When the World is Running Down, You Make the POLL of What's Still Around – ILM Artist Poll #116 – THE POLICE - (Voting extended to Friday, Dec 2, 2022)

Voted - I think this was the easiest ballot I've ever had to compile, 20 tracks is the perfect number for these guys.

^^^ same, this went really quickly. In theory I could have done some dedicated listening to Zenyatta and Ghost, the albums I know the least well, but I think I've got a pretty great set of tracks here in an order I could more or less defend. Feel like there'll be a lot of little things to discuss and praise with the rollout!

Voted! Didn't think about it too hard, mostly went on vibes. Really looking forward to this rollout.

Every time I see this thread title, the song comes into my head and I get lost in its groove, so maybe that tells me what my favourite Police song is.

growing up the Sting Bring on the Night live CD was playing constantly so it was pretty strange to hear the original versions of When the World is Running Down, One World, Demolition Man, & Bring on the Night. I think they work in both contexts but the arrangements are so much different it really does show what the other two brought to the band

I really like that live album, as far as solo Sting goes. But yeah, the jazz-funk vibe is very different from the Police.

Maybe I should have re-listened before voting but I've listened to these records so much in my life (OK except "Ghost") that I voted based on what I felt like hearing when I saw the title.

voted!

Voted

Ghost In The Machine became my #1 over the last 5-6 years. I get it now.

Aside from "One World" it's probably their least corniest album. And "One World" isn't even that corny.

one world is fun. didn’t sniff my list but heard it in a department store recently and it was great department store music

It's so hard to hear Synchronicity side 2 with fresh ears. Do I squeeze them in or drop them in favor of challopsy picks?

GITM has Copeland and Summers' best songs.

Saturday night I went to my local bar and a jam band was doing a cover of Driven to Tears with a saxophone rave-up in the middle that kind of sounded like Can't You Hear Me Knocking. Pretty sweet.

Alfred - Do you mean because there are so few of them?

Personally I prefer RDB because it more of a group effort. GITM is Sting with special guests.

yeah

Speaking of non-corny, relistening to “Rehumanize Yourself” (which was on my ballot) made me think it’s Sting’s best didactic song. The verses have a punky directness that holds up.

Rehumanize Yourself was the first time I heard the c-word in a song as a kid, closely followed by Two Swords by The Beat, in both instances it's used for far-right racists. That was my early-years anti-fash education

Same, it was shocking especially to American ears because we don't have the same colloquial use of it.

Can’t recommend this enough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w71K0ff1VBs

I recently rewatched that actually - having loved it when it was released - and although the musical segments are fantastic I was floored by how mindblowingly precious and pretentious Sting is throughout. He sounds like someone who believes his own PR. The rest of the band are relaxed and stunningly capable, and the performances are loose and vibey ("Consider Me Gone" etc.) but the "portrait of a genius" element is grating.

We got into double digits over the weekend, there is still plenty of time to vote.

Didn't Sting switch to guitar for Blue Turtles?

He plays guitar on much of the live solo stuff, yes. That said, iirc he played the guitar first, so the characterization may be somewhere between switching and switching back.

(obligatory apology for boring semantic distinction)

yeah, rightly or wrongly, I assume so-called bassists switch often, especially if they're songwriters (and plenty of guitarists switch to bass when needed).

My impression of Sting is that he's a capable guitarist but a terrific bass player. (I don't know enough to assess his lute abilities.)

if I made a list of the Top 10 lutists off the top of my head he would probably be on it yeah

Sting Bring on the Night live CD

Iirc, live CDs; I think it was spread across two!

One of the last times I saw Sting he played "Message in a Bottle" on a classical guitar, replete with food propped up on stand, and ... he fucked it up a bit! It's hard to play, that song. Anyway, he's a great bassist, but only a functional guitarist.

xpost Here's Sting playing the Hurdy-gurdy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg-0KXjGyGE

And here's my brother in law, who looks remarkably like Sting:

https://i.imgur.com/G31S0Qi.jpg

(I don't know enough to assess his lute abilities.)

