Who's Last is the second live album by British rock band The Who, recorded in 1982 during what was then billed as the band's "farewell tour". Thus, this album, released in 1984, was to be the band's "last" album.
Most of the album was taken from the band's 14 December 1982 show at Richfield Coliseum in Cleveland, Ohio, which was their "last concert in the USA" (as Pete Townshend can be heard saying after "Won't Get Fooled Again") this time around. Four songs come from different sources (verified by meticulous comparison with soundboard and audience recordings and videos from that tour). "Behind Blue Eyes" is from 10 October show at Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford; "Magic Bus" and "Summertime Blues" are from 20 October show at the Kingdome in Seattle; and "Substitute" is from 27 October show at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.
Notable by their absence from this recording, released by MCA two years after the tour, are songs from the band's two then recent Warner Bros. Records albums, Face Dances and It's Hard, although they played "The Quiet One" (from Face Dances) and several songs from It's Hard every night on the tour.
Five songs from this tour were released as bonus tracks to the 1997 editions of Face Dances ("The Quiet One" from the Shea Stadium on 13 October 1982), and It's Hard ("It's Hard," "Eminence Front," "Dangerous" and "Cry If You Want" from Toronto on 17 December 1982, the first three of which were later included on the 2007 release Live from Toronto. While that album is from the same tour, it does not contain any of the performances on Who's Last.)
A different version of "Twist and Shout", also originating from this tour, recorded at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on 16 December 1982, was released in the Thirty Years of Maximum R&B box set (however, it is mislabelled as being from the CNE Stadium in Toronto on 9 October, but the band did not play the song on that particular night).
Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings is a four-CD box set by The Police, containing all five of their studio albums in chronological order, as well as non-album singles, non-album B-sides, and tracks from various compilation albums and the Brimstone & Treacle soundtrack (1982). The box set also comes with a 68-page booklet.
While the box set does contain every original song released by the band, these are not the complete recordings up to 1986, contrary to the box set's title. The following are not included in the box set:
"Truth Hits Everybody '83" appeared on a limited edition gatefold single of "Every Breath You Take".
Two versions of "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" were released in 1980 as a double A-side 7", one with Sting singing Japanese lyrics, the other with Spanish lyrics (AM-25000). A third version of "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" was also re-recorded in 1986, entitled "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da '86". This version of "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" is not present on the box set, but is available on the DTS-CD and SACD releases of Every Breath You Take: The Classics (1995).
Other official releases were a 12" single for "Don't Stand So Close to Me '86", which featured both an additional remix and live version of the song, and a 1995 single containing extended versions of "Voices Inside My Head" by Ashley Beedle and DJ Harvey.
Live recordings of "Can't Stand Losing You" and "Wrapped Around Your Finger" had also been released but not included.
Another rarity missing from the box set is the extended video mix of "Invisible Sun", which featured an additional verse not present on the LP version.
Disc one includes live renditions of "Landlord" and "Next to You", which were recorded at the Bottom Line, New York on 4 April 1979 and originally broadcast on WNEW-FM, New York.
Disc three has a live version of "Driven to Tears" which was recorded live at Les Arenes, Frejus, France, 28 August 1980 and is featured on the Urgh! A Music War soundtrack album (1982).
"Shambelle", an instrumental written by Andy Summers, that is a B-side both of the singles "Invisible Sun" (UK) and "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" (US), was presented incorrectly, missing the hi-hat introduction played by Stewart Copeland. This error has never been corrected, and the original 45's is the only place to get the full-length versions.[1] It should also be noted that the versions of "Shambelle" on the "Invisible Sun" and "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" singles have different track times, clocking 5:42 on the former and 5:10 on the latter. The version on this box set clocks in just about five minutes.
The U.S. version of the box set also features the version of "Don't Stand So Close To Me '86" that was originally released on the album Every Breath You Take: The Singles (1986). This version is shorter than the extended dance mix of "Don't Stand So Close to Me '86" included on some international versions of the box set and includes a different guitar solo from Andy Summers. There is no edition of the box set that includes both versions of the song.
