Bring On the POLL - ILM Artist Poll #116 - THE POLICE - (Results Thread)

anyone want to say anything about the differences between the police and the clash in how they approached dubby sounds? clash always seem to use dub for political songs, police use it for creating haunted spaces

I'd suggest that the Clash associated Jamaican music with being rebellious - underground sound systems, race riots, etc. - and the Police were mostly just poseurs. Not that the Clash were somehow more "authentic" or not poseurs themselves, but they kind of edged their way into reggae's mythology through sheer force of will while the Police mostly borrowed stylistic surface elements (Stew often bristles when people call the Police a reggae band, noting that only three or so songs in their entire catalog could even pass for reggae). Of course, the Police were much better players, which is why they could pull off something like "Bed's Too Big Without You," but beyond that the Police generally never got that political. Surprisingly, neither did Sting solo, come to think of it, not much, and usually only in the most ham-fisted, least self-aware ways possible ("Russians"). Songs like "They Dance Alone" are the double-exception: political and subtle.

love the way this one develops from the intro, starts so simple and then somehow builds this unstoppable sense of momentum. are they doing some sort of clever sort of chord progression trickery there where it doesn't ever resolve or something? i don't have the knowledge to say, but it feels like there's something going on there. and i love the switch-up in vocalists too (via the opera sample!), that's just a great touch i think

I think this song is a great example of Stew displacing the beat in really cool ways that must have bothered Sting.

https://i.imgur.com/tRRf1IX.jpg

33. Bombs Away
From: Zenyattà Mondatta
Released: October 3. 1980
174 Points, 6 Votes

such a great summers solo

xp to Josh: yeah certainly the police never pretended to be rebels of any sort - sting's innate aloofness prevents him from being any sort of rabble-rouser like joe strummer. maybe 'they dance alone' works as it's very much a song about a 'them' rather than an 'us'. mind you, so was 'russians' so maybe not. oh, there was also 'invisible sun' of course, which got banned by the bbc for being overly political - i think that song kind of works but is about the same level as the human league's 'lebanon' when it comes to political insight

didn't vote for 'bombs away' but i never do not enjoy it

At least the guitars on "The Lebanon" sound properly peeved.

"Bombs Away" sounds to me like it would be much better with Copeland singing.

ha alfred, the guitars on 'the lebanon' are unimpeachable it's true

Three of my four Copeland picks in a row! At this point in the countdown, a novice to the band might assume he was the main creative force.

All this talk about the Clash made me wonder just how much filler the Police would have had to produce to fill their own version of Sandinista!

Sting would've loved to see his publishing income dwindle if Summers and Copeland had to each write 18 songs.

god, a triple album would've been fascinating, but my first hope would've been for a side-long five-part suite based entirely on 'behind my camel'

https://i.imgur.com/pRfAgAB.jpg

32. Tea in the Sahara
From: Synchronicity
Released: June 17, 1983
176 Points, 6 Votes

On 'Tea In The Sahara' I used what I call, tongue in cheek, my 'wobbling cloud' effect. It comes with using a highly overloaded guitar, to the point of feedback, and moving the chord off just as it's about to break. It's a sound I do a lot in concert, this sort of echo guitar, where basically I turn most of the signal off so that all you hear is echo. Then you control it with the volume pedal, so you just hear this floating, shimmering sound. And you've got to play the right chords, you can't play G major or D7 - it sounds cruddy. You've got to play space harmonies to make it more like that - triads with open strings, tended harmonies like 9ths and 11ths, 27ths. It's really all by ear.

— Andy Summers, Guitar World, 4/1987

That description made me think of Larry Carlton's volume pedal work on Joni Mitchell's "Amelia", but that's a masterpiece and this song is just an OK bit of atmosphere.

The lyric is kind of intriguing to me.

Paul Bowles. Sting is smart!

also, listening to a lot of Police in recent weeks I’m struck by how much casual misogyny I hear in the lyrics.

xpost The Police struggled to release as many albums as they did!

the dominance of the vocal and the narrative over such a sparse backing track make me feel this is the most solo sting song in the police catalogue

the dominance of the vocal and the narrative over such a sparse backing track make me feel this is the most solo sting song in the police catalogue

also, listening to a lot of Police in recent weeks I’m struck by how much casual misogyny I hear in the lyrics.

tbf Sting kind of leaned into creepy-guy narratives. Big hits include guy in love with sex worker, guy in love with underage girl, guy who can't even get up the nerve to call her, guy stalking his ex and saying "Can't you see/You belong to me." I'm not sure any of them are supposed to be exactly sympathetic, except maybe the sad sack in "Every Little Thing."

That guy has a big umbrella, though.

he's also weirdly keen on telling us just how wet he's getting

https://i.imgur.com/koeaWkP.jpg

31. I Burn for You
From: Brimstone & Treacle (soundtrack)
Released: October 1982
183 Points, 5 Votes, 1 Number One

The Police's "I Burn for You" is a song Sting originally wrote for the band Last Exit in the mid-1970s; he later offered it to The Police for Zenyatta Mondatta in 1980, but it was deemed "too sentimental" for their musical direction. The band eventually chose to record it for their fourth album Ghost In The Machine the following year, but it did not make the cut.

