The Police: Classic or Dud, Search and Destroy

That said, musicianship, including Sting, is so across-the-board great. I love how even at their most indulgent and overproduced and overdubbed, they rarely sound like more than three guys in a room. Even though there are all sorts of little nuances and stuff added and tweaked and embellished.

Like, songs with three or four guitar parts that are so subtle and well arranged that it sounds almost just like one guitar. Until you pay close attention.

To be clear, I adore stings voice and the way he sings his lyrics. I just hate the words sometimes.

An older friend, a jazz guy I used to play guitar with, had seen the police live during 83 or so and said something I found memorable: "they were making an awful lot of music for three guys"

I often think of that comment when listening to Rush too

there has always been this weird relationship between Rush and the Police, at least as far as fan overlap, and in Rush's case, actively taking influence from the Police.

I still have a bit of PTSD with Sting. I never really loved his voice, but once I started paying attention to his lyrics, I got more and more annoyed, to the point I couldn't listen to them. However, Copeland is in my top 3 drummers of all time. I can listen to just his isolated tracks all day. And it's incredibly fun to play almost any Police song as a musician. I should probably work on resolving this, because deep down, I know there were great.

My guitar teacher pinpoints Andy Summers genius at recognizing the way his sus and seventh chords and other weird ideas work so well with chorus and echo, the way the effects sort of imply or fill out these broken chords in cool ways.

otm, the effects are baked into the very musical structure, such a painter

there has always been this weird relationship between Rush and the Police, at least as far as fan overlap, and in Rush's case, actively taking influence from the Police.

yea there's some active overlap with prog there - "Synchronicity II" being the most obvious example. I think all three had a background in it at some point.

last time I heard Yes's Big Generator it struck me how many of the songs sounded like what the Police might've had they stuck around to 1987.

Hell, even "Owner of a Lonely Heart" owes a huge debt to the Police.

and everything produced by Rupert Hine

I think all three had a background in it at some point.

Andy: Guitarist w/Eric Burdon & The Animals in their last gasp, proto-prog period
Stewart: Drummer for Curved Air
Sting: Fusion dude

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lYi1fBalGeg/TSYXc8dbz_I/AAAAAAAAFm0/K92djhEReiw/s1600/sc00008742.jpg

andy was also in soft machine but that was firmly during their psych phase

plus they had that proto-Police band Strontium 90, with the 4th member being Mike Howlett of Gong

Andy was in Soft Machine.

Ha, how did I miss that magazine cover?

and everything produced by Rupert Hine

And Men At Work, how capitalized on the relatively long wait between Police records.

Read a good interview with Stewart recently that for all the band's supposed dabbling, he'd only call maybe three Police songs at all reggae derived.

bring on the night
beds too big
one world
?

I dunno, there's a lot of reggae/dub influence all over the first three albums, less on the 4th and 5th. It's as much spatial as specifically structural, but it's definitely there.

walking on the moon?

So Lonely?

A singles compilation is all one really needs from this band - they weren't really a band that had a wealth of killer deep cuts.

Feel kind of cheated that sting hasn't given us an album of lute reggae yet

Yeah, maybe a singles comp and then another disc with Gradenko, Darkness and other faves from this thread

I like Synchronicity but it might be just because I remember my parents playing it when I was a kid

My fave Police review might be Xgau on that album, since he calls out the lyrics of Mother and Gradenko as high points.

Yeah, I don't exactly what Copeland was getting at re: reggae. He talks about it here around 3 minutes in:

http://www.thetrapset.net/bns-stewart-copeland-answers-listener-questions/

Basically something like "there are only one or two Police songs that are reggae as they might be played by Jamaicans." He calls Bed's Too Big a shuffle with a reggae-ish guitar, for example. I guess I understand, that minus the formal structure of reggae it's not reggae, just reggae-ish.

sting has taken up the lute
he always was a stupid coot
he plucks a dowland air while his wife plays flute
you've gotta humanise yourself

Sometimes the less I know about a musician's personal life the easier it is to enjoy their music

right thread this time!

as someone who hates the Police, I give Stewart credit for being accurate about the reggae elements in their material (ie "only a couple songs" bearing any real similarity to reggae)

he's smart/literate enough to know that just moving the downbeat in the drum part around or having a strummed guitar chord on the offbeat doesn't make your song reggae

Trump is such an asshole he thinks becoming president betters him, when in fact him becoming president lessens the office.

not you too

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/flashback-the-police-pass-torch-to-u2-20130924

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvGpWksgEI8

How embarrassing for all involved

At least Edge didn't try to play.

Preach it, Edge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ELpJqa4PaY

Page: "gosh not sure if I can figure out how to play those two notes or not. Whoof"

Stink n' Boner

The video is cringeworthy as hell, but it's worth it perhaps to see Paul glance and smirk at Gordon at one point when they're sharing the mic, but G doesn't return the look, not willing to foresake the gravitas of the moment.

And in the almost as difficult to watch Jimmy / David interaction, I wonder if there were any latent English / Irish musings in their heads

His worst songs.

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/i-dont-subscribe-to-this-point-of-view-the-worst-of-sting-and-the-police/

v glad i saw them live before Synchronicity

"Synchronicity I"???????

'Synchronicity I' is excellent, as is the brilliantly unhinged 'Mother', which is one of my many personal highlights on that LP.

'Saint Augustine in Hell' has the hilarious part about music critics, too.

I actually like synchronicity a lot as a whole except for brontosaurus/lesson for us

I used to love "Mother," now I wish Sting had sung it. Or, better, Andy's mom.

I actually like synchronicity a lot as a whole except for brontosaurus/lesson for us

― or at night (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, July 12, 2017 12:42 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, yes!!

Let's rank their albums.

I would do something like

1. Reggatta
2. Ghost
3. Zenyatta
4. Synchronicity
5. Outlandos

damn, they're all good!!

Not canon, but disc 1 of the live album is pretty great too.