The Police: Classic or Dud, Search and Destroy

What is up with "Be My Girl- Sally?"

Why is there a minute long spoken word piece put directly in the middle of the song?

On the first album now. And this song does suck.

That has to be one of the most wretched songs ever written. It literally manages to be bad in almost every possible way! Even the bass line is crap.

Probably 50% humor, 50% how-the-hell-are-we-going-to-fill-this-album-out. Hey, they played it live, so...

I have the box set, by the way. Disc 1 and 2 are great, disc 3 starts to tail off but has its moments, and most of disc 4 is pretty patchy -- it really sounds bloated by comparison with the best stuff from the first two discs. Personal favorites are probably "Next to You", So Lonely", "Walking on the Moon", and "Spirits in the Material World"; low points are the aforementioned "Born in the 50's", "Walking in Your Footsteps", and "Tea in the Sahara".

I also like the first disc of the 2-CD live set; it's a bit cornball at times, but captures the energy of their early live sets. The second disc, a later concert, again sounds ponderous by comparison. I picked this set up, together with the box, from Columbia House for something like $25 for all six discs. Not bad!

Wuz funny to a 15-year old Tad. Was years before I'd heard Roxy's "In Every Home a Heartache" and Zappa's "Miss Pinky." There's probably an interesting sociology/pop-culture thesis in those Seventies songs about blow-up sex dolls.

SEARCH: "Driven to Tears," "Can't Stand Losing," "Darkness," "Burn for You," "Does Everyone Stare?", "No Time This Time," "Dead End Job," "Spirits in the Material World."

DESTROY: "Mother," "Born in the Fifties, "Behind My Camel," "Tea in the Sahara."

My Unfadeable Police Mix:
Voices Inside My Head
Bring on the Night
Spirits In the Material World
Driven to Tears
When the World is Running Down
Shadows in the Rain
Darkness
Deathwish

and come to think of it, unless I'm feeling really nostalgic I won't rock Outlandous or Synchronicity. even typing the titles feels tedius.

Search: Lots of stuff people have already mentioned, also *Omega Man* (a pop '21st Century Schizoid Man'?), Bring On The Night, Secret Journey, Hungry For You (check out the 'Love Supreme' bassline), Deathwish (reggae raga rock!), Truth Hits Everybody, Fall Out (their Stooges song I guess), Miss Gradenko (Talking Heads meets Robert Fripp?) and most of all **Mother**, which I have only recently come to LOVE.

Most of the album tracks are worth hearing/having. With the exception of some of "Synchronicity".

Hidden gems : "Peanuts" (rather obviously about Mick Jagger), "On Any Other Day", "Behind My Camel", "Too Much Information".

Spirits In The Material World and Invisible Sun are classic too.

No, we're mad at Sting because the Police used to be so "BAD-ASS", considering how fucking indisputably CRAP he is now.

Don't tell me how, why, when and what I'm mad at, godfuckingdammitalltohell!

For all that, the Police were classic!

Great Stewart Copeland interview here, wherein he admits that much of his awesome ride bell playing was overdubbed. Haha!

That ain't nothin' new. Copeland was never afraid to use studio technology to build drum tracks. "Every Breath You Take" was half live, half programmed - the kick & snare were Linn Drum, with Copeland overdubbing the high-hat & cymbals seperately.

auto mash-up !

I thought that song was great when I was about 11, even though I had no idea what he was going on about. By the time I was old enough to realize how silly it was my fondness for it was firmly entrenched. Totally stupid, but not a bad hook. As fake as fake-punk got.

Because it's a hopelessly pretentious sack of tepid, runny DUNG wherein Sting grabs an unsuspecting Paul Bowles novel by the sensitive bits, pours syrup all over it and then proceeds to bugger it inconsiderably, whilst coming up with some of the worst couplets of his already pock-marked career. It's AWFUL!

lol

LMAO I looked it up and it was apparently a Vanity Fair shoot. So I guess Copeland decided to use it as one of his screen backgrounds as a joke?

A prelude to some tantric sex no doubt.

(xp)

he has the strongest unfunny dad persistence, but also can be pretty fucking lol, horrible as it is

lol obsessed much, stu? hilarious

I thought we were all well versed in this photo of shirtless sting playing the lute and Trudi doing some yoga pose in the background, alas, I was mistaken. It is the greatest portrait of all time.

