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)

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.

IIRC, Sting originated "EBYT" on an organ - stop sniggering - and as JiC noted above, at its core it's based around a bog-standard progression. Summers' big contribution was to add ninths into some of the chord arpeggios - I think he said his inspiration came from listening to Béla Bartók - which made the harmonic structure sound much more sophisticated.

Ferry takes the lion's share of the credit on Roxy songs, with Manzanera and McKay earning credit on material starting on Stranded. Eddie Jobson got credit on one song.

xp Yeah I don't know enough to know, but I've been told by guitarists that the guitar part to Every Breath only sounds simple and is surprisingly intricate to play. Plus of course just the metronomic precision of it.

as an extremely modest guitarist, I can say that Every Breath You Take is kind of a pain in the ass to play, especially if you have small hands.

(modestly skilled, that is)

same thing with "message in a bottle"! lots of four fret spreads, which i cannot do with my stubby fingers

My guitar teacher once pointed out that Message in a Bottle, which also features essentially a song length guitar solo in the background, also has all these subtle harmonic counterpoints to the main guitar riff. it's one of the few Police songs with tons of guitar parts.

(xp)
One thing that's interesting to me is that I assume Summers himself has relatively small hands, because my impression is that he's a small-ish guy. In the band photos, the other two tower over him. Maybe his fingers are unusually long.

xp yeah, Paul Davids did a whole video on that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAp_1vgGWxA

xp he's mentioned that he has small hands, i think he moves his hands on the neck very quickly

Imagine if Andy had run against Trump in 2016!

anyway, just voted. prob could've gone up to 25

I originally had a Top 25 but my research found the Police only released 69 songs. So a Top 25 seemed to be too many and changed it to 20. I think overall it works better but yeah, I'm sure I could have picked more too.

I think the challenge may be that, thanks to Stew and Andy in particular, even their worst songs (or most non-songs) sound great or have interesting things going on.

Never really thought about this song much before because I never feel the urge to pull that album out, but had the Police been listening to Can before they made this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0k6nXLwZrY

I think I've made this comparison before but a lot of the grief in Mike Doughty's book about Soul Coughing is rooted in this same argument. He wrote the chords, the melody, the words, the "song" as it's defined legally....and yet there is no question that the band never would've made it anywhere if not for the other three dudes in the band. But while I think SC is more like Can where the playing is the whole point - like, who cares who actually wrote "Mushroom" or "I'm So Green" - Sting's songs were fairly well-developed and clever. Stew could write some good tunes, maybe Andy could too (I really love "Omegaman" and placed it quite high, but I don't think he has another song like it in his catalogue), but Sting wrote the hits, so he's the man.

"Every Breath You Take" is a fun example because I could argue that what Andy does to that guitar riff really *makes* the song (which has probably earned the band some 50 million dollars on its own? Or more?), the truth is it would've been huge even if Andy bungled the hell out of it, because The Police were just that fucking big in 1983. But! Why were they so big in 1983? Was it because of the cool & crisp instrumental playing of their first 3 records? Well, Stewart certainly thinks so. He has a point too. It's very hard to say.

the truth is it would've been huge even if

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=837k74c4rHQ

Have seen an interview with Andy where he talks about his guitar playing on 'Bring On the Night' and how he based those lovely arpeggios that you can hear during the verses on stuff that he learned from studying the guitar compositions of Villa-Lobos at California State University, and that atmosphere he creates really makes the song for me. Take one guess who gets the sole writing credit for it?

imo there is no way the Police ever got reMOTEly as big without the things Summers and Copeland do, on every single one of their hits. they're always kicking the energy up more and more, turning pretty good songs into incredible earworms and electrifying toe-tappers, or sketching out all this atmosphere and space and emotional depth. i'm sure when i was a teen i thought of them as Sting and two faceless other guys who got super lucky, but once i really started paying attention to their music it was obvious they were anything but that.

which has probably earned the band some 50 million dollars on its own? Or more?

apparently it earns sting $2000 a day.

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.

This problem would be solved if performers/recording artists received royalties in all the same situations as songwriters and publishers, but don't say composing/songwriting doesn't exist when 95% of professionally released music depends on some form of the craft.

split songwriting credit equally...probably goes a long way toward promoting longevity if you're not always fighting about money.

