Ghost in the Machine ist das vierte Studioalbum von The Police. Es erschien im Oktober 1981 bei A&M Records. Es erreichte Dreifach-Platin in den USA. Das Magazin Rolling Stone setzte es auf Platz 322 seiner Liste der 500 besten Alben aller Zeiten.

Ghost in the Machine, das erste Album der Band mit einem englischsprachigen Titel, basiert auf dem gleichnamigen Buch von Arthur Koestler. Es wurde im Verlaufe des Jahres 1981 in Montserrat und Québec eingespielt. Erstmals wurden verstärkt Keyboards und Bläser eingesetzt. So weist etwa Spirits in the Material World einen rhythmischen Streicher-Synthesizer-Teil auf. Jean Roussel spielte das Klavier bei Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic. Der Zeitschrift Guitar Player gegenüber äußerte sich Andy Summers 1994 unzufrieden mit der musikalischen Ausrichtung des Albums, die zu Lasten von Kreativität und Dynamik gegangen sei. 
(Wikipedia)

Ghost in the Machine is the fourth album by The Police, released in 1981. Much of the material in this album was inspired by Arthur Koestler's The Ghost in the Machine, which also provided the title. It was their first album to bear an English language title. The group released three successful singles from the album: "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", "Invisible Sun", and "Spirits in the Material World". It went multi-platinum in the United States. The album was listed #322 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The cover art for Ghost in the Machine features a seven-segment display-inspired graphic that depicts the heads of the three band members each with a distinctive hair style (from left to right, Andy Summers, Sting with spiky hair, and Stewart Copeland with a fringe); the band was unable to decide on a photograph to use for the cover. Wire bonds can be seen on the original issue vinyl album cover, suggesting that the display is custom rather than merely seven-segment or perhaps is a photographic collage. The album's cover is ranked at number 45 on VH1's 50 Greatest Album Covers. The graphic was designed by Mick Haggerty.

The album was the first Police record to feature heavy use of keyboards and horns. "Spirits in the Material World" has a rhythmic string synthesizer part, "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" uses piano arpeggios and "Invisible Sun" has a background of synthesizer chords. The following twenty minutes of the record, "Hungry for You (J'aurais Toujours Faim de Toi)" through "One World (Not Three)", include many saxophone harmonies while the opening to "Secret Journey" showcases the Roland Guitar Synthesizer.

Sting included all the synthesizer parts in his demos for the songs, and brought in Jean Roussel for the piano parts on "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic". The demo for "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" was such a high budget recording that the group could not best it with the equipment available at AIR Studios, and ended up using it as the backing track for the official recording, with Copeland and Summers dubbing their parts on. Sting also played all the saxophone parts on the album. Andy Summers recollects:

I have to say I was getting disappointed with the musical direction around the time of Ghost in the Machine. With the horns and synth coming in, the fantastic raw-trio feel—all the really creative and dynamic stuff—was being lost. We were ending up backing a singer doing his pop songs.

The LP opens with "Spirits in the Material World," featuring keyboards dubbed over Summers' reggae-inspired guitar licks. "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" features piano, a strong Caribbean vibe, and an extended non-verbal vocal solo at the end. "Invisible Sun" is a contrast of slow, steady, verses, a bombastic chorus, and several guitar solos. "Hungry For You (J'Aurais Toujours Faim de Toi)" is sung mostly in French, with the bass and horns both repeating a single 8-note melody for the length of the song, while the guitar maintains a steady beat. "Demolition Man," the band's longest song, almost six minutes in length, features a strong bass line and saxophone, and was written by Sting while staying at Peter O'Toole's Irish mansion. It became a belated hit in 1993, as the theme song for the same-named action movie. Grace Jones and Sting have both recorded solo versions of the song. Manfred Mann's Earth Band also recorded a version — rearranged and with extensive use of synthesizers — in 1982 for their "Somewhere in Afrika" album.

"Too Much Information," "Rehumanize Yourself," and "One World (Not Three)" feature a heavy use of horns. Similarly to "Landlord" and "Dead End Job", Copeland had written both music and lyrics for "Rehumanize Yourself", but Sting rejected the lyrics and replaced them with ones he'd written himself. The final three songs, "Omegaman," "Secret Journey," and "Darkness" return to the darker sound which opens the album. "Omegaman" was chosen by A&M to be the first single from the album, but Sting, who had only played on the song grudgingly, refused to allow its release in single form.

In his younger days, Sting was an avid reader of Koestler. Another of the Police's albums, Synchronicity, was inspired by Koestler's The Roots of Coincidence, which mentions Carl Jung's theory of synchronicity.

Ghost in the Machine (en español "Fantasma en la máquina") es el cuarto álbum de The Police, editado en 1981. La revista Rolling Stone puso al disco en el puesto 322 de su lista de "Los 500 mejores de la historia", aunque hubo críticas sobre su posición en comparación con Synchroncity (en el puesto 455).

