Sept 24th in Pop History

On this day, September 24th, in:

1983: Synchronicity continued to battle Michael Jackson's Thriller as The Police owned the # 1 album for the 11th week.

Synchronicity is the fifth and final studio album by English rock band The Police, released on June 17, 1983 by A&M Records. 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. The album's title and much of the material for the songs were inspired by Arthur Koestler’s book, The Roots of Coincidence. At the time of its release and following its tour, the Police's popularity was at such a high that they were arguably, according to the BBC and The Guardian, the "biggest band in the world.”

In the 1983 Rolling Stone readers' poll Synchronicity was voted Album of the Year. In 1984, Synchronicity won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and was nominated for Album of the Year. Every Breath You Take won the awards for Best Song of the Year and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and received a nomination for Record of the Year.

Synchronicity reached number one on both the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200, and sold over eight million copies in the US. The album was widely acclaimed by critics. Praise centred on its cohesive merging of disparate genres and sound experimentation. Rolling Stone described "each cut on Synchronicity [as] not simply a song but a miniature, discrete soundtrack". It has since been included in the magazine's 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.