That's Entertainment : The Police
In mid-1991, when I was 15, I borrowed a cassette tape from a bloke at school called The Police : Every Breath You Take: The Singles because I'd heard Every Breath You Take on the radio and wanted to copy that song. Sitting in my area, I popped the tape on and scrummaged around for a BASF C90 to high-speed dub the cassette on to. Roxanne came on and I had a minor epiphany. Having heard this song a number of times, I knew it and never knew that it had been sung by The Police.
Leaving it on, and scouring the cassette cover, each subsequent was another revelation and by the time I'd flipped Side B and finished that as well, I just couldn't believe ALL these songs were sung by the same band. Now people talk about religious experiences, and I'm not trying to be flippant, but as a 15 year old, that single cassette tape was like a tap on the shoulder, a whisper in the ear, and full blown bolt of lightning to my body.
I hastily dubbed the tape and pretty much spent the next three months listening to it non-stop, revelling in the majesty that is The Police. I realised I was 5-6 years too late, discovering the band had broken up in 1986 and that this was their legacy.
Now, 22 years later, there isn't a week that goes by when I don't listen to at least one of their songs. My favourite will always be the remixed, re-released Don't Stand So Close To Me '86. That was the version on the cassette tape and it has a weird vibe, electro to it. Possibly, as I found out later, it's electric drums and the band's last hurrah when they reconvened in 1986 to put together what could have been their sixth LP. But the drummer Stewart Copeland broke his shoulder falling off a horse the night before sessions began and the bad blood and animosity scotched any reunion (Sting had released a solo album and was quickly become an 80's pop icon in his own right).
And for a band who's output was five albums in the six years 1978-1983, their output was tres magnifique. Mixing punk and New Wave sensibilities with swathes of pop, rock, ska, jazz and reggae, the band was a sign of the times taking all these elements and churning out hit after hit. I personally think the diversification never let them get stale. The tempestuousness of the trio's relationship, Sting's yelpy, often paranoid vocal and cerebral lyrics, Andy Summers delicious guitar lines and Stewart Copeland's jazz infused drumming style were all equal in the sound and flavour of The Police. And coming out in that New Wave era, they were one of the early bands to get in to the video clip era with hit after hit eventually coming their way.
Commencing with the spiky, punky Outlandos D'Amour containing So Lonely (probably the only song I can sing and play bass to), Roxanne (that song about suicide and prostitution) and Can't Stand Losing You. The LP has an urgency and immediacy about it, being something of a flop on release, it's a declaration of intent.
LYRICAL MOMENT: In every song I love a Sting lyric; this is a fantastic karaoke moment in So Lonely: Now no one's knocked upon my door for a thousand years or more. All made up and no where to go. Welcome to this one man show. Just take a seat they're always free. No surprise no mystery. In this theatre that I call my soul. I always play the starring role. Oh and that guitar interlude, solo...love it.
Regatta De Blanc arrived in 1979 with the Message in a Bottle and Walking On The Moon scooting to #1 in the UK.
LYRICAL MOMENT: In every song I love a Sting lyric; he delivers in the reggae Message In A Bottle: Walked out this morning, don't believe what I saw. Hundred million bottles, washed up on the shore. Seems I'm not alone at being alone. Hundred million castaways looking for a hoooome.
On the day of their next world tour, The Police rush-completed Zenyatta Mondatta only TWELVE months after releasing their last LP (which really was the norm back then). Containing the chilling Don't Stand So Close To Me - the complex story of a teacher and his pupil's illicit affair. It also contains probably the most ear infectious lyric in De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da... yep...trying get that one out of yer heads!
LYRICAL MOMENT: In every song I love a Sting lyric; Don't Stand So Close To Me: He starts to shake and cough...just like the old man in that book by Nabokov. Sting used to be a school teacher. That 'book' by the way is Lolita.
Exactly a year later, Ghost In The Machine arrived. Carrying one of my all time favourite album sleeve covers. This album uses a lot of synths, and it contains Spirits In The Material World, the haunting Invisible Sun and Demolition Man, which would later lend it's name to a Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes BSU film, which funnily enough contained a Sting re-working of Demolition Man [a song Sting originally wrote for Grace Jones in 1981 and re-recorded for The Police]. But the piece de resistance is Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.
Go on...pause...listen to it. Come back to reading this later.
What a beautiful little song eh? It's on The Wedding Singer soundtrack and is just one of those sunshine on a rainy day songs.
LYRICAL MOMENT: In every song I love a Sting lyric; Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic : Though I've tried before to tell her, of the feelings I have for her in my heart. Every time that I come near her, I just lose my nerve as I've done from the start. OR Do I have to tell the story of a thousand rainy days since we first met? It's a big enough umbrella but it's always me that ends up getting wet. The musical intro is wonderful, the tinkling keys a joy and the song is pretty close to the perfect pop ballad. It seriously is one of the best singable songs and one, if I was a chick-lit film maker would use in EVERY single film I did. It conveys so much in it's 4min 21sec. Cupid should learn it - would help him in his job :-)
After touring the world and becoming a quintessential MTV band, The Police release their next album 18 months later in mid-1983. This is where the 'mega star band' became the 'hulking behemoth'. Gone was the punky reggae. In came plenty of meticulous production, high art and world music concepts, and the fraying fabric of the band. Recording was laborious, with the rockstar egos getting in the way...recording and dubbing parts individually. There were spats and tantrums. But out of all this tempestuousness, Synchronicity, arguably one of the finest and biggest selling albums of the 1980's, if not all time was created.
This is an album I own on cassette tape, LP and CD. It is superb. Every song is a piece of majesty.
But it's the quartet of singles - Every Breath You Take, King of Pain, Wrapped Around Your Finger and Synchronicity II that drive this beast of an album. I am particularly fond of the Stewart Copeland penned Miss Gradenko, a quirky song if there ever was one. People go on about the 'stalker' element to Every Breath You Take, but it is amazing. However, if there's anything reaching perfection, it is King of Pain. In the human condition, the death of life is taken with much seriousness, and is a sombre event, full of sorrow and anguish. But Sting highlights painful everyday occurrences and shows how the rest of the world views it as 'insignificant'. There's a cruel irony in all of it, but song is suffused with an amazing vocal performance from sting and a tour de force musical drive from the band. Personally, I interpret it as one man describing his mournful position on life and death, but by song's conclusion, he realises that this inner darkness is what makes him human and is something to be celebrated. Otherwise, what have we got? We'd be nothing better than the animals. Bit deep for 8am over a bowl of Rice Krispies, yeah?
Anyway...Synchronicity led the band on it's way around the world again. Millions of sales, a slew of hits, big 80's videos [check out Synchronicity II - Sting's look was when he was in Dune and it has that 80's Mad Max post-apocalyptic vibe about it].
They burned brightly. They produced a catalogue of music that some say comes close to equalling The Beatles. They didn't outstay their welcome. I'm also a Sting fan, and I see past any of the Sting-bashing that goes on in the press {a bit like all that Sir Alex Ferguson bashing in soccer circles}.
For $12.99, you can usually grab all these hits at JB Hi Fi: https://www.jbhifionline.com.au/music/pop-rock/police-the-2cd/222590
I know one of today's readers saw them live in 2008 at their reunion tour. I won't name names. But I bet s/he would agree that The Police are up there as one of the BEST bands ever.
So Lonely
Roxanne
Can't Stand Losing You
Message In A Bottle
Walking On The Moon
Don't Stand So Close To Me
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Invisible Sun
King of Pain
Wrapped Around Your Finger
Synchronicity II
Every Breath You Take
Don't Stand So Close To Me '86
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