The Police - what's the best album?

Ghost In The Machine has a weird mystical edge to it that I always loved. Got it when I was ten or eleven, too young to realise what an absolute arse Sting was, so it completely dodged under my bullshit radar, but at the time I was really fascinated by songs like Secret Journey and Darkness and the quest they appeared to describe. Not just the words but the music, especially the blurry effects on the guitars, which at points seems to be seeping or melting into another dimension. Even the big poppy chart hit ends in quite a wistful, meditative coda.

Other thing is that it was the first record I owned that had the word "cunt" on it. I kind of liked the way that the Police didn't really tone down their lyrics even though a lot of their audience were probably kids of my age. It's not like they did it in a sensationalist way either, it was just there in a very matter-of-fact way. Reminds me of the Beat using the same word to descibe racists in 'Two Swords', pop music definitely drilled it into me early on that nazis = cunts.

We should just vote on which album has the best filler, tbh.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, April 11, 2013 6:38 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is otm, these are hard albums to love front to back, amazing as the highlights are.

voted for Zenyatta.

Regatta is the only one I haven't heard. I'd choose Zenyatta, in part because I got to know it thanks to our album rock station in the late eighties and nineties, which played every album track except the Copeland numbers.

It's hard to resist GITM's "Darkness," "One World (Not Three)," and "Omegaman" though.

Would be interested to hear what people consider is the worst Police filler song. Fuck Mother, it's Be My Girl-Sally amirite?

btw this 2000 interview with the three guys is incrediblee: http://www.thepolice.com/news/article/3765/news

Revolver: Speaking of which, your next album 'Zenyatta Mondatta' was reportedly hell to make, and yet broke you guys in America.

Sting: That was probably our most desperate album. We were riding the crest of an amazing wave of success in England. We wanted to take advantage of our popularity, so we booked some time to do the album in Holland, and we'd also booked a tour that started two weeks later! Maybe we could have done an album in two weeks, but we were fighting a lot, so it took a long time. We were still recording this album while we were touring. We rushed it. We should have taken our time.

Summers: Yeah, but there were some incredibly hooky songs on there: 'Don't Stand So Close To Me', 'When the World Is Running Down'. 'De Do Do Do', and, of course, I got a Grammy for my composition 'Behind My Camel'. Can we talk about that for an hour? (laughs)

Revolver: Primus recently recorded a cover version of 'Behind My Camel'.

Summers: There you go!

Copeland: As hard done by as I ever felt in this band, I could always take comfort in the fact that Andy got shafted even worse than I did on that little instrumental. Sting didn't even bother to play on it. Andy played all the bass and guitars, and I only played on the song because there wasn't anyone else to play drums.

Summers: Well, all I know is that Primus thinks it's cool, and I got the Grammy.

Copeland: The irony is that I got a Grammy too - and so did Sting!

Sting: I hated that song so much that, one day when I was in the studio, I found the tape lying on the table. So I took it around the back of the studio and actually buried it in the garden. (laughs)

Copeland: But Andy was not to be denied. He dug it up. True story.

last lengthy excerpt:

Revolver: More Schadenfreude. What can you tell me about 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'?

Summers: Well, I'm going to get very insulting here. When Sting was off doing the demos in Canada, he used this pianist who was incredibly pushy.

Copeland: He wasn't pushy.

Summers: f*** he was! He even managed to come down to Montserrat when we were recording.

Copeland: He was just like us actually.

Summers: Well, yeah, but there wasn't room for him. He must have played 12 piano parts on that song alone. And as the guitar player I was saying, 'What the f*** is this? This is not the Police sound'.

Copeland: So we tried to make the song a Police song - which meant undoing all of Sting's arrangement. That was our basic policy anyway. Always has been. Throw out Sting's arrangement, keep his lyrics and the song. So we tried playing it slower than the demos, we tried my "rama-lama" punk version. Andy tried turning the chords upside down. We spent more time on this song than on all the other songs put together. One morning, in a state of extreme grumpiness, I remember saying, 'Okay put up Sting's original demo and I'll show you how crummy it is.' So Sting stood over me and waved me through all the changes. I did just one take, and that became the record. Then Andy did the same thing on the guitar. We just faced the music, but the bullet, and used Sting's arrangements and demo. Damn.

lmao love these guys, never stop posting group interviews

the episode they did of Elvis Costello's interview show is gold

Summers: Sting has this big book of lyrics that he'd been working on for years. So, if we came up with a song with lyrics that were not quite up to it, Sting was real quick about replacing them.

