Andy Summers: XYZ

Once the Police were finished, we were rooting for Andy Summers. Never as loud or as pugnacious as Sting or Stewart Copeland, surely his expertise on guitar and quest for new sounds would ensure something of a career outside of that band. Right?

One obstacle was that he didn’t have much of a singing voice; his monologue on “Be My Girl—Sally” was just that, and “Mother” was the one track most people skipped on the multi-platinum Synchronicity due to his yowling. That was a lot to overcome, especially when XYZ, his first solo album, sported songs he sang. He also handled all the guitars and most of the basses, while coproducer David Hentschel—most famous for earlier production work for Genesis and the synth on Elton John’s “Funeral For A Friend”—was credited with keyboards and drum programming. It should be no surprise that the album is firmly affixed in 1987. That production style often buries the vocals in reverb and other contemporary effects, and sometimes there’s a woman adding an ethereal counterpoint, but that only underscores Summers’ shortcomings.

“Love Is The Strangest Way” was the first single, and it got some airplay, but the title might have been a little too close to one of Sting’s to stand out. Much of what follows doesn’t sound enough like the Police to please those fans. “How Many Days” and “Almost There” do have some hook hiding in the murk, but “Eyes Of A Stranger” might as well be Pat Benatar (instrumentally, not vocally). “The Change” is a moody departure from the norm, with a minimum of percussion, to close what was side one, and therefore welcome.

With “Scary Voices” it’s back to music that wouldn’t seem out of place on a movie soundtrack, and we’re trying to figure out which Sting melody “Nowhere” echoes. The balance starts to improve with the title track, a pleasant, almost new age instrumental that echoes Mark Isham’s work on the Windham Hill label. The desert feel in both lyric and backing help “The Only Road” stand out, and the equally subdued “Hold Me” doesn’t sound too far from a Blue Nile track with its keening vocal a la Paul Buchanan.

The title track was somewhat prescient, as he would release four instrumental albums over the next four years, sometimes using some of the musicians common to Isham. These were all on the Private Music label, which specialized in new age-type music that was too techno for Windham Hill, and had about as much commercial impact as XYZ.

Andy Summers XYZ (1987)—2½