Unless one guy (let's call him Sting) is actually writing (or originating) the hit songs and resents splitting with the others. Anyone feeling aggrieved for Summers and Copeland should remember that they would have shared in album sales (when those meant something) and concert grosses over and above songwriting royalties; and, even their one song apiece on Synchronicity probably made them each six figures with roughly zero airplay.

Also, "official" songwriting credits are sometimes not the entire story. In Jethro Tull, for instance, Ian Anderson would take almost total credit but earnings for certain songs with contributions from other members would be paid "informally" via the Tull management.

Just to be clear (I probably wasn't) I agree 200% with Doctor Casino. The music is the performance done by the people, and that is what lasts.

However- I am kind of also interested in the germ of a particular idea, and that is also salient. No, a Stingian idea is not (on its own) a song by the Police.

But one can also ask - how many songs by the Police would exist without Stingian ideas? Not as many, probably. He is an insufferable asshole and I am sure I would want to punch him in the face more or less constantly if I were in a band with him. But he was a creative catalyst, and that needs to be factored into our assessment of the band.

Upthread we mused about the Police with a different drummer, and how boring it would be.

But to continue the thought experiment: imagine a band consisting of excellent guitarist Andy Summers, exciting drummer Stewart Copeland, and a good bass player like... I dunno, Tony Butler or Kim Deal or John Taylor or Benjamin Orr.

How well would that band do, chartwise? Where would its songs come from? What would be its overall creative direction?

I totally get the impulse to say that Sting would have sucked without the other Policemen. But it's equally true that without him, the other two would have lacked a space in which to work their specific magic.

I say split it all equally. Why not? The resentment isn't worth it, for anybody involved. If you're raking in millions and millions of dollars for your rock band that might just as easily have run out of steam after six weeks, you should be delighted that your bandmates are also now millionaires, and not waste a moment going down the path of wondering if you deserve more credit than they do...

well, one of them does live in a castle

time traveling Kim Deal plus Summers and Copeland sounds incredible, imo!

btw "how far would they make it" is kind of an unfair question given what we know about Miles Copeland and his aggressive marketing techniques. like how far would they make it if they weren't all blonde and didn't have a singer who looked like a movie star

Just to be clear (I probably wasn't) I agree 200% with Doctor Casino. The music is the performance done by the people, and that is what lasts.

So songwriters shouldn't receive any royalties at all?

to be clear summers and copeland do receive royalties for their performances on all the recordings, they just don’t get publishing on sting’s “solo” compositions

so they didn’t benefit from the puff daddy windfall, and they don’t get paid when “every breath” is played on the radio (more than any song in fm history)

Generally I love the model of splitting money and credit equally - I am on record as loving how REM and U2 both did precisely this.

But I believe we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

1. Yes absolutely we can and should praise and reward instrumentalists (who, almost always, write their own parts).

2. But also yes, there actually IS something notable going on when someone initiates the process of original songwriting in the form of lyrics, melody.

I think we can honor both #1 and #2 without risk of hypocrisy. We don't need to overcompensate to redress a historical imbalance.

right, which is why performing artists in bands or on session sheets earn royalties when a recording is purchased or streamed

there actually IS something notable going on when someone initiates the process of original songwriting

And songwriting is work that takes time and effort.

Xxxxxxxpost to self

I was obv way off re Roxy

Because music publishing operates according to an antiquated, pre-rock conception of composition that rewards those who write the top-line melody and lyrics, most Roxy tunes are credited solely to Ferry. "It goes back to Tin Pan Alley and the 1930s," says Manzanera. "Eno's synth part on Ladytron, Andy's oboe parts – that came from them. Each member was contributing to the music and to all the arrangements. I like to think that we produced the musical context for Bryan to put his vision into. But that's not reflected in the publishing."

It's all the more unfair because, according to Manzanera, from about halfway through For Your Pleasure and onwards, the band would write "the music first – all the music, including the solos. Then Bryan would listen to it and try to write a top-line tune and words.

