“Spirits In The Material World” by The Police

"Spirits in the Material World" kicks off Ghost in the Machine, the Police's 1981 album, and it's the sound of the trio discovering synthesizers and not quite agreeing about them. Sting wrote it almost by accident, tapping at a little Casio keyboard in the back of a truck, and by his own account that album was the first time he had ever touched a synth.

He liked the result so much that he wanted to leave Andy Summers off the track altogether and play the keyboard part himself; Summers argued for guitar, and his playing ended up sitting well back in the mix. What's left is a chopping, ska-flavoured groove, Sting's bass and Stewart Copeland's drums pushing hard under the keyboard stabs, with Hugh Padgham co-producing. It reached 12 in Britain and 11 in America in early 1982.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.