Sting: Okay, here's the story behind that: I've been a songwriter since I was seven years old. And I've been writing songs in this book Andy's been talking about since I was very young. Now, Andy and Stewart only become songwriters when they realised there was money in it.

haha

sting zings

love how these guys have actually beaten each other up for years.

outlandos. they arrived perfectly formed and only ever diluted themselves through progression.

Copeland: In 'Wrapped Around Your Finger' there's the classic line where he goes, "things they would not teach me of in college." Sting, I just want to say, I went to college and learned all this Jungian shit. It's just Psych 101. It had no mystique for me at all.

Sting: You explain it then, Stewart.

my favorite dysfunctional family

Copeland: 'Synchronicity' is about the overall unconscious that binds us together. If I wear a red tie and you happen to wearing a red tie, it isn't a coincidence, it's because we have this bond that goes beneath the outer surface. Something we can't even measure, but it's there. And that's Psych 101.

Revolver: Sting, you want comment here?

Sting: No, no, I'm a simple man. A simple man in my huge Tuscan villa, so piss off.

Copeland: Andy, since we're here, I'm going to back you up on this. You should stand up right now and say, 'I Andy want all the Puff Daddy money. Because that's not Sting's song he's using, that's my guitar riff.' Okay over to you Andy, Go for it...

Summers: [meekly] Ok, I want all of the Puff Daddy Money.

Copeland: There you go, you feel better now don't you?

Sting: Okay Andy here's all the money. [pours some change on the table] Unfortunately, I've spent the rest of it.

A simple man in my huge Tuscan villa, so piss off.

Ha ha!

Would be interested to hear what people consider is the worst Police filler song. Fuck Mother, it's Be My Girl-Sally amirite?

― as a sock, son, you flop (NickB)

Yeah Mother is the one that came to mind. I always found Born in the 50's quite annoying from the first album. Just flicking through Reggatta which is my favourite album there a couple of contenders with On Any Other Day and Does Everyone Stare.

I always think I'm going to love Ghost in the Machine when I put it on as the first three songs are so good but then I never enjoy anything else until Omegaman, those last three songs are actually all really great.

kind of love the dynamic. they whinge bitterly, and he bears it all with magnanimity. because he's fucking rich.

irl lols at this re 'So Lonely'

Copeland: It was also the first time Sting said 'screw the punk formula'. Sting started playing the song and I distinctly remember Andy and I making farting noises and going, 'Yeah, right'. But then he got to that steaming chorus, we looked at each other and realised that maybe we should give it a try. In spite of our kerfuffling, Sting persevered and made us create something new.

Other thing is that it was the first record I owned that had the word "cunt" on it.

http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/7056/stewartcopelandcorbis53.jpg

Note the drum heads. Iirc, Sting was the object of drum head scorn.

rude!

the

best

it's like the Goon Show, they kill me

Copeland: Stop them! They're talking technical musical stuff. It's a classic exclusion technique, just because I'm a drummer.

Sting: Stewart, those are called "notes".

Summers: You want to hear an oxymoron? Musical drummer!

Copeland: Hey Andy. What do you throw at a drowning guitarist? His amp!

Sting: What has three legs and a c***? A drum stool!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UL_rhTjsQ8

I approve mightily of this thread. Keep em coming

BTW, answer for me is Regatta

omg these quotes are kiiiiiiiiiilling me

voted Outlandos but I admit I've never made a serious attempt to get to know Synchronicity and I think I ditched my copy of Ghost. So much filler with these guys. Even the debut has its share, but it also has the most energy of any of them.

listened to them on the way home

man, these fuckin guys

one of the few bands whose chops force me to reconsider the songs

buncha show-offs, really

haha those drum heads! they also spell out おまんこ which is vagina in japanese
voted Regatta cos 8 year old me demanded it

Ghost

carrying over from the discussion about royalty splits in that Soul Coughing thread, The Police are a great example of a band that probably would've had better records if they just split songwriting credits equally no matter who came up with the main idea. both because they might've collaborated more and Copeland and Summers wouldn't have fought so hard to crowd out Sting's more developed songs, and because those guys all contributed so much to the arrangement of every song that they deserve credit.