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BNg8kFcCUAAdsBP%3Fformat%3Djpg%26name%3Dsmall

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BNg8kFcCUAAdsBP%3Fformat%3Djpg%26name%3Dsmall

well fuck

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BNg8kFcCUAAdsBP.jpg

it's time for the 20th anniv of my "if i had no lute" joke

that's a classic, perhaps only rivaled by the photo of a-rod kissing his own reflection

okay Stew making that his background is indeed very funny

Chances that he arranged that with the camera crew on purpose ? 75%?

You don't have to put on the red lute

got that Klark Kent compilation on again, you know what he's annoying but damn he writes really catchy songs. or maybe he just drums in a way that makes everything sound catchy. I mean "Too Kool to Kalypso" says it all - obnoxious vocals, obnoxious lyrics, obnoxious kazoo, but he's a force of nature on the kit and the song will be stuck in your head forever. also love that half this shit was clearly written for Sting

like c'mon he was wrong to reject this. imagine how good this would've been on Reggatta.

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

If that picture of Sting with the Lute was Dimebag Darrell, it would be him with some crazy Dean lightning bolt guitar at a strip club with an exotic dancer on a riser next to a stripper pole in that pose.

like c'mon he was wrong to reject this. imagine how good this would've been on Reggatta.

📹

he can rewrite all the lyrics if he wants, the song itself such pure power pop

Exactly. Police don't do power pop.

On the first two albums they sorta did. Which I think is when these songs were written

Hmm, I still don't hear the power pop. Maybe "Born in the 50's", and if you squint sideways something like "Next to You" miiiiight fit, but you'd have to be pretty generous with what you consider power pop.

fuck, i’m like “fall out” is who-style powerpop, and i assumed it was on outlandos, but no.

i actually only knew it from an off-the-air recording i made from wlir in 82 of police playing live from like 79. last listened to in the 80s? that memorable? senility?

Last three tracks on Reggatta are power poppish

hate to give props to my man Rick Beato here but that Copeland interview really changed how I hear the Police records now, just knowing nearly every drum track was the first or second take and that he was making a lot of it up on the fly, I can really hear all that now. all those double hi-hat taps randomly sprinkled in, how he goes from straight bashing to rolling into a measured groove, adding new things, there's not really much rhyme or reason to it, it's all drummers mindset, and it absolutely rules. like "It's Alright For You" is a fairly bland rock song that he makes into something special, you can just focus on Stew the whole time. dunno how many pop bands can boast something like that.

In case you ever wanted to see Stewart Copeland play Limp Bizkit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrbLyEKC524

yeah that's exactly what I want to see

I've always wanted to see him do the thing I mentioned above, just coming up with drum parts on the fly like that. he gets tripped up a little on the dynamic shifts but still seems to nail most of it. original drum track works better but that's why Limp Bizkit doesn't have a drummer like Stewart Copeland :)

also pretty charming to see him legitimately like the tune, I mean say what you will about Limp Bizkit but some of their shit is just undeniable

I've had that dumb song stuck in my head for a day now, that's for sure.

some of their shit is just undeniable

Agreed. Boiler is an all-time jam.

He occupies a unique place in my heart: a globally renowned artist whose work is impeccable, with a persona / personality that makes even the gentlest pacifist want to punch him repeatedly in the face.

Like, I'm a meek dork who regularly got beaten up on the playground. And a Police fan since Regatta de Blanc. Yet I can vividly imagine taking an exquisite hand-hammered 22-inch bronze Byzance china cymbal, holding it like a folding chair, and kertwanging it directly onto the curly head of Stewart Armstrong Copeland.

Yeah, he's a lot. No off switch.

It takes a lot to make me sympathize with Sting

https://preview.redd.it/what-does-stewart-copelands-kit-say-about-sting-v0-pb8bi4smlsib1.jpg?auto=webp&s=3ee12027be7d363dccbeedc617b419ff9e6e8d81

So I was watching the Fire Aid thingy and in "Message in a Bottle" the guitar player* interpolates the plinky bit from "Spirits in the Material World."

Just a tiny quote, a dozen notes, and you have to be such a Policehead to even recognize it and yet there it is.

* = Dominic Miller, apparently

I watched a whole video of one of their more pompous shows yesterday, and: destroy. I just don't get any enjoyment out of their music. They're enormously individually talented, granted! I wish they'd done something else altogether, it grates on me terribly.

