Additional personnel: Jean Roussel (keyboards).

Recorded at AIR Studios, Montserrat.

This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players.

The Police: Sting, Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland.

Additional personnel: Jean Roussel (keyboards).

Recorded at AIR Studios, Montserrat, West Indes and Le Studio, Quebec, Canada. Originally released on A&M (3730).

For their fourth album, 1981's Ghost in the Machine, the Police had streamlined their sound to focus more on their pop side and less on their trademark reggae-rock. Their jazz influence had become more prominent, as evidenced by the appearance of saxophones on several tracks. The production has more of a contemporary '80s sound to it (courtesy of Hugh Padgham, who took over for Nigel Gray), and Sting proved once and for all to be a master of the pop songwriting format. The album spawned several hits, such as the energetic "Spirits in the Material World" (notice how the central rhythms are played by synthesizer instead of guitar to mask the reggae connection) and a tribute to those living amid the turmoil and violence in Northern Ireland circa the early '80s, "Invisible Sun." But the best and most renowned of the bunch is undoubtedly the blissful "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," which topped the U.K. singles chart and nearly did the same in the U.S. (number three). Unlike the other Police releases, not all of the tracks are stellar ("Hungry for You," "Omegaman"), but the vicious jazz-rocker "Demolition Man," the barely containable "Rehumanize Yourself," and a pair of album-closing ballads ("Secret Journey," "Darkness") proved otherwise. While it was not a pop masterpiece, Ghost in the Machine did serve as an important stepping stone between their more direct early work and their more ambitious latter direction, resulting in the trio's exceptional blockbuster final album, 1983's Synchronicity. ~ Greg Prato

In the wake of ZENYATTA MONDATTA's massive success, the Police edged even further away from their earlier reggae leanings, but instead of moving into the mainstream, they continued experimenting with sophisticated textures and exotic rhythms. Sure, there's the archetypal hummable pop hit, which Sting manages to throw in with virtually every album (here it's the romantic, frothy "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,") but there's more darkness here, both musical and lyrical, than on any previous Police recording.

Sting picks up on the social-consciousness thread of ZENYATTA's "Driven to Tears" on several tunes here. From the bleak "Invisible Sun" to the rage-against-the-machine sentiments of "Too Much Information and "Rehumanize Yourself," the lyrics speak of the soul's inability to keep pace with advancing technology and all its pitfalls. It's not all gloom and doom, though, as the propulsive, funky "Demolition Man" and "Hungry for You" attest.