release date: Oct. 2, 1981
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,43]
producer: The Police & Hugh Padgham
label: A&M Records - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: A) 1. "Spirits in the Material World" (4 / 5) - 2. "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" (5 / 5) - 3. "Invisible Sun" - 4. "Hungry for You (J'aurais toujours faim de toi)" - - B) 2. "Rehumanize Yourself" - 3. "One World (Not Three)"
4th studio album by The Police follows the schedule of releasing a new album after one year. As replacement for Nigel Gray, the band here introduces Hugh Padgham as co-producer. As on Zenyatta Mondatta Sting maintains the role as primary songwriter. He is once again sole songwriter and composer of eigth out of eleven compositions with Andy Summers being limited as provider of one song only (track #B4) and Copeland as co-composer (with Sting) on one track (track #B2) and solely credited one song (track #B6).
A new style is introduced with the strong opening track, the keyboard-driven "Spirits in the Material World". The track really opens the album in a way that makes you curious for the rest of the album, but it quickly turns out as the band's least coherent, imho. The following track "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" is the album's strongest hit but with only two great tracks, the album as a whole remains a bit of a disappointing affair.
Ghost in the Machine has been lauded as great, as a daring and fine artistic work by great musicians, but aside from the first two tracks, I find it a difficult listen, throughout. As was the case with the band's previous two albums, this also topped the albums chart list in the UK, Australia, France, and in a number of other countries, thus being a highly successful release. Altogether, the album demonstrates a huge change of style with synthpop, experimental jazz, and fusion rock, but as a whole, and despite fine work on the production aspect, I find it... of only little interest and also the band's weakest album.
[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5 ]
