The End Of History

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It’s Time to Reconsider… “Omega Man,” by The Police

Editor’s note: Welcome to the inaugural edition of “It’s Time to Reconsider…,” a new column wherein individual Ranting Russell staffers reconsider something Ye Editor thinks was of consequence at some point in humanity’s brief existence, but hasn’t gotten much airtime lately. Unlike other RR articles, staff doesn’t get to choose the subject matter; Ye Ed chooses a topic, assigns a staffer, and off we go. For this first time out, old-time RR writer Sheridan Rowan – a lifelong Police fan – takes on “Omega Man,” guitarist Andy Summers’ lone contribution to the fourth Police Album, Ghost in the Machine.

*****

It’s kind of odd that Renee asked me to write about Omega Man. I did have a few beers at the Horny Toad Pub and Grub the other night and mentioned the fact that I loved this song as a kid, and hadn’t listened to it in a long damn time, which doesn’t exactly make me a Police expert, but what the crap. I suppose it doesn’t matter.

The title of this piece could just as well be “It’s Time to Reconsider Ghost in the Machine.” The album, released in late 1981, marked a departure for The Police. The new wave trio, consisting of

bassist/vocalist/primary songwriter Sting, drummer Stewart Copeland, and guitarist Andy Summers, released three albums between 1978 and 1980, all of which sported exotic-sounding titles and consisted of guitar/bass/drums arrangements.

A latecomer to the Police camp, Andy Summers brought ten more years’ worth of much-needed experience to the band, acting as a buffer of sorts between the constantly bickering bassist and drummer, and possessed the depth of musicianship that Sting craved beyond the punk rock chops utilized by original Police guitarist Henri Padovani.

Their fourth album landed in record stores with a conspicuously English title, and for the first time ever didn’t feature a band picture on the cover. The title track was also heavy on the synthesizers, an indulgence for what had been a band lacking (more or less) in pretense up until that point.

Despite his enormous ego, Sting magnanimously consented to recording the odd Stewart and/or Andy songs every now and again, leading to much head-scratching (and even some resentment from his bandmates) when Andy’s Behind My Camel, included on side two of 1980’s Zenyatta Mondatta, won a Grammy in 1982 for “Best Rock Instrumental Performance.”

Feeling suitably validated (and perhaps feeling his jackass bandmates owed him; Sting admitted to burying Camel’s master in a garden behind the studio), Summers returned the following year with Omega Man, a song that I initially considered my favorite on the album.

Omega Man was the fifth-best song out of the album’s eleven tunes. It's verses were made to order for Sting's vocals, and changing the time signature up on the chorus was a masterstroke. That's a not-bad showing for Summers, considering he played guitar in a band band fronted by one of the 80’s most revered songwriters. But Ghost in the Machine was the first Police album that found Sting - in my estimation, anyway - struggling to maintain the high quality of Regatta de Blanc (their finest hour) and Zenyatta Mondatta (their second-finest hour).

Ghost’s main flaw is its homogenous feel, and the blame falls squarely on Mr. Gordon Sumner. The band had always dabbled in reggae and funk rhythms and chords, but there was always plenty to distinguish one song from the next. For Ghost, the egocentric bassist give his bandmates eight new songs, four of which – Hungry for You, Demolition Man, Too Much Information, and One World (Not Three) – seemed to blend in together. Music journalist Vic Garbarini characterized the like-sounding songs as “one-chord jams,” but really, they’re one-part jams. Listened to by themselves, each one is a good song (what heterosexual woman doesn't want Sting, ca. 1981, singing "I'm still hungry for you" to her in French?). But even though these four songs comprise less than one half of the album, their sameness permeates the record like a virus, ultimately defining it. Did the band mean to spread them out so evenly? Two are on side one, two are on side two.

And that’s precisely what lies at the heart of the matter. Back then I loved a fifth-best-song-out-of-eleven for that very reason: the new Police album had a blandness about it, and it was guitarist Andy Summers who shook it up, showing up (in my mind, anyway) the band’s chief songwriter, delivering the album’s only truly rocking song just one year after a bizarre instrumental that didn’t rock in the slightest.

And yet, wading deep into Ghost in the Machine for the first time in years here in 2018, I find the need to contradict some of what I just wrote. Listening to each of the one-part songs separately from the album, they're all quite good - I'm enjoying them way more as a middle-age woman than as a teenage girl. Demolition Man in particular resonates in a big way, with some killer Sting lyrics ("Tied to the chair and the bomb is ticking - this situation was not of your picking," plus the entire chorus) and a song-length lead from Summers. And in the midst of the current sad state of domestic and global affairs, I can't help rewinding the fourth verse to Rehumanize Yourself ("Billy's joined the National Front, he always was a little runt, he's got his hand in the air with the other cunts, you've got to humanize yourself") over and over again.

