hit - even their heady concept album 'Ghost in the Machine' features the light and poppy (slightly out of place) "Everything little thing she does is magic".

Day 0005 - This is Fats

Fats Domino "This is Fats!" (1957)

...not to be mistaken with his 1956 album "This is Fats Domino"

I listened to this one a few years back when I first had a look at the '1001' albums book and remember thinking it was maybe a bit samey.  Certainly, when you compare it to the albums released in the mid-late 60s sure it can seem a bit limited with similar blues basslines being the core of pretty much every song; but then you get a mix of ballads and more upbeat numbers and something like "the fat man's hop" which has an almost middle-eastern vibe to the horn arrangements!  I've come to appreciate the subtleties a bit more.

"Blueberry Hill" will always have a special place in my heart because when we'd go on family holidays my parents had these compilation albums 'Cruisin' Classics' and that song was a favourite from it. According to the book, Blueberry Hill was never successfully recorded in the studio and was plagued with issues.  They couldn't find the sheet music, then once things were underway Fats kept forgetting the lyrics so they ended up cutting and pasting several aborted takes together after the fact.