There was also speculation by a number of music fans that "Can't Stand Losing You" was remastered from a needle drop of the original vinyl and that "Roxanne" had pitch issues due to tape drag and possible damage to the master tape used.
Synchronicity is the fifth and final studio album by English rock band The Police, released in the United Kingdom on 17 June 1983. The band's most successful release, the album includes the hit singles "Every Breath You Take", "King of Pain", "Wrapped Around Your Finger", and "Synchronicity II". Much of the album's material was inspired by Arthur Koestler's The Roots of Coincidence, which inspired the title and concept of the album. At the 1984 Grammy Awards the album was nominated for a total of five awards including Album of the Year and won three. At the time of its release and following its tour The Police were hailed as the "Biggest Band in the World".
The album was number one on both the UK Albums Chart and the U.S. Billboard 200, and sold over 8 million copies in the U.S. Synchronicity was widely acclaimed by critics. Praise centred on its cohesive merging of disparate genres and sonic experimentation. Rolling Stone described "each cut on Synchronicity [as] not simply a song but a miniature, discrete soundtrack." It has since been included on their lists of the "100 Best Albums of the Eighties" and the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
In 2009, Synchronicity was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In the 1983 Rolling Stone readers poll, Synchronicity was voted "Album of the Year".
The album's title was inspired by Arthur Koestler's The Roots of Coincidence. Sting was an avid reader of Koestler, and also named Ghost in the Machine after one of his works.
The album marked a significant reduction in the reggae influences that were a part of the band's first four records, instead featuring production-heavy textures and liberal use of synthesizers that, at times, drove entire songs ("Synchronicity I", "Wrapped Around Your Finger"). The influence of world music can also be heard in songs such as "Tea in the Sahara" and "Walking in Your Footsteps".
As with their prior album, the basic tracks for Synchronicity were recorded at AIR Studios, Montserrat beginning in December 1982. The three band members recorded their parts in separate rooms: Stewart Copeland with his drums in the dining room, Sting in the control room and Andy Summers in the actual studio. According to co-producer Hugh Padgham this was done for two reasons: to obtain the best sound for each instrument and "for social reasons." Padgham also stated that subsequent overdubs were done with only one member in the studio at a time. The overdubs were done at Le Studio in Quebec during January–February 1983. During the recording of "Every Breath You Take", Sting and Copeland came to blows with each other, and Padgham nearly quit the project.
The album was published in the UK and U.S. on both LP and CD in 1983, and on Super Audio CD in 2003. In 1989, it was published by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab as a remastered gold CD.
The Love Songs is a 1989 compilation by Swedish pop band ABBA, released in the Netherlands only.
My Generation: The Very Best of The Who is one of The Who's many greatest hits collections, released by Polydor Records internationally and MCA Records in the United States in 1996. Its release coincided with the release of the remastered original albums (omitting My Generation for contractual reasons) and thus contained the newly remastered versions of the songs, and some also remixed.
Every Breath You Take: The Singles is the debut compilation album by The Police, released in 1986. In 1990, the album was repackaged in New Zealand, Australia and Spain as Their Greatest Hits with a different cover.
A video collection entitled Every Breath You Take: The Videos was released alongside the album. It was released on VHS and Betamax cassette, as well as on Laserdisc in the UK, Europe and in Japan. The collection featured fourteen promotional videos, for the thirteen tracks on the album and the original version of "Don't Stand So Close to Me".
Zenyatta Mondatta (spelled as Zenyattà Mondatta on the album cover artwork) is the third studio album by English rock band The Police, released in 1980. It was co-produced with Nigel Gray. It features the two hit singles: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da". It reached number one on the UK Albums Chart.
The album won The Police two Grammy Awards including Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and The Police's second consecutive win for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for "Behind My Camel".
