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)

canary rose up my ballot pretty steadily, one of my fav summers parts

Sent!

Also, never forget:

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

I wonder if that (in its original version) will be the lowest-ranked of their singles in this poll? I've never seen it get much love.

I've always found "Do Do" almost hauntingly spare. So austere for a single.

Like most of that album, my favorite.

My ballot breakdown more or less reflects my album preferences, with 5 each from Regatta and Ghost and 3 from each of the others (plus 1 non-album).

If anybody needs to modify a ballot you may, just point it out.

― Bee OK, Wednesday, November 23, 2022 10:43 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

OK, please add "Contact" to mine, you can put it in position 11 if that's not inconvenient, or if that's a pain, put it at the bottom, I'm still under 20 at any rate

but no big deal if not, it's my own omission

Any guesses as to which album tracks will receive zero votes?

"O My God"

Copeland: 'Darkness' is a song about vertigo. I'm very proud of it, and there's not really much to say about it except that...

Sting: 'Vertigo' is an Alfred Hitchcock movie!

Copeland: True, but unlike you, Sting, I didn't steal my ideas from films or other literary sources. I came up with the crap I wrote my goddamn self!

Summers: That's easy for you to say, Stewart. You've never even read a book - or seen a film!

that interview is insane

In part 3, if any of you vote for Flowers in the Desert imma cut a beeyotch

By which I mean Desert Rose which is totally distinct from Tea in the Sahara

“Contact” is gonna be number one now, isn’t it

sent

Does anybody need more time?

lol I'm just sending my ballot in now :)

we’re we supposed to get confirmation emails?

lol I'm just sending my ballot in now :)

― poster of sparks (rogermexico.), Monday, November 28, 2022 12:24 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's alright for you

"O My God"

#15 on my tracks list.

What is everyone's favorite Synchronicity single?

Mine: "Synchronicity II." "King of Pain" almost gets points because (a) its effrontery (b) its excellent arrangement.

"Synchronicity II" is my #1 track overall. Their absolute high water mark, imho.

Something crawls to the surface
Of a dark Scottish LOCH

Props to Sting for (sorta) rhyming with "crotch."

Synchronicity II also my top vote from that album (and the only one in my top 10).

Unintentional, no doubt, but I hear "S II" as The Police tipping the hat to Rush, who'd already mastered their own version of their sonics and skank on the previous year's Signals.

many miles away……

We know all the suicides are fake

I made a little playlist of the songs on my ballot and my main reaction listening to it is what a phenomenal groove band they were. Almost every song — especially the non-singles — is built on one great groove or another. Which is why for all the surface connections they are a much different proposition than Rush. The Police absorbed and understood the space and movement in reggae and dub better than maybe any contemporaries. (This was mostly gone by Synchronicity, one of the reasons it's my least favorite.)

"O My God" and maybe "Wrapped Around Your Finger" are the last gasps imo.

Yeah WAYF does have some of that slinky spaciness.

gotta say the live version of Walking In Your Footsteps is pretty great

I guess I'm the only one who much prefers "Synchronicity I" over "II"?

I just like the rush - also some amazing polyrhythms in there IIRC.

Logic so inflexible
Causally connectible

xxp nope, I vastly prefer it

I like the rush of "Sync I" and it's also maybe the most Rush-like thing they ever did. I can totally hear it in Geddy Lee's voice. (And Peart was into Jung, too.)

I had a professor in grad school who threatened to fail us if we cited Jung or Joseph Campbell in our papers.

re-humanties-ize yourself

I am very psyched for this rollout

xxp nope, I vastly prefer it

same

spotify stats:

https://i.ibb.co/LpywVF4/Screenshot-2022-11-28-184622.jpg

Surprising how steep the dropoffs can be, at least on the bottom end (like after "King of Pain," the next popular track gets less than half the plays).

as usual I am blown away by the orders of magnitude there re: most plays

lol yes xp

"EBYT" numbers truly astonishing

Glad "So Lonely" is so high. Did that have some afterlife I'm not aware of?

xpost I think it's a keystone of an earlier season of Stranger Things.

Ah that would make sense. Good call, Stranger Things.

Hello everyone, confirmation emails have not yet gone out but they are still coming. I got a bit lazy on my four day vacation. I have come back to work and I'm swamped and won't be able to run this thing this week like I had planned. It will run next week no matter what. Sorry but work is out of control at the moment.

Good news is if you still need to make a ballot then you may...up until Friday, December 2.

I think Wrapped Around Your Finger should be after King Of Pain in terms of total plays but I really don't understand Spotify's ordering mechanism sometimes

I like both "Synchronicity"s but consider the four songs in-between them a wasteland.

I remember a review of the 1986 Police compilation in the local alt-weekly that suggested that "Invisible Sun" was the only song on the record that wasn't about romantic issues but also wasn't a hit, thus undermining the band and their audience's pretensions to significance.

I mean, "Spirits in the Material" world isn't about romantic issues, and you'd be hard pressed to say "Don't Stand So Close to Me" is, either.