Bring On the POLL - ILM Artist Poll #116 - THE POLICE - (Results Thread)

More to come...

I thought "Fragile" was too slick to do anything for me, but I gave it another shot just now...if you mentally isolate the vocal, I can see the appeal. Like that melody is actually beautiful and can be moving (and do justice to the song's inspiration - an American civil engineer who was killed by the Reagan-backed Contras while working on a hydroelectric project in Nicaragua).

I just think the way they recorded it is too glossy. The delicate backing is devoid of emotion - it's an overly tasteful backdrop that feels like a poor match to what the song's supposed to do. And the little prettifying touches like the chimes at the end feel like a lapse in judgment.

"Fortress Around Your Heart" is a catchy motherfucker. What a chorus!

Yeah, this is another keeper for me. My three favorite tracks on Turtles and "All This Time" are pretty much all I need anymore from solo Sting.

I think it was sort of foolish of me to think that an album outside of the band would crack the Top 5.

22 Album Ballots Received

https://i.imgur.com/ztwfktY.jpg

5. Outlandos d'Amour
126 Points, 18 Votes, 1 Number One

I didn't vote in the solo poll due to my lack of knowledge about Stuart and Andy's extra-curricular stuff, but a little gutted that my favourite Sting solo track, 'They Dance Alone', missed the cut.

I don’t get the love for “All This Time” at all. It’s fine enough for early 90s VH-1 fare but the creaky river metaphor and Paul Simon-isms of the verse (who himself loved a river metaphor) feel, well, secondhand. The arrangement is pedestrian and snare drum irritatingly insistent. And while the chorus is memorable I don’t find it particularly catchy.

“Fragile” OTOH …

might be the closest Stinghas ever come to writing a song that sounds like a standard he is covering.

I thought "Fragile" was too slick to do anything for me, but I gave it another shot just now...if you mentally isolate the vocal, I can see the appeal. Like that melody is actually beautiful and can be moving (and do justice to the song's inspiration - an American civil engineer who was killed by the Reagan-backed Contras while working on a hydroelectric project in Nicaragua).

I just think the way they recorded it is too glossy. The delicate backing is devoid of emotion - it's an overly tasteful backdrop that feels like a poor match to what the song's supposed to do. And the little prettifying touches like the chimes at the end feel like a lapse in judgment.

https://i.imgur.com/2NQootb.jpg

4. Synchronicity
147 Points, 19 Votes, 2 Number Ones

I remember decoding the imagery on the sleeve as a teen - different for LP/CD/CS if I recall correctly

different cover variations on the LPs as well

Feels about right - Outlandos and Synchronicity both have some amazing songs but I feel like those two also have some of the worst things they ever did? I mean I remember wincing at 'Sally' when I was 10, and it's only got more cringe with age

I had this on cassette and thinking the same thing. So much filler was on this album.

But the good songs are great and the bonus was awesome too.

one confession, I can't sing 'walking In Your Footsteps' in my head anymore without it turning into 'hakuna matata' halfway through

https://i.imgur.com/nsxaQ9G.jpg

3. Zenyattà Mondatta
164 Points, 20 Votes, 4 Number Ones

Where I had it but surprising nonetheless. You could argue Zenyatta is their best.

https://i.imgur.com/WTCq0Gg.jpg

2. Ghost in the Machine
174 Points, 20 Votes, 7 Number Ones

https://i.imgur.com/8ZY60TS.jpg

1. Reggatta de Blanc
190 Points, 22 Votes, 7 Number Ones

Place, Points, Votes, Number Ones, Album

1	190	22	7	Reggatta de Blanc
2	174	20	7	Ghost in the Machine
3	164	20	4	Zenyattà Mondatta
4	147	19	2	Synchronicity
5	126	18	1	Outlandos d'Amour
6	10	1	1	The Soul Cages - Sting
7	8	1		...Nothing Like The Sun - Sting
8	8	1		Klark Kent
9	7	1		Dream of the Blue Turtles - Sting
10	6	1		Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings

Zero votes for "Russians" lol

Fascinating that so many love Zenyatta when they always used to talk about it as a rush job and slapped together between tours. There are a fair few “feel pieces” but they seem to have aged better than a lot of the lesser “proper songs”.

Yeah it’s a cool record if you just wanna hear them play.

The order of the albums almost matched my ballot, but I had #s 4 and 5 flipped.

I think that was exactly mine. Outlandos definitely my #5 but that's a pretty good worst album to have.

I didn't include albums on my ballot, but Outlandos would've been my #1. It the least fussy of all their albums and I admire that (which means I'm probably seeking out the wrong qualities in The Police). It's the only one I ever play with no skips.