The album was written during the band's second tour and recorded in four weeks (minus several days for concerts in the UK – Milton Keynes festival – and Ireland). The band members have often expressed disappointment over it, going so far as to re-record two songs during a brief, unsuccessful reunion in 1986. Drummer Stewart Copeland said about the time pressures: "We had bitten off more than we could chew. ... we finished the album at 4 a.m. on the day we were starting our next world tour. We went to bed for a few hours and then traveled down to Belgium for the first gig. It was cutting it very fine."
The band had wanted to record the album at Surrey Sound, the recording site of their first two albums, but could not record at any British studio for tax reasons. They were, however, able to retain Nigel Gray as their co-producer, bringing him with them to Wisseloord Studios in the Netherlands. Feeling that he'd played a significant part in The Police's first two albums, Gray negotiated for a £25,000 fee, which brought the album's total budget to £35,000 (more than twice the combined budgets of their first two albums, but still exceptionally cheap for a band who were established stars).
As mentioned by Copeland, the Police embarked on a tour of the world the day of the album's completion, beginning in Belgium and finishing in Australia.
The album is the last of the Police's early era, influenced by reggae and punk and featuring few musical elements on top of the core guitar, bass, and drums. The record has two instrumentals, "The Other Way of Stopping" (named from a line in Bob Newhart's "The Driving Instructor" routine) and the Grammy-winning "Behind My Camel" . "Behind My Camel" was guitarist Andy Summers' first entirely self-penned composition. As Sting refused to play on it, Summers recorded the bass line himself, overdubbing the guitar parts. According to Sting, "I hated that song so much that, one day when I was in the studio, I found the tape lying on the table. So I took it around the back of the studio and actually buried it in the garden." Nigel Gray believed that the title was an in-joke by Summers: "He didn't tell me this himself but I'm 98% sure the reason is this: what would you find behind a camel? A monumental pile of shit." The song went on to win the 1982 Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. "Bombs Away" was recorded on a tape that Nigel Gray had just used with Siouxsie and the Banshees. Copeland said: "when he first set up his home studio he got hold of a load of second hand tape which included some stuff by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Bombs Away was written on a Siouxsie and the Banshees backing track. I changed the speed and did things to the EQ to change the drum pattern. So with the desk I can get my song playing, then press a switch and there's Siouxsie singing away."
Zenyatta Mondatta also saw the band's lyrics turning towards political events, with Sting's "Driven to Tears" commenting on poverty and Copeland's "Bombs Away" referring to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. These themes became more prevalent in the Police's next album, Ghost in the Machine.
Six years later the band re-recorded "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da". The former was released on Every Breath You Take: The Singles, while the latter was released on the DTS version of Every Breath You Take: The Classics.
A&M Records first remastered the album for release in the United States in 1990, as CD #CD-3720. Frank DeLuna and Marv Bornstein mastered the original 1980 vinyl LP, but it's unclear if they also remastered the compact disc.
Copeland has claimed that the group arrived at the album's title after deciding it should roll off the tongue. Zenyatta Mondatta are invented portmanteau words, hinting at Zen, at Jomo Kenyatta, at the French word for the world ("le monde") and at Reggatta, from the previous album's name, Reggatta de Blanc.
"It means everything. It's the same explanation that applies to the last two. It doesn't have a specific meaning like 'Police Brutality' or 'Police Arrest', or anything predictable like that. Being vague it says a lot more. You can interpret it in a lot of different ways. It's not an attempt to be mysterious, just syllables that sound good together, like the sound of a melody that has no words at all has a meaning. Miles (Stewart Copeland's brother and group manager) came up with "Trimondo Blondomina". Very subtle. Geddit? Like three blondes and the world. Then somebody thought of "Caprido Von Renislam". That rolls off the tongue. It was the address of the studio."
Jerry Moss, co-founder of A&M Records, named the champion racehorse Zenyatta (b. 2004) after this album.
In the Blizzard video game, Overwatch, one of the playable characters is a robotic (Omnic) monk named Zenyatta, who formerly belonged to a tribe led by an omnic named Mondatta.
In the English localization for the anime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, two characters appear as brothers, known as Zenyatta and Mondatta. This is in contrast to the original release, where the brothers were named Oingo and Boingo, after the band of the same name.
