The Police: Classic or Dud, Search and Destroy

I’ll be honest with you I usually don’t check what thread I’m posting in

there is only one thread, i'm on the same page. literally

been on an andy summers kick of late, had never actually heard his epic solo on this one before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_aAsg2UTZo

(the guitar solo is from 2:00 to 6:30)

(it sounds nothing like the police btw)

the audio on this is killing me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJyEr-jWVv4

sounds like some of the guitar parts from 'voices' - anyone know if it's available somewhere?

Is it the intro music on the Synchronicity tour?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyp7au1vOrM

oh, definitely related to that, thanks! the tempo is a bit quicker though and the guitar parts are a bit more abstract. drum machine sounds like the same one that plays at the start of 'duchess' by genesis - CR-78?

Thinking about picking up Around the World. Picture quality aside (it does look great now that it's fully-restored from the negative) how's the film itself? Is it a good doc or at least a good concert compilation of sorts?

The band originally broke up in . . . 1984? When Sting decided he would be better off going it alone, a la Paul Weller. In retrospect, it seems like an inevitability, but he pulled the plug on the band when they were still fairly well peaking.

Like a friend of mine said a while back, when we were listening to Dream of the Blue Turtles: "You broke up the Police for this? Fuck you."

So, your friend didn't consider Sting turtley enough for the Blue Turtle Club?

Although, to be fair, you could say he did a favour to the legacy of the Police by breaking them up when he realized his muse was leading him in that direction.

Credit where credit's due, he put together an extraordinary group of musicians for that record. But his "muse" seemed to be leading him much more astray than was Weller's. I suppose the warning signs were there with Synchronicity, which nevertheless still showed flashes of brilliance; I'd put "Synchronicity II" among their best songs, as well as among the best songs of the 80s.

Anyway, if we are going to do S/D, I'd search "Secret Journey." Apart from the obvious "Mother," I don't think the world would miss "Born in the 50s."

I thought the plan was they'd get back together after the Blue Turtles record. At least that is what Stew assumed was going to happen.

If you haven't heard it yet the Bring on the Night live set is really great. The band gets to flex a lot more. All of the medley tracks are awesome. Interesting live record too, it's almost as if he was intentionally shying away from his hits, trying to prove he really did have a deep catalogue.

Copeland's record live record with Gizmodrome is really good too. The tightness reminds me of 80's King Crimson. Also you get to hear a lot of Police cuts that never got played live.

Yeah, I think I rented the VHS when that came out. I also saw the Blue Turtles tour when it came to Red Rocks. Sadly, it was the closest I ever came to seeing the Police.

I'll check out the Copeland record. Interesting comparison to King Crimson.

For me, there's been a good EP's worth of solo Sting cuts that could've been pretty good Police songs, and most of them are on Blue Turtles: "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free," "Love Is the Seventh Wave," and "Fortress Around Your Heart." But it takes more than three cuts to make a good album, and "Russians" is as well-meaning as it is colossally stupid.

The Bring On the Night doco offers some insight to the astonishing level of self-belief from which Sting was operating in those times.

y'all are mad

his best imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT64QnhZD4o

That would be the 4th track on my "best of Sting (i.e. songs he should've made with the Police)" EP.

It's a reasonable position, but you regard "best solo Sting" songs as "most-Police-like Sting"? Has he done any solo songs you like where you think "the Police couldn't have done this"?

It's a reasonable position, but you regard "best solo Sting" songs as "most-Police-like Sting"? Has he done any solo songs you like where you think "the Police couldn't have done this"?

Yes - "Hung My Head," but I prefer Johnny Cash's version.

It’s an interesting thought experiment but I think the most likely scenario had they continued into the late 80s is they would’ve sounded like Big Generator-era Yes

"I ALSO eat at Chez Nous"

It’s an interesting thought experiment but I think the most likely scenario had they continued into the late 80s is they would’ve sounded like Big Generator-era Yes

― frogbs, Sunday, May 22, 2022 12:57 PM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Theory makes sense...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jSl-Lr4VuY

Exhibit B:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlesUq8U7KM

(IIRC this was first released in 2000 on the 5.1 DTS re-issue of Every Breath You Take: The Classics)

https://www.discogs.com/release/8897614-The-Police-Every-Breath-You-Take-The-Classics

But yeah, I agree, they wouldn't have gotten better if they made more albums. The most optimistic view I have is that we would've gotten a few more classic singles, but Sting was irrevocably heading in the wrong direction.

I'm fond of this bitter, beautiful denunciation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8fgY3AUNQM

As soon as I played that YouTube clip, my partner thought I had fired up a Netflix show, hah.

Also, Sting's "You Will Be My Ain True Love" for the movie Cold Mountain can be surprisingly good. It only hit me when I saw Alison Krauss & Union Station perform a haunting a cappella version to kick off an encore. It was like "WOW, how did I miss that?" but when I went back to the soundtrack, I was disappointed that it was produced and arranged very differently, with only an occasional voice joining Krauss rather than the full, eerie harmonies of the concert rendition.

