Ghost in the Machine (album)
1981 studio album by The Police
Ghost in the Machine is the fourth studio album by the English rock band the Police. The album was released on 2 October 1981 by A&M Records. The songs were recorded between January and September 1981 during sessions that took place at AIR Studios in Montserrat and Le Studio in Quebec, assisted by record producer Hugh Padgham.
Ghost in the Machine topped the UK Albums Chart and peaked at number two on the US Billboard 200. The album produced the highly successful singles "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", "Invisible Sun", and "Spirits in the Material World", with a fourth single, "Secret Journey", also being released in the US. Ghost in the Machine was listed at number 322 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album was reissued in 1983 on CD.
Production and recording
After having produced the previous album Zenyatta Mondatta within a tight deadline of four weeks under pressure from the record company to deliver an album to the market, the Police decided to loosen up when it came to recording Ghost in the Machine. This time they spent six weeks recording at AIR Studios in Montserrat, which was, according to drummer Stewart Copeland, "a 12 hour flight from the nearest record company".
This album marked a change in engineer/co-producer, from Nigel Gray – who worked on the band's albums up to that point – to Hugh Padgham, best known for the drum sound he achieved on records by Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins (see gated reverb). In fact, for this album, Padgham initiated a technique in which the band were recording together in separate rooms of the AIR Studios facility: Andy Summers in the main studio with all his guitars and amplifiers; Sting in the control room with his bass directly plugged into the desk; and Copeland in the dining room with his drums to get a "live" sound. This method would be repeated for the next album.
“Ghost in the Machine (album)” enters the record as 1981 studio album by The Police. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ghost, Machine and album can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q751468. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981 and 1983.
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