From here

On the Roxy forum where I found this being discussed, someone mentioned that Blur split was 10% drummer, 20% bassist, 30% bassist and 40% singer - my anarchist ideals feel an even split is better, but that’s a non-terrible setup imo

Sorry those two big pars are quotes

Blur split was 10% drummer, 20% bassist, 30% bassist and 40% singer

Oof, poor old Graham.

Wow, did not know that re. Roxy. Some songs that makes sense—Ferry singing “You got me girl on the run round …” over the oboe melody and drone—others it seems harder to imagine. In the case of The Police, I find it hard to believe that if, say, Summers had written the riff to Message in a Bottle (not just the harmonies as the YouTuber describes upthread, as good as they are) he wouldn’t have gotten some songwriting credit. But very little ever surprises me about the music industry screwing over artists, so ...

One thing BTW that I think gets overlooked with Summers is his sound. Back when I was a teenager we used to kind of slag Summers as a player because he was almost anti-flash. But listening back, it’s clear that a huge part of what makes Police records tick is that incredibly warm chorus-y distortion he gets on his guitar. Yes he did some clever overdubbing of his parts and on later records added the Roland GR-300 guitar synth to the mix (ie, the synth wash intro to Secret Journey). But, the sound of his guitar is one of the band’s chief aural attractions and through-lines from Outlandos to Synchronicity.

Oh, absolutely. His use of the Echoplex and, later, the Memory Man was historic, but might not have been so had he not understood what kinds of chords really lent themselves well to delay. Especially since, like I mentioned, all the overdubs and whatnot in "Message..." were I think an anomaly, that's more intricate a studio production than he usually does, especially on that album. "Ghost in the Machine" is the sound of a bored Sting trying to grab full control of the band, which is why a song like "Every Little Thing" barely features any guitar at all, and you get Sting playing rudimentary horns and bringing in outside musicians and aside from the opening salvos, songs that barely count as jams and sketches.

anyone into the band's early period may wanna check this out:

https://www.discogs.com/master/243998-Strontium-90-Police-Academy

the liner notes kind of imply this was the band that led to the formation of The Police, though I think they were actually already around by then, but with Henry Padovani instead of Summers. it's a project headed up by Mike Howlett of Gong, which wound explain how he got a guy like Andy Summers. originally they wanted Chris Cutler to drum but wound up with Copeland instead. if nothing else this is what must've convinced them to go with Summers instead so I guess it's pretty important. anyway the CD is just a loose collection of demos, and a lot of it is written by Howlett, but there are some gems for the Police fan. "Visions of the Night" was re-recorded as a B-Side. the riff on "3 O'Clock Shot" was later used on "Be My Girl - Sally" and the lyrics would later show up on "O My God". there is a 4-track demo of "Every Little Thing She Does As Magic" which I think is relevant to this discussion. I think this is all Sting. the bones of the song are all there, but obviously it sounds nothing like the record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfolkO4Ninc

Heretical, I know, but I enjoy the '86 rerecording of "Don't Stand So Close to Me..."

Me too! The original is fun and spiky, but the lusher version works too. I remember it seeming like a bold move. A self-cover.

Kinda wish more bands did stuff like that. There is never just one way to interpret a song. But you have to be choosy about it.

"Ghost in the Machine" is the sound of a bored Sting trying to grab full control of the band, which is why a song like "Every Little Thing" barely features any guitar at all, and you get Sting playing rudimentary horns and bringing in outside musicians and aside from the opening salvos, songs that barely count as jams and sketches.

Yes and no. Ghost has a lot of synth and keyboard experimentation that Sting and Hugh Padgham were clearly leading, but Summers is also, as I noted, pretty present and I suspect a lot of those synthesizer riffs on the album were actually composed on the guitar by Andy. And the thing is, it works -- I mean, yes, Every Little Thing is sort of dominated by the piano -- but it is pretty simpatico with Summers’ guitar arpeggio in the verse – Summers' part almost sounds like a high speed warmup for the Every Breath riff 2 years later.

So I don’t think it was exactly just Andy sitting on the sideline and taking a dip in the pool while Sting pushed him out of the way. And, as I mentioned, Summers got in on the synthesizer act himself. Ghost is the rare record where I think “bringing in the synths“ actually works.

Yes. "Darkness"!