Oh, I think you know plenty!

uhh he looks like all 3 morphed into 1 person

In other words, Sting's dream.

controp: Andy is an extremely skilled guitar player, among my personal icons, blah blah blah. Mad props to him.

But I don't believe for a second that he wrote or originated the guitar lines of "Every Breath You Take" or "Roxanne" or most of the Po-Pos' hits. Those were the work of mr. tantra ego yoga blondie-bear infuriating sweater guy.

It pains me to grudgingly admit it. But The Stingster, for all his well-documented personal faults, did bring a level of songwriting creativity that the others simply could not match.

The lute shit is boring, so at least we have that to fall back on when we want to tear down the rock icon.

A song like Roxanne, I imagine that was a band taking his pretty basic blueprint and making it more interesting. but Every Breath, if Sting came up with that guitar part, Sting would claim credit for that guitar part.

in fact, guitar part aside, that song is a pretty run in the mill doo wop progression by way of Leo Sayer.

sting did claim all credit for the guitar part, and the rest of the song

he's the only credited writer, including on "i'll be missing you" which prominently uses the guitar

absolutely. but Sting has never claimed to come up with the guitar part.

There's that infamous interview with the three of them c. the reunion where Stewart basically calls Sting on it, and Sting's response is more or less tough shit.

yeah i mean according to the legal standard for songwriting copyright, if you wrote the melody and the lyrics, you wrote the song.

Hate to disagree with the ilx braintrust but.

I am watching the "Bring on the Night" doc right now.

What Darryl Jones is playing is light years ahead of what Sting would ever have played. Sting is a good bass player with a great pocket, but he is not even in Darryl's league technically. Darryl effortlessly does runs that Sting would never even attempt.

Similarly, Sting cannot play the guitar as accurately as Andy. Very few people can.

But who the hell do you think _came up with_ the chuggy rising-then-falling arpeggio of "Every Breath You Take," and its subtle modulation as the verse progresses? Personally my theory is that Sting wrote and it and played it - maybe a bit ham-handedly - once. Andy listened and said, "right, mate" and proceeded to execute it perfectly, for decades, because he is a highly fucking skilled musician. Doesn't mean that he came up with it, or that he could have or would have.

Who deserves more credit is not for me to decide, nor how to apportion credit.

is there a thread where that is discussed? (songwriting / copyright conventions)

always thought that the “play it on a piano/acoustic guitar” model of ownership was pretty uncool and inaccurate in the pop realm

i once read that Roxy Music split their royalties into words / music / arrangements, with everyone who played on a track receiving a piece of the latter

it may be untrue or I misunderstood- but it seems like a much fairer way of doing it

i think i agree with you re: "every breath you take," but summers is a very creative player. that solo from "driven to tears" is advanced stuff

the melody/lyrics convention is very old fashioned and comes from the days when the primary distribution method for music was through sheet

just saying, Andy has told the story of coming up with that guitar part over and over again. If it weren't true, Sting would have called him on it

emsworth, we have totally discussed it but I am not sure in what thread. I will try to find it.

Infamously, the Miles Davis recording of "My Favorite Things" is credited solely to Rodgers and Hammerstein even though each individual soloist improvised their part completely from scratch. ILX came down firmly on the side of the performance being the composition, and the Tin Pan Alley definition of songwriting / copyright is utterly out of date. I do not disagree with that assessment.

That said, I still think that if Andy Summers could have written songs as catchy as Sting wrote, he would have done so. He has had ample opportunity. Apologies for choosing the wrong example. The other policemen are very skilled musicians, and I adore them. But Infuriating Sweater Guy has repeatedly shown that he has a greater ability to create lasting melodies and lyrics. It's okay to recognize that, just as it's okay to recognize similar estimations of other popular rock and roll bands, e.g., the Beatles.

There has been talk of how certain bands divide songwriting royalties on ILX. For example, Radiohead, Coldplay, Chili peppers, u2, I think they all split songwriting credit equally. REM did, too. probably a handful of other high profile acts. probably goes a long way toward promoting longevity if you're not always fighting about money.