Ghost in the Machine, es el álbum de estudio con mejor grabación de sonido en la historia de The Police. Además, está claramente influenciado por la situación socio-política mundial en sus letras y es el más oscuro de los cinco editados en estudio por el trío británico. Durante las sesiones fueron grabadas las canciones "Flexible Strategies" y "Low Life", las cuales fueron incluidas como Lados-B de los simples "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" y "Spirits in the Material World".

Ghost in the Machine est le 4e album du groupe The Police sorti le 2 octobre 1981. Une grande partie du matériel de l'album a été inspirée par l'essai d'Arthur Koestler The Ghost in the Machine (1967, Le Fantôme dans la Machine en français) dont le titre est repris pour l'album.

L'image de l'album montre un graphique inspiré du LED qui représente les têtes des trois membres du groupe chacun avec un style de cheveux distinct (de gauche à droite, Andy Summers, Sting avec ses cheveux en piquant et Stewart Copeland avec une frange); le groupe étant incapable de se décider sur la photographie à utiliser pour la couverture de l'album.

Ghost in the Machine é o quarto álbum de estúdio, lançado em 1981, da banda britânica The Police.

Nesse lançamento, a banda deixa de lado as influências do reggae para adotar um som mais voltado para o pop rock, com adição de metais em várias faixas do disco. Também são evidenciadas as primeiras tensões internas na banda durante as gravações.

"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" is a song by British rock group The Police from their fourth album Ghost in the Machine. The song, notable for featuring a pianist (uncommon for most Police songs), dates back to a demo recorded in 1977. It was also a hit single that reached the top of the charts in the United Kingdom (topping its predecessor, "Invisible Sun") in November 1981 and hit number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart that same year.

Although recorded in 1981, Sting wrote the song as early as 1976. An early (1977) demo of the song can be heard on the Strontium 90 album Strontium 90: Police Academy. A good ear will detect that the vocals are set back from the music on this track. This was either due to the mastering feel, or the overdub from the demo.

This was first recorded as a demo, with the piano figure, in a studio in Montreal. I had written the song long before the Police were successful, but it seemed a bit soft for the band at first. But the demo was really great. It sounded like a No 1 song to me. I took it to the band, who were reticent, still thinking it was soft. I was saying, "But listen, it's a hit." We tried to do it from scratch as the Police, but it didn't have the same energy as the demo. After a degree of hair-pulling and torturing on my part, I got the band to play over the top of my demo.

— Sting, The Independent, September 1993
The piano part was added by session keyboardist Jean Roussel, whom Sting invited to play on the track against the wishes of his bandmates Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland. Summers did not approve of Roussel's inclusion in the track, claiming that he was "incredibly pushy" and that "there wasn't room for him. He must have played 12 piano parts on that song alone." Copeland, however, said that Roussel "wasn't pushy ... He was just like us actually."

Feeling that the arrangement of the track was not enough like The Police style, Summers (who recalled, "as the guitar player I was saying, 'What the fuck is this? This is not the Police sound'") and Copeland attempted to change the track. However, as Copeland remembers:

"I remember saying, 'Okay put up Sting's original demo and I'll show you how crummy it is.' So Sting stood over me and waved me through all the changes. I did just one take, and that became the record. Then Andy did the same thing on the guitar. We just faced the music, bit the bullet, and used Sting's arrangements and demo. Damn."

— Stewart Copeland, Revolver, 2000
In the chorus, Sting, not knowing any other word which would rhyme with "magic," used the word "tragic." Copeland said of this moment, "I remember Sting for years trying to think of a rhyme for 'magic', as in 'Every Little Things She Does Is Magic.' I think the only word he could come up with, apart from 'tragic', was 'pelagic', which means 'ocean going'. There I was in my leather pants and punk hairdo, pondering the distinction between ocean-going and river-going fish."

"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" was released as the second single from Ghost in the Machine in UK and Ireland, while in most other parts of the world it was the debut single from the album. The song outperformed its predecessor in Britain, where it topped the charts. The song also hit No. 1 in Canada, Ireland and the Netherlands, No. 2 in Australia, and No. 5 in Norway. It reached No. 3 in America, making it and "King of Pain" the band's second-best-performing single there, after its No. 1 hit "Every Breath You Take".

The lyrics of the second verse, "Do I have to tell the story / Of a thousand rainy days since we first met? / It's a big enough umbrella / But it's always me that ends up getting wet," were reprised by Sting at the end of the song "O My God" issued on the band's next album. These lyrics were repeated once more in "Seven Days" on Sting's solo album Ten Summoner's Tales.

The song has received a highly positive retrospective review from Allmusic journalist Chris True, who praised the lyrics and described the song as "pop brilliance".

The song's B-side, "Flexible Strategies," was reportedly an improvised jam that was created in response to the record company's demand for a B-side. Stewart Copeland claims, "Word came down from the marketing machine 'Create a b-side – today! We walked over to the gear, strapped on, and played for ten minutes. A disgrace."

"It's a big enough umbrella, but it's always me that ends up getting wet."