I do dig the early-installment weirdness on it. there are several directions on that album they'd never go in again.

yeah i’d swap outlandos with zenyatta, zenyatta kinda gives up after the first 4 tracks

Zenyatta was my pick. That scrappy, raggedy sound on "When The world is Running Down..." is heaven to my ears.

Albums results are about right imo

By the way, the Eva Cassidy cover of "Fields of Gold" seems to have had a longer shelf life (in terms of TV / movie use and general lovability) than the Stingster's.

Was surprised to find Outlandos ranked so low. But it was my gateway into the band, so maybe I have an outsized sense of its rep generally. The highs are really high! I admit that Born in the 50s, and the spoken-word part of Be My Girl, are kind of unbearable.

The BBC often used to have humorous poets with regional accents on early evening light entertainment shows - I'm thinking of Pam Ayers etc - and 'Sally' always make me think I've just accidentally caught the tail-end of That's Life and some joker's doing a bad knock-off of 'In Every Dream Home A Heartache'. It is quite impressive how much of the shittest bits of Britain in the late 70s are encapsulated in that piece

That scrappy, raggedy sound on "When The world is Running Down..." is heaven to my ears.

Mine too — I ranked that song VERY high on the tracks ballot. And I like the album, but it is a bit of a hodgepodge and I don't love its big singles.

Thirded, voted for that track but also had the album as my #1. I thought it was uneven when I first heard it, but it's all grown on me and wouldn't change a thing. I know the Police don't think highly of it because of the deadline pressure but in retrospect I wonder if that helped. They didn't labor too much over anything, and they had to fall back on what they did easiest/best. Great rhythms, great hooks, for the most part nothing they messed with too much, much to the album's benefit.

Doing a Top 40, which is really too many. I did a Top 60 when I ran Daft Punk earlier this year and the 60th placement only had three votes. But that is a different animal and that was the right length, good collaborations in the bottom half of that poll but I digress. The Police poll has a floor of four votes, which works. This way we get all number ones in the main rollout, where if I went for only 30 then some would have missed the rollout.

https://i.imgur.com/xmDJBpK.jpg

40. Mother
From: Synchronicity
Released: June 17, 1983
110 Points, 4 Votes

I didn’t know how I wanted this poll to look. There aren’t a lot of different band shots and video shots did intrigue me. I finally decided to go with movie posters from the year the song came out. I would not say 1978- 1983 is a golden age for Hollywood but there are some pretty good posters. I did mess up a bit as these are gross US numbers so some films do bleed into to more then one year. I don’t think I will repeat a poster however.

too high

solo is awesome tho

Ha, this being the start to the rollout is perfect - I didn't vote for it and don't even like it but I love that it's right there, forever, on side 1 of the platinum-selling album Synchronicity.

This song used to piss my dad off so much when it came on, maybe this was the most punk thing they ever did? Also funny that Andy goes full-freudian on sting's jung-themed album

Didn't vote for it though - as much as I admire it, it really is terrible

"You think you can misread Freud, boy-o? Watch MEEEEEE!"

xps 1978-1983 is a kind of a transitional time. The last gasps of the New Hollywood ("Days of Heaven," "Apocalypse Now," "Raging Bull," "King of Comedy," "Heaven's Gate," etc.) The "creative executives" were taking over and you can see more studio meddling with the mutilation of films like "Blade Runner."

But a lot of great stuff happening in the margins. Great burgeoning talent (Albert Brooks with "Real Life" and "Modern Romance," David Lynch with "The Elephant Man," Jonathan Demme with "Melvin and Howard," David Cronenberg with "Videodrome," Sara Driver with "You Are Not I," George Miller and Joe Dante getting established in Hollywood with their "Twilight Zone" segments), long-time mavericks making a comeback or still plugging away (John Cassavetes with "Gloria," Sam Fuller with "The Big Red One" and "White Dog," Ivan Passer with "Cutter's Way," Dennis Hopper with "Out of the Blue," John Huston with "Wise Blood") and the underground scene was just starting to flourish (Charles Burnett's "My Brother's Wedding" among many others).

This song is amazing and hilarious. And it's in 7/4.

solo is awesome tho

Great post birdistheword and I agree that there are some great movies during this era. Looking at a list of movies tho, there was a lot of crap too. I hope I got some good posters out of this exercise.

https://i.imgur.com/gQ7QXsZ.jpg

39. Rehumanize Yourself
From: Ghost in the Machine
Released: October 2, 1981
119 Points, 4 Votes

I mean:

https://i.imgur.com/EEAgjra.jpg

I'm very busy at work today and won't be able to do 20 like I had originally planned. This will be a slow reveal today but maybe that's OK?