Synchronicity

Recording began in December 1982 at AIR Studios on Montserrat on a Neve 8078 console and lasted six weeks. The three members played the basic tracks live from separate rooms: Copeland with his drums in the dining room, connected to the control room by a video link, Sting in the control room and Summers in the studio. Padgham said this was done to get the best sound for each instrument. Final overdubs and mixing took two weeks at Le Studio in Morin-Heights from mid-January to February 1983, on an SSL console with automated mixing. Unlike Ghost in the Machine, there are no overdubbed saxophones. Sting used a sequencer for the first time, on Walking in Your Footsteps and Synchronicity I.

The title was inspired by Carl Jung's Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, which the first song quotes, and the material drew on Arthur Koestler's The Roots of Coincidence. The cover came in 36 variations, with photographs by Duane Michals. Mother, written and sung by Summers, drew attention. Summers described it as off-the-wall and said it was written to be ironic and funny, partly inspired by Captain Beefheart and by his own mother, and that the press wrote about it a great deal.

The album debuted at number one in the UK and topped the Billboard 200 in late July 1983, spending 17 nonconsecutive weeks there. In Canada it was number one for a record 24 consecutive weeks. It was nominated for five Grammys at the 1984 ceremony and won three, including Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. It entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2023.

NME's Richard Cook wrote in 1983 that it was the sound of a group coming apart and coming together. In Mojo, Tom Doyle gave the 2024 reissue four stars and called it a pretty weird mainstream record by an altogether underrated group. Rolling Stone ranked it at number 17 among the best albums of the 1980s and at number 159 on its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums. The 40th anniversary editions came out on 26 July 2024, with the largest box set holding six CDs.