Synchronicity is the sound of a band winning and ending at the same time. Released in 1983, it was the Police’s fifth record and their last, the one that knocked Michael Jackson’s Thriller off the top of the American charts and then served as a long, public goodbye.

You can hear the strain in it, and that is what makes it good. The three of them recorded much of it apart, in different rooms, barely speaking, and the distance is in the music: edgy, restless, full of unease even on the brighter tracks. “King of Pain,” “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” and “Synchronicity II” all carry that same nervous charge.

And then there is the single that swallowed everything else, the one everyone knows, the one almost nobody hears correctly. The album won the year. The band did not survive it. Both of those things are true at once.