The police/Sting - Ghost in the studio

Weeeiirrd. A couple of days ago, I acquired an album attributed to the Police and titled simply "Ghost in the studio". A web search for information didn't turn up much, just that it was apparently Sting's demo tapes that he brought to the band in 1980 or 81 to flesh out into the fourth Police album. Let's look at the track listing:

1. Secret Journey
2. Sprits in the material world
3. Invisible Sun
4. Too much information
5. One world (not three)
6. Hungry for you
7. Invisible Sun
8. Secret Journey
9. Don't believe in me baby
10. Don't think we could ever be friends
11. Don't look at me
12. It's never too late
13. Daytime Job

So we have a good chunk of the finished album here in rough form, and a few others that have never seen the light of day. Let's take a listen. The sound quality is pretty rough in general, and some tracks sound better engineered than others. There's a definite lack of Stew, and all the drum tracks are done with a drum machine and are quite minimal. "Too much information", in fact, features handclaps instead of drums, and "One world" has no rhythm track at all. The tracks that ended up on the actual album sound remarkably unchanged from their prototypes here, which makes me wonder if Andy Summers had a hand in the guitar parts on this demo, or if he mostly just played on the album what he heard here. The multiple versions of "Secret Journey" and "Invisible Sun" really only differ in that the atmospheric synth sounds were a bit different to each other. None of the tracks here offer any polish at all, and it's kind of interesting to hear how Sting layers his vocals. But let's check out the stuff that really had me interested: The tracks that never made the cut.
None of them could have made it as Police songs. "Don't believe in me baby" is actually pretty good as a moody british new wave song, but "Don't think we could ever be friends" and "Don't look at me" sound like Sting teamed up with Michael McDonald. Yech. "It's never too late" could have easily popped back up on one of Sting's solo records. It has that slick, butt-jazz lite feel to it. Finally, there's "Daytime Job", which is surprisingly uncharacteristic for Sting and I like it in spite of its cheesiness. It would have been a great Billy Joel song. This collection of tracks offers some interesting insight for those of us geeky enough to want to peek behind the process of making a police record. It's kind of like the "deleted scenes" on the DVD. Kinda cool, not that great, and it takes a nerd to appreciate it. I'll ignore the muddiness of the sound, and give it a C. It's an inferior version of the finished product, but it's interesting enough to be worth a listen, and has one new song that's pretty good.