Ghost in the Machine feels unsettlingly crowded.

Which is as it should be, since that's what the album is about: overload, media explosion, the global village, the behavioral sink. The Police's platform, a spinoff from Marshall McLuhan, Alvin Toffler, et al., is hardly news …, yet it's strongly stated, consistent and compelling. The thrashing, denatured funk of "Too Much Information," the whirlpool riff that punctuates "Omegaman" and the oppressive, hymnlike aspects of "Invisible Sun" all bespeak claustrophobia and frustration, and the lyrics bear them out. The Police skillfully manipulate musical details to underscore their points. Sting brays "information" as if to demonstrate how words, when repeated often enough, can disassemble into meaninglessness. In "Rehumanize Yourself," the singsong circus-calliope mood of the music works as a taunt to the raw seriousness of the lyrics: "Billy joined the National Front / He always was a little runt / Got his hand...