I always think I'm going to love Ghost in the Machine when I put it on as the first three songs are so good but then I never enjoy anything else until Omegaman, those last three songs are actually all really great.

First three and last three songs on Ghost are the best thing they ever did.

xp the Police are always the first band I think of when I hear Doughty go on his thousandth rant about how he was the songwriter and thus deserved way more credit and everyone was just leeching off him and zzzzz...there's a reason why there aren't really any good covers of the Police out there. hearing Sting put things together on his solo album definitely gives some creedence to Stew's claim that the Police used Sting's songs and lyrics but little else. nothing in Sting's solo career sounds anything like the Police, outside of parts of Synchronicity of course. then again I don't recall Sting trying to take credit for everything on that level, as much of as prick as he is (and seeing him live, he definitely came off like a prick, but hey...he's a prick I like)

'Synchronicity' is my favourite.

My fave track from them is "Fallout", but with such spotty albums, i have to give my album vote to Synchronicity for it relative consistency.

I always found Born in the 50's quite annoying from the first album.

Yeah! It's not even true!

Sting was just] about born in the fifries. Stewart and Andy were not.

So, "We was born.. born in the fifties" should be "Speaking personally, I was born.. born in the fifties"

Copeland was born in the fifties iirc. It was just Andy Summers that was the old man in the band. He's in his 70s now btw, which is just astonishing to me.

oh, ok then...

Maybe Sting and Stewart both sing the song, and Andy just keeps quiet and plays..

More than likely, the song is from their Henry Padovani days...

He keeps quiet and thinks 'I hate these twats already'

He's in his 70s now btw, which is just astonishing to me.

I guess it's not so astonishing if you think of him as a contemporary of the Stones and the Animals etc who got his break a lot later on in life.

They had better songs and musical interplay on some of their other albums but I always liked Ghost in the Machine as that record has a distinct vibe through the whole record. I think part of it is that there is synth throughout most of the record and it's like the same synth and when added with the echo guitar kind of gives that album a somewhat uniform sound, which gives it a pretty distinct flow compared to the Police's other albums.

These interview excerpts are amazing, thanks Alfred.

Kitchen Person and Naive Teen Idol otm about the first and last three Ghost in the Machine tracks, Omegaman/Secret Journey/Darkness is such a great bit of sequencing.

agree with all that has been written here - all albums have filler, sting is a prick, etc. considering that, 'Ghost...' and (to a lesser degree) 'Synchronicity' feel more coherent for me - if not in songwriting terms, at least in terms of mood and sonically/production-wise. I'm going for 'Ghost...' since it was the first record i heard from them, apart from one of the greatest hits.

I'm looking through the tracklistings and I keep changing my mind. Reggatta is probably the most listenable front to back.

lol this is grim

Post-Police (1984-2007)
Summers' solo career has included touring, recording, composing for films (including 2010, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, The Wild Life and Weekend at Bernie's), writing books, and exhibiting his photography. In 1992, he served a brief stint as Musical Director on the short-lived Dennis Miller Show.

Sting's very own "Rhythm Nation:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYps5LfOaGg

I've heard a shocking number of just-hangin-with-Sting tales that earn the guy a good deal of my patience with all the stuff about him that sucks.

