The Police: A Forgotten Band?

You know, often the discussion on the Police comes back to Sting's personality/ego/pretentiousness etc., but these are really important aspects of his personality that formed and created all those wonderful songs that were massive hits. The guy is brilliantly talented, he should be applauded for his gifts, not kicked because he rhymed 'nabokov' with 'shake and cough' - as an English lecturer, I agree this isn't exactly beautiful rhyming but I can let it go!

Seriously, look at what he created and how distinctive and memorable it all is. As a life long fan from age 11, naturally I am biased in his and their favour, but there really aren't that many bands who can state that they were the biggest band in the world with so much enormous potential when they signed off.

 

Their reunion tour in 2007-8 was the 11th highest grossing tour of all time, and the 5th highest of the 2000's. It seems several million folks didn't forget them, and I don't see Sting solo tours on any of these lists.

List of highest-grossing concert tours - Wikipedia

Edit: I'll add that it was the 3rd highest grossing tour of all time at it's conclusion. That put it in pretty serious company at the time, as you can see from the list.

 

Far from forgotten and far from just "Sting's 1st band"- truly one of the greatest bands of all time and easy HOF'ers!

 

Turtles is good in a quite different way from the way in which the Police were good. Most Police material sounds very different, though the second side of the Synchronicity album gives a clue to where Sting would go,

I think Sting's masterpiece is The Soul Cages. I didn't like the way he went all safe and mellow with Ten Summoner's Tales, and after that I largely lost interest.

 

Probably because you've forgotten them! QED.

 

Yes, that is a really good point - it is excellent, but in a very different way to the police material.
I loved it, but it was his thing, not a follow on to their thing.
I also started to lose interest around the summoner's tales point and get into edgier, rockier music.
I came back to my first loves after time, though.

 

I think one issue with the box set is that these albums are extremely common in used bins on vinyl so people were just spending $100+ for the bonus record.

On the other hand, Kate Bush's career stateside was always niche and while you may occasionally find a vinyl copy of The Dreaming or Hounds Of Love in the wild, it's not going to be as common and inexpensive as Ghost In The Machine or Synchronicity. Same with Bowie, outside of the EMI albums (which was what the last box set compiled), he's never hung around the used bins long enough, but "Loving The Alien" pads the three albums with two live albums, a collection of 12" mixes, three records of non-album tracks and a reinterpretation of Never Let Me Down, therefore making that album worth the upgrade if you enjoy that period. So it wouldn't surprise me if Bowie and Kate's sets sold a lot more than The Police just on the basis of how much more common and available the original A&M pressings from the 70s and 80s are for those records vs. original copies of Bowie and Kate records.

 

I'm with you. They were huge at one time, though I never really was a fan. Even Elvis Costello advised Sting to stop singing in "that ridiculous Jamaican accent."

I don't think they are alone in this regard though. Grand Funk Railroad is another band that springs to mind who fall into the once-superstars-now-almost-forgotten category. However, IMO Sting & the Police were better musicians. Grand Funk, on the other hand, had better stage presence and more driving music, unlike the Police's faux Reggae, much of which just sort of plodded along without much energy.

 

I forgot to remember to forget

 

I think this thread clearly shows the different perspective between the US and most other places. My theory is that the US has so many homegrown acts vying for their attention that they don't hold the memory of non-American acts to the same extent that people do elsewhere.

As for the Australian perspective, I'd say anyone at all interested in popular music remembers the Police very well. Mention Grand Funk and they will probably scratch their heads for a minute and then say "Oh yes, they did that cover of The Locomotion."

 

Understandably this was always left off any compilations.

 

Glad you understand, 'cause i don't.

 

are we seriously comparing The Police with Grand Funk Railroad, a band so far removed from the zeitgeist that most people under 40 only seriously know "We're An American Band"? I can see where Loverboy or Night Ranger could be put in that vein as both were arena-fillers at their prime and now only have one (maybe two in Loverboy's case) songs that has survived the 20th century.

The Police still have 5-6 songs that are everywhere on radio. Sting may be a polarizing individual similar to Bono, but even as a solo artist he still packs butts in seats. I think they're fairly secured, especially given how massive the reunion tour was a decade back, even though it'd been almost 25 years since their last album even then. I can't see them being as lost to time as Grand Funk or Night Ranger have become, too many younger people know Roxanne, Every Breath You Take and Don't Stand So Close To Me.

Keep in mind The Police also get 11.7 million monthly listeners on Spotify (as streams are the modern barometer of popularity). That certainly puts them in the higher tier bracket for classic artists. Grand Funk Railroad on the other hand gets 894,000 monthly listeners, about on the same level as a Sheena Easton.

 

My feeling is had the Police toughed it out and stuck around a little longer, their reputation would be on firmer ground today. The band's massively successful reunion tour proved their career is no footnote, but the shadow of "Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda" still hangs over them. The Police made killer singles and sold tons of albums and concert tickets, but didn't deliver the Truly Great Album I think fans and critics felt was within their grasp. In fairness, few bands ever do - but I think it's fair to say at the time of their breakup more had been expected of the Police.

More was expected of Sting, too. Looking back, Sting never had a better vehicle for his songs than the Police and alone, his music drifted into pretentious adult-contemporary fluff - and that's without my bringing the lutes into this conversation. Today, the closest Sting gets to any kind of edge is when he self consciously tries to make Police-esque music - sans the other two Police.

 

Did anyone else actually give 57th And 9th a chance? I see so many people talk about how they detest all post-Ten Summoner's Tales Sting, but I actually really enjoyed the record and I'm not someone who is a big fan of his solo work.

 

For me with the Sting stuff
Blue Turtles
Bring On The Night
Nothing Like The Sun
were the only albums that really grabbed me.
I love all the Police albums though

 

You live in a completely different perception of reality than me. If the Police reformed (again) and toured, it would generate massive amounts of revenue (just as it did in 2008 - $350,000,000+). It wouldn’t be quite at the Stones level of hype and $$, but it would be really close.

If Grand Funk toured, they’d probably be an opener for, say, Bob Seger. Oh, wait a minute...

 

Surely you only mean lyrically. What could be wrong with the music on the Police songs by Stewart and Andy?

And as for strange lyrics (I would say "strange", rather than "bad"), I truly think that they could have written a "normal" lyric like Sting if they wished. But they both chose to make lyrics that were off the beaten path, and I say, "Good for them!"

I like some of the ones Sting wrote, but I like the ones by Stewart and Andy, too! They're different kinds of songs, but equally worthy of being heard.

 

Aren't all the classic bands forgotten, given the current rap/K-Pop dominated landscape?

 

I can think of few bands where almost every track of their greatest hits album still gets airplay 30+ years later. If they re-formed tomorrow and went on tour they’d have top box office draw. They are not forgotten and still influence bands today. They were original and left us wanting more. All three are enormously wealthy and have the luxury of doing whatever they want. Not many other acts of the same time period can say the same. I had the privilege of seeing them during their heyday and on the reunion tour.

 

No, all the same bands that were being played on classic rock radio 20-30 years ago are still being played on classic rock radio today.

When you drive home from work tonight I guarantee that if you tune in to your local classic rock radio station that you'll hear "Miss You" by The Rolling Stones, "Gold Dust Woman" by Fleetwood Mac and "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" from Van Halen... though not necessarily in that order.

 

Wrote great songs and provided outstanding musicianship in a band full of outstanding musicians.

 

I thought it was his best since Brand New Day.

 

No, not really.

 

Really? The Police track is one of their best. Sting's version is all too adult contemporary jazzfusion.