The Police - filler

The Police had no filler. 5 amazing albums, all different for a variety of reasons. Personally I find Zenyatta and Ghost to be the most satisfying and consistent.

 

I think there are quite a few fillers in Zenyàtta Mondatta. But I love this album so much, I enjoy the jams there a lot.

 

Aha, you have fallen into my trap....

See, Sting sings "We were born, born in the fifties" which is untrue, as he was the only one.

Of course, when H.Padovani was in the band (as someone else mentioned) it would have been so.

 

He maybe helped his fellow members pretending to be younger.^^

 

Stewart Copeland was born in '52 I believe... so two of them... "we"

 

I’m pretty certain the “we” in the song is supposed to be the generation born in the 50s, not the members of the Police... though of course Sting numbers himself among that generation.

 

"Regatta De Blanc" is the most band-orientated LP they did.

"Ghost in the Machine" is their best LP (IMO) - though I can't believe they left "Low Life" off the LP.

"Synchronicity" is the LP where it was clearly just a Sting LP with scant regard paid to the other two. Even though "Every Breath You Take" is held together with Summers' guitar riffs.


I like all 5 of their LPs and there is some filler here and there, but no more than most bands of that era. The Police were, unashamedly, a singles band.

 

oops, looks like I was wrong, then.

 

It’s just insane to think that The Police are now aged 65 (Copeland), 66 (Sting) and 75 (Summer).

 

Don't sweat it, I've been wrong about a couple of things already this year... it's good to get the mistakes out of the way early!...

 

Nearly half of the Ghost In The Machine album, IMO.

I don't think they had a "bad album", or anything close to it....but album #4 seems to have a lot of sameness to the album tracks. Stuff like "Hungry For You" and "Demolition Man", the song which follows it, follow a similar formula where there's an ascending guitar riff, then a descending version of the same riff, which they repeat throughout the song. Horns blast throughout.

As the album opens with a string of well-crafted masterpieces like "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" and "Spirits In The Material World", I've always felt (since I was a young kid) like this album drops off into rather boring territory by the fourth track. None of them are bad songs, really. I actually like all of these songs individually...but as a listening experience, it has always left me cold. Sounds as if they placed all their labored efforts at the front.

 

Lyrics do not need to be autobiographical or confessional. They can be fictional, they can be from the perspective of a fictional character, they can be journalistic without being obviously so (so in other words they can be true (or slightly fictionalized or whatever) about someone else the author is familiar with), and of course they can also be more abstract where "true" or "false" don't even make sense. Basically, anything that you can imagine doing with words--or anything you can imagine doing with phonemes, rather--is fair game when it comes to lyrics. It's an artform after all.

 

It's hard to believe Andy Summers is 75 years old. Robert Fripp is 72.

 

I had to have the song Murder by Numbers on record so i ordered mtself the Every Breath You Take 7".

 

Lesser songs? Always. Filler? I shall differ in opinion.

 

If I recall Murder by Numbers was in the movie Copycat. Not sure if it was on their soundtrack.

 

I would agree. Even Message in A Box, which had their extra non-album songs (Landlord, Once Upon A Daydream, Someone To Talk To, I Burn For You..) there is not one track I would consider filler. Ghost was dark. Even the more uplifting songs (Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic) are actually quite dark (I resolve to call her up a 1,000 times a day.....even though my life before was tragic)

 

I’m not a great fan of “Demolition Man”

 

It's funny you mention Mother, that is the only track on Synchronicity that I do not listen to and the one at the very bottom of Police songs. It does not fit with the flow of the album. Every song on that album is a gem, no filler besides Mother. Maybe if Sting would have stamped his approval by singing it, I would feel different.

Miss Grandeko is short but great.

Tea in the Sahara has the relaxed feel of another Wrapped Around Your Finger.

I do agree Sting should have sung Someone To Talk To. The song would have clearly been different it had his voice on it.

As for your question about Once Upon A Daydream, being a huge Police fan I recall that Sting once said it was during the time of his breakup, so that would be Ghost in the Machine. I think they just ran out of B-sides at that point and had it so they threw it on. You can call it a filler song because they threw it on there, but its still one of the best written and dark songs Sting has written that came from the Ghost Machine sessions. It has the brooding darkness of Ghost in the Machine. If you want a real trip, find the Ghost in the Machine demo sessions. Some of that stuff could make a great album if they had polished it.

 

I don’t get the dislike for it at all.
I’m surprised.
I think it’s a great track.
I never thought of it as filler.
I like it much better than Canary In A Coal Mine.
Canary was filler to me.
I don’t hate it, but it’s my least favorite track on the album.

 

A description that piques my interest because those are positive qualities in my book.