Once, friends of mine were out at a trendy place for a late dinner, and their table was next to Sting and his wife. Eventually he just invited them over and they spent a couple of hours kickin' it with Sting. But the best story - and if the subject of this story posts here, hey, how are you? - a friend of mine was working for a Milwaukee paper or weekly or something. One day, he gets a call from a publicist, who invites him to meet Sting before the show. He figures, what the hell, Sting! So he shows up to the venue and is escorted back to a room where Sting and his entire band is set up. But my acquaintance (also named Josh) notices a bunch of other civilians back there, too, so he gets the scoop: apparently Sting, bored a lot of the time, had (has?) a tradition of live band karaoke in every city he hits! So Sting goes around the room greeting everyone, and then, one by one, people in the room got to pick their favorite Stings/Police songs from a binder, and Sting and his band backed them up! But it gets better, because apparently after the songs were done Sting just hung around, milling about. So my pal Josh was leaning on a wall somewhere and Sting walks by, gives him a polite nod hello, and just says "Josh" in a matter of fact way. So Josh, thinking of no other alternative and unable to help himself, responds with the SNL copy guy line: "Stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing."
iiiii
True story.

But does that story forgive this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8YDTPnqnf4

Probably not, no.

I'd only hang with Stingo if he treated me to expensive wine.

and if he threw all of his lutes down a well

And if I built this fortress around your lute well
Encircled it in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me light a match
For I cannot risk the chance
That you might dig them out and play this song again

feel like sting is a total bro, insofar as someone who goes by 'sting' can be

still better than 'mankind' tho

OH SHIIIII

and if he threw all of his lutes down a well

around your heart

in a dark scottish loch

many miles away, something strums to the surface

There's a little black spot on the sun today
That's my lute up there

ANOTHER BOR-ING FUCK-ING LUTE SONGGGGGGG

Sting throws his lute down a well, it lands on a butterfly and kills it. many miles away, a man writes a song about it, then stars in a remake of "The Bride."

"We're sending a lute down the well"

http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4f451c4deab8ea9455000004-590/we-also-enjoyed-sting-as-himself-in-season-3-episode-13-radio-bart-after-bart-tricks-the-town-into-believing-an-orphan-fell-down-a-well-the-singer-along-with-others-performs-his-charity-single-were-sending-our-love-down-the-well-the-episode-was-nominated-for-an-emmy.jpg

Regatta>Ghost>Zenyatta>Outlandos>Synchronicity

Even when I was a teenager and they were my favorite band, I loved them more for sound and texture than songs or lyrics. That's what's most unusual about them as a pop band, I think -- they made great singles out of sound and texture. And hooks, obviously, but even the hooks are as much a product of ambiance as melody. Like on "Don't Stand So Close to Me," that little nagging guitar figure that just repeats and repeats. Or the spacey, dubby middle 8 on "Message in a Bottle."

(OK that's not even a middle 8, it's the just the trailing bars of the chorus -- I exaggerated it in my head, because it creates so much space in the middle of this wired, hyper song.)

Deathwish?

That's what's most unusual about them as a pop band, I think -- they made great singles out of sound and texture. And hooks, obviously, but even the hooks are as much a product of ambiance as melody.

This is otm, there are a few of their best songs (including some of the big singles) where the chorus is the least interesting part of the song because of this.

That's probably why I don't mind the '86 rerecording of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" – I dig those washes of guitar – despite how the track sounded dated even then (it's closer to "Don't Stand So Close to Me '84").

voted zenyatta, i hated these dudes for so long (though a friend of mine in hs who was a huge sting fan meant i was very familiar w/ their catalogue) i think some weird way getting into the dinosaur acts that clearly looked to them as a means of coming to terms w/ new wave (rush, yes) is what gave me the means of coming to terms w/ the police. plus, as soto noted, the chops. love those interview quotes above. really love that dry vibe they mined, sounds so spartan on classic rock radio.

Deathwish?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Well, no complaints there. Switch Ghost In The Machine and Zenyatta Mondatta around and you'd pretty much have the order that I'd rank them in.

Damn, I should give those last couple records another try.

For OutdoorFish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cavbeMsk5Y8

Why thank you

I'm not surprised by how close this was but it's a little weird that Outlandos got so few votes, I thought that was the one that the hardnosers loved the most

I'm confused by popularity of Synchronicity. It's not bad, just not that good.

I came up with a list regardless.

one of the few bands whose chops force me to reconsider the songs

Alfred otm here. also kinda surprised that Sync did so well in this poll.

"Voices" is so dope you listed it twice!

I heard voices iirc