So where does Omega Man fit in now? Strangely, I'm no longer nearly as keen on the album's most rocking song. The verses strike me as flat, not nearly as nuanced as what's going on in the aforementioned Demolition Man or Spirits in the Material World. It's not a bad bit of filler, but I can't help thinking what a better album Ghost would've been if the B-side to the Spirits in the Material World - Low Life - had been on side two, and Omega Man had been a B-side instead. And need I elaborate on how disappointed I was to find out it’s not based on the Boris Sagal movie of the same name?

Interestingly, Andy Summers returned two years later with the best song on Synchronicity, truly upstaging Sting as The Police disintegrated. For a different article, perhaps.

Mailbag!

Dear Janet Wamboldt, of Seymour IN:

Thank you for your question about The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 50th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set.

We chose not to run a review of the set out of respect for Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the two remaining Beatles. You refer to it as a "masterpiece," making it very likely that we do not dig this album as much as you do.

The nifty thing about the set is Giles Martin's remix truly is worth listening to. Even the most cynical members of the Ranting Russell staff appreciate how it almost sounds like you're listening to the band performing the album live. By itself, this is a perfectly lovely addition to anyone's Beatles collection.

What is certainly not nifty about the set is that Sgt. Pepper's is the fourth most overrated album of all time (#1: Exile on Main Street; #2: Tommy; #3: London Calling), and going through the trouble of remixing it, putting out myriad different versions with various extras, the biggest of which - the 4 CD Deluxe Edition - costs $124 on amazon as we write this, a shameful fleecing of fans who have already made Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr rich beyond anything the normal human mind can begin to conceptualize, is a colossal waste of time. Our staff has never understood why Sgt. Pepper's more often than not winds up as the #1 album of all time on all those silly Greatest Albums of All Time lists.

It has A Day in the Life, of course, which is right up there, but there are three songs that don't even rate as decent filler (She's Leaving Home, When I'm 64, Lovely Rita), which automatically disqualifies it from any "top" lists. The pedantic blowhards at Rolling Stone magazine once wrote that Sgt. Pepper's is "an unsurpassed adventure in concept, sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology." But you see, just because your album is a concept album , and just because you do a lot of overdubs and record things backwards doesn't mean that your album is a work of genius. The album's cover is indeed iconic, and we're not so ignorant that we don't understand the impact the album had in 1967 and why, versus how it looks to us here in the 21st century, looking backwards across a far more visceral landscape.

There is certainly no denying great songs like Fixing a Hole, Getting Better, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, and Within You Without You. And we admit, we all enjoyed listening to the different takes on discs two and three. It's not that we hate this record, it's just that they gave the deluxe, Cadillac treatment to an album that isn't The Beatles' best work. Consider: Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane were recorded in the lead-up to Sgt. Pepper's. Make a playlist where you substitute Strawberry Fields for She's Leaving Home, and Penny Lane for When I'm 64. You could make the case that this is arguably The Beatles' best album.

But not with the album as it was released. This staff still grapples with where to put Sgt. Pepper's in a list ranking The Beatles' albums from best to worst. No one has it in their top five, and one Ranting Russell staffer puts it dead last ("gratuitous and overwrought," says she).

What would have had us salivating uncontrollably and shelling out $124 without a second thought is a Revolver Deluxe Box Set. Far and away the best Beatles album, Revolver features no less than five A-list songs, and the rest is first-rate filler. Even McCartney's syrupy Here, There and Everywhere is redeemed by gorgeous backing vocals, and Harrison's tuneful guitar playing in the middle eight. Famous for recording multiple takes of every song, The Beatles doubtlessly left behind hours of outtakes from the Revolver sessions, and we'd love to hear every second of it. (Ranting Russell founder Russell Bladh once groused that the great failing of The Beatles' Anthology CDs was that there were only six discs, and not twenty.)

Instead, we're left with a White Album Deluxe Box Set, to be released on November 9 (amazon is currently asking $138.74 for "pre-orders"). It's unfortunate that The Beatles braintrust didn't decide to start releasing massive fanboy box sets of Beatles records until the anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's, and not, say, Help! or Rubber Soul. But as our favorite renaissance man once said, these are the conditions that prevail.

Thank you for your letter, Janet. Keep reading Ranting Russell.