I'm really enjoying this. jam after jam! I haven't listened to them in forever. Feel like they deserved a Stop Making Sense of their own. This was the show on VHS back then, right? Synchronicity Tour or bust for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgSt06JAk0A

i like the opening act list for that tour. Talking Heads! Ministry! R.E.M.! my heroes Kissing The Pink!

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts (Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, New York City, Philadelphia, Indianapolis)
A Flock of Seagulls (Chicago, Rochester, Foxborough, Tallahassee)
The Fixx (Fresno, Chicago, Toronto, Rochester, Foxborough, Lexington, Knoxville, Miami, Tacoma, Inglewood, Atlanta, Orlando)
Ministry (Chicago, Minneapolis)
Stevie Ray Vaughan (Montreal, Honolulu)
Peter Tosh (Montreal, Toronto)
Talking Heads (Montreal)
Blue Peter (Toronto)
King Sunny Adé (Toronto)
James Brown (Toronto)
R.E.M. (Hartford, New York City, Norfolk, Philadelphia, Landover)
Madness (Philadelphia, San Diego, Phoenix)
Thompson Twins (Fresno, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Phoenix, Tacoma, Inglewood)
Oingo Boingo (San Diego, Fresno, Oakland)
The Animals (Orlando, Miami)
UB40 (Denver, Kansas City, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Oklahoma City, Champaign)
Passionate Friends (St Austell, Birmingham)
Bryan Adams (Sydney, Melbourne, Honolulu)
Australian Crawl (Melbourne)
Sunnyboys (Sydney, Melbourne)
Kids in the Kitchen (Melbourne)
Split Enz (Richfield, OH)
Berlin (Inglewood, CA)
Re-Flex (Syracuse, Providence, Memphis, Williamsburg, Buffalo, Carbondale, Cincinnati, Greensboro)
Kissing the Pink (Baton Rouge, Biloxi)
China Crisis (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Blackpool)

They made $418,990 for their two nights in Atlanta.

holy crap the strobing in spirits in the material world might kill you! its pretty unwatchable on my t.v. maybe if i was wearing sunglasses. i blame godley & creme.

I want an alternate cut with just shots of the audience

Kinda cool seeing the Animals in that list. I guess Eric Burdon was an early Newcastle hero of Sting. Sting shows up as a talking head in the BBC documentary on Burdon from a couple years ago.

There’s a closer connection than that - Andy was actually in the Animals for a short while

For a brief time in 1968, he was a member of the Animals, then known as Eric Burdon and the Animals, with whom he recorded one album, Love Is. The album features a recording of Traffic's "Coloured Rain", which includes a 4 minute and 15 second guitar solo by Summers. The LP also included a reworked version of Dantalian's Chariot's sole single "Madman Running Through the Fields".

I want an alternate cut with just shots of the audience

I feel like something like this exists! From the era of DVDs with alternate angles.

Aha!

The Police's Synchronicity Concert video, previously only available on VHS has now been released on DVD. It was first released on DVD in Europe and in other regions back in September while the American release was delayed.

The original VHS tape was released in September 1984 and had 15 songs filmed and recorded from two soldout shows at the Omni Arena in Atlanta Georgia on November 2nd and 3rd, 1983.

The DVD has better sound and film quality, plus four songs not on the original VHS tape have been added. Synchronicity II, Roxanne, Invisible Sun, and Don't Stand So Close To Me have been included as extra songs and can each be viewed from four different camera angles(only two for Roxanne). The only song not included from the shows appears to be "Murder By Numbers".

seriously, watch your eyes when spirits in the material world comes on. that hurt!

Just happened to be reading Peter Ames Carlin's biography The Name of This Band Is R.E.M and, well.

I hadn't known about the role played by the middle Copeland brother in getting R.E.M. their slot opening for the Police when they were very very new.

Maybe everyone here already knew this but I did not: Peter Buck had worked for Ian Copeland in a minor clerical capacity in pre-Athens days.

Peter Tosh (Montreal, Toronto)

Interesting how a reggae act might set up the headliner in a different way than many of the others on the list.

That 1983 Toronto show was the last in a series of three yearly summer shows they played in the Toronto area, called "Police Picnics". They were more like festivals than opener/headline shows, as you can see by the six acts on the bill, which might change the dynamic between them somewhat.