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)

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.

Wasn't Invisible Sun banned in the UK?

the video definitely was

according to that revolver interview anyway

I think "Russians" alone discouraged me from ever wanting Sting to write about something *important*. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all he's done for charity, but he's recorded better songs for beer commercials.

We work the dark ale together

guys we don’t have to be cool. ebyt is a monster track with a sound that deservedly got ripped off immediately and for years. sync ii is… fine. it’s a good riff.

my biggest surprise listening back through everything was maybe “walking on the moon” which always bored me when I was young and foolish but wow… Stewart just absolutely kills it. up there with “in the air tonight” for lead drums.

they really got a lot of mileage out of reggae verse/rock chorus

I respect EBYT's many achievements and I voted for it (unlike some of the other big hits), but it's never been a personal fave.

And otm about the drums — the cymbals! — on "Walking on the Moon."

copeland is the best cymbalist in rock music

the fill that opens “every little thing she does is magic” is my personal fav moment among many

"On Any Other Day" would be in my top 10 were it not for the homophobic lyric

"It's All Right for You" is still a banger imo

the fill that opens “every little thing she does is magic” is my personal fav moment among many

― comedy khadafi (voodoo chili)

and the one before the EEEYOHHHH part.

Love the coda to that song as well

A lot of Police songs, I often have trouble figuring out the drum parts. There is a lot of overdubbing, a lot of effects, stuff like that that clutter up the performance. Depending on the song really. But Copeland is so creative in how he puts it all together that it really doesn't matter if he has two arms or four or six.

copeland is the best cymbalist in rock music

Hell yeah. I voted for Peter Gabriel's "Red Rain" in category three - apparently they hired Copeland just to play the hi-hat. Like they spent the money and flew him out just for that, and it opens both the song and the whole album.

(his hi-hat that is, it opens the track all by its lonesome)

I recall reading once that one of the pitches Lanois made is that after a couple albums of no or few cymbals, what if Gabriel did an album that was *all* high-end bright, with an *emphasis* on cymbals. Manu Katche did a pretty good job capturing Copeland's splashy expressiveness, but with more discipline. Copeland if I recall correctly plays hi-hat on Red Rain and most of the drums on Big Time, but that's it.

I also voted for the “Red Rain” hi-hat. His Sonic signature. Also otm about the Every Little Thing intro.

I’m not gonna tip my hand or nothin but let’s just say that def left an impression on my ballot. just a preposterous talent, tho you can see why every now and then the songwriter might not want to compete…

I knew about Red Rain, as it was a huge influence

But must have forgotten - or that he was on Big Time! It's funky but it's played pretty straight. Frankly uncharacteristic - perhaps I just mentally blocked out the liner notes because it seems close to what Manu would have played.

Sorry about work Bee but glad I can submit a late ballot.

xpost It's honestly really hard to tell, because a lot of the tracks on So are a combination of Manu, Stewart, Jerry Marotta and drum machines/programming. Just an incredible production all around.

btw, am I the only one that always thought Jay-Z's "Can I Get a ..." sampled "Walking in Your Footsteps"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH8Ps8jeTrU

listening to Reggatta de Blanc tonight, it would appear Mr. Copeland is very nice at the hi-hats

god if I tried to play the Bring on the Night riff my head would probably explode

Using traditional grip, too.

hey is Reggatta de Blanc a play on “white reggae”? I had always wondered how the spelling mistake made it to production, it’s been staring me in the face the whole time.

yes it is

I have owned that record nearly 40 years and never twigged

I know that now, but at the time I thought it was something to do with a sailboat race

Before the “white reggae” thing clicked I used to think it was some kind of commentary on “white race.”

My earliest memory of the Police as a 6 or 7-year-old is that stark, glowering black and white image of them in their short blond hair and THE POLICE in big letters. A neighbour had a giant black sheet or towel of it hanging off his balcony. They looked like scary Nazis.

hey is Reggatta de Blanc a play on “white reggae”?

I'm gonna continue to think of it as not, I have always liked those first three album titles as conveying the feel of some made-up Esperanto-like language. I sort of wish they'd kept up with it and called the next album Fantomo Machinisto or something

My brother's review of the record for his college newspaper also said that the conventional title was evidence of a drop-off in quality.

lol. Trend of two.

30 years ago i asked a french-speaking friend what 'zenyatta mondatta' meant. without hesitation he responded 'high and mighty'

i think of this every single time i hear any song from the record

Very loosely translated, indeed

I thought it was zenyatta = zenith, mondatta = world? in like a combo of 3 different languages

Reggatta is such an obnoxious title since it's the only instance I can find of that extra "g" being in there. probably not a big deal in pre-internet times but still annoying when you gotta spell it in say, the iTunes search

I think it's just kind of made up.

I have to say I never knew that g was doubled

Outlandos d'Amour is the truly genius one IMO

"It means everything," he yelled back. "It's the same explanation that applies to the last two. It doesn’t have a specific meaning like ‘Police Brutality’ or ‘Police Arrest’, or anything predictable like that. Being vague it says a lot more. You can interpret it in a lot of different ways. It’s not an attempt to be mysterious, just syllables that sound good together, like the sound of a melody that has no words at all has a meaning."

https://web.archive.org/web/20030215094654/http://www.infinitedensity.net/music/copeland/Stingchronicity%20Interview%20Archive,%20Stewart%20Copeland%20interview,%20Musician's%20Only,%20Oct%201980.htm