FWIW, both Sting and Elvis Costello of all people contributed good songs, and both of them were nominated for an Oscar - they lost to Annie Lennox, Howard Shore and Fran Walsh for Return of the King.

Wow, the '86 version of DDDD,DDDD is breathtakingly bad. I can remember at the time thinking "awesome, those Police singles with cool production" but I was about 15 and musically illiterate.

Who had Animal Logic reunion on their bingo card?
https://scontent-ord5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/312707862_646660697057424_7241859831881752794_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=WvKxxFpBL3wAX-ui31T&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-1.xx&oh=00_AT_AWNuMn5wiqRFtA7XPC64n3yTstyZ6rNHCC5kn80noxA&oe=635B10BB

Hmph. Call me when Curved Air reunites.

Okay I meant that as a drive-by joek but some alert ilx0r will no doubt pipe up to say that Curved Air are still active (or, rather, active again, just without Copeland) and that their new album is I dunno a banger or something.

I got nothing, sorry

sending out an SOS

Apart from the obvious "Mother,"

mother has a somewhat dumb vocal line but you do get to hear Summers completely steal Fripp's guitar solo from Eno's Golden Hours and that saves it IMO

I’ll have what Stanley Clarke is having.

He carries all his weight in his right thumb.

does this mean Gizmodrome is dead?

Probably as dead as Oysterhead.

It's been 43 years and I can still not quite get over the coolness gap between Copeland's excellent music and his derpy persona.

There is a memoir* by Jacob Slichter (who is a completely different person) in which he says that no matter what he did, no matter how much of a cool rock star he tried to be, every photograph of him made him look like he's about to say "Hey guys, let's ride bikes!"

When I read that, and then read Copeland's memoir**, it provided useful clarity to my understanding of Copeland. He's made some of my favorite records but he is the type of guy who pretty much always looks like he's about to say "Hey guys, let's ride bikes!"

* = Yes, I will read any book by a drummer and almost any book by a musician.
** = See?

yeah that occurred to me while listening to the Gizmodrome live album. it's excellent but Stew's persona is really self-consciously goofy in a way that's pretty offputting. he can't quite pull off the self-deprecating rock star persona that he's going for. he can definitely be a funny dude though.

He also wears very short shorts.

So do I. And my drumming sucks.

he is the type of guy who pretty much always looks like he's about to say "Hey guys, let's ride bikes!"

https://editorial01.shutterstock.com/wm-preview-1500/433266d/f1e6ab9f/Shutterstock_433266d.jpg

But wait! Long shorts!

I feel like I've written about this before (not this thread, apparently). In the "Certifiable" documentary from the reunion tour, there's a cringey scene at the Whisky where two things happen:

1. Questlove asks a question from the audience and it is pretty clear that Stewart has no idea who Questlove is. I don't think Sting does either, but that's not important right now.

2. Sting asks Andy if he knows "Message in a Bottle" and Andy obligingly says, "Uh, I dunno, what key is it in?" lulz. They start playing.

But here's the thing: Stewart starts calling out the chords, with inversions and naming the bass notes. And he doesn't fucking stop. Like they're pretty far along in the intro and Stewart (who someone unwisely provided with a live headset microphone) is still going like "C sharp minor with a B, A major seventh, B seventh..."

And everybody in the room is like DUDE, SHUT UP.

He wants everyone to know he's Not Just a Drummer.

Sting does tantric sex. The only inversion he needs is when Trudi fucks him up the ass.

With a vintage Fender Precision bass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbO1qC7EsVI

1. Questlove asks a question from the audience and it is pretty clear that Stewart has no idea who Questlove is. I don't think Sting does either, but that's not important right now.

Certifiable came out in 2007. . . the Roots didnt start playing Fallon until 2009, right? It's possible Stewart knew of the guy, but I don't know that the Roots were as huge back then (and Questlove didn't have the culture presence back then either)

Fair point, waterface. The exchange is kind of weird in context.

(Caveat: I'm going from memory here because the DVD is in a box somewhere - so is anything resembling a DVD player. What I found on YouTube has this bit edited out, quite sensibly.)

It was meant to be a press event, so people asking questions were instructed to say what publication they were affiliated with, like "Hi, I'm Joe Blow from Rolling Stone."

Questlove says, "I'm Questlove from the Roots, I don't have an affiliation."

Stewart says, "wait, you mean, like, you're just... a normal person?"

Questlove asks a softball question about their influences.

Sting says something like, "People used to say we sounded a bit like Bob Marley." Which is both a pandering answer and a kind of infuriating one.

It is true that the early Police freely borrowed from reggae (cough cough APPROPRIATION cough cough). But it is a stretch to say that they sounded like Bob Marley. Further, it seems unlikely that anyone but Sting and people who wanted to flatter Sting ever said that.

Was Sting name-checking a Black artist because a Black dude asked him about his influences? One can speculate. It's a very brief moment and, as I said, not one that deserves this much unpacking.