Never heard this one! It's now only available on the Ghost In The Machine (Alternate Sequence) released this year, which I never got around to.

Crazy it didn’t make either album, it’s one of their best songs

Btw if you wanna hear Bombs Away with Stew singing, check out the Gizmodrome version. A number of lyrical changes too.

jesus I hoped we would be able to avoid discussing that ghastly film.

Also - the misogyny isn't the creepy-guy stuff, e.g. in Synchro II, "secretaries pout and preen / like cheap tarts in a red light street" and "mother chants a litany of boredom and frustration / but we know all her suicides are fake".

fantastic song! first part has such a heavy atmosphere, makes me feel slightly delirious when the second bit kicks in

Got a number one vote too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQtIRrmhvBw

I love "I Burn for You." I also have a weird affection for the film, I saw it as a young teen (mostly because I was a big Police fan) and thought it was fascinatingly fucked-up.

Going to do 13 today, 13 tomorrow and then 14 on Friday.

I'm done with work for the day so I should be a bit faster on these last few.

Never heard this one! It's now only available on the Ghost In The Machine (Alternate Sequence) released this year, which I never got around to.

be warned, the version on that album is only 3 minutes long - they've chopped off the final two minutes(!)

thanks Bee you're doing great so far btw!

As a mad Police fan in my teens I had no idea there was an official soundtrack for B&T, and so I taped IBFY off the VHS we had rented, which is why the copy I listened to had the incoherent cries of the couple's daughter mixed in with the track.

Thanks, it just sucks that I can't be more active in this poll, but it's for the people and I'm fine with that. Still has been fun putting it all together and counting down these songs.

xpost

We're enjoying it! Thanks, Bee.

I had the B&T soundtrack album, listened to it a fair amount. (I also voted for "Only You" off it in the solo poll.)

side poll: what is sting's greatest movie role?

https://i.ibb.co/DK0VDMD/helith.jpg

Quadrophenia

Ace Face no less

A friend of mine saw Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in the theatre. Apparently Sting makes what is meant to be a big entrance, but the only reaction in the theatre was my friend groaning in exasperation.

what a list:

As actor

Quadrophenia (1979) – The Ace Face, the King of the Mods, a.k.a. the Bell Boy in the film adaptation of the Who album.
Radio On (1979) – Just Like Eddie
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) – Leader of the Blow Waves. The footage was cut but it later reappeared in the DVD version and in the documentary The Filth and the Fury (2000).
Artemis 81 (1981) – The angel Helith (BBC TV film)
Brimstone and Treacle (1982) – Martin Taylor, a drifter
Dune (1984) – Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen
Titus Groan (1984) – Steerpike (BBC Radio 4 broadcast based on the Mervyn Peake novel)
Gormenghast (1984) – Steerpike (BBC Radio 4 broadcast based on the Mervyn Peake novel)
Plenty (1985) – Mick, a black-marketeer
The Bride (1985) – Baron Frankenstein
Walking to New Orleans (1985) – Busker, singing Moon Over Bourbon Street.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) – a "heroic officer"
Stormy Monday (1988) – Finney, a nightclub owner
Julia and Julia (1988) – Daniel, a British gentleman
The Grotesque (1995), a/k/a Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets and Grave Indiscretion – Fledge
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) – J.D., Eddie's father and owner of a bar.
Kaamelott: The First Chapter (2021) – Horsa

As himself

Urgh! A Music War (1982)
Bring On the Night (1985)
Saturday Night Live (1991) – host, various
The Simpsons episode "Radio Bart" (1992)
The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer Episode 5 (1995)
The Larry Sanders Show episode "Where Is the Love?" (1996)
Ally McBeal season four episode "Cloudy Skies, Chance of Parade" (2001)
Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out (2006)
Studio 60 on Sunset Strip (2006)
Vicar of Dibley Comic Relief special (2007)
Bee Movie (2007)
Little Britain USA (2008) as Stomp, the lead singer of "the Cops" (playing "Fields of Gold")
Brüno (2009)
Still Bill (2009)
Do It Again (2010)
Life's Too Short (2011)
2012: Time for Change (2011)
The Michael J. Fox Show (2013) (singing "August Wind" from The Last Ship)
20 Feet from Stardom (2013)
Zoolander 2 (2016)
Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics (2020)
Only Murders in the Building (2021)

He's never sexier than in a supporting role in Stormy Monday

A friend of mine saw Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in the theatre. Apparently Sting makes what is meant to be a big entrance, but the only reaction in the theatre was my friend groaning in exasperation.

hearty lols @ this!

OMG now I need the DVD of Great R&R Swindle (not just for that but for any other extras)

I forgot abt his Only Murders cameo too, very good

interesting how the Urgh movie is framed entirely around them given some of the wild outliers that are in that film

like, the makers of the movie clearly thought they were the most popular act that would the flick