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

I'm surprised "De Doo Doo Doo" did so well on the AT40 considering what the rest of the chart looked like...or perhaps that's why it did so well.

I know there's already been talk itt about their relationship to reggae, but I think it is pretty remarkable — that there was a band of white British/American guys who incorporated reggae into their music at a level that I don't think anyone ever called appropriation. They weren't "trying to play reggae," they were playing rock with musical foundations drawn from reggae among other places. They just feel like they inhabit the space. I also agree that Remain in Light-era Heads is the other band I can think of with similar absorption of a range of influences. Something about that postpunk era, a lot of connections were possible.

https://i.imgur.com/5gLemVX.jpg

23. Darkness
From: Ghost in the Machine
Released: October 2, 1981
322 Points, 10 Votes, 1 Number One

Good point, I don't think they ever got called 'cod reggae' either and that was truly the golden era for that as a thing (I do love a nice bit of cod reggae though tbh) xp

tremendous song

Agreed, too low

kind of a niche POV perhaps but this is one of their songs that make me think of of what ar kane were trying to do on their first album

Their best closer.

love the lyrics to this one too. one of the few "it kinda sucks to be a star" songs that actually hits emotionally. love the line "Instead of worrying about my clothes/I could be someone that nobody knows"

"Life is easy when it was boring"

do we agree it's Stew's best song?

god just relistening now and i swear, last 3 tracks on GITM are absolutely the burning core of my abiding love for the police

xp yes for sure

Last three songs on GITM are andy's best song, sting's best song and stewart's best song fyi ;)

otm

yeah Darkness rules, top 3 from Ghost for me

I spent some time believing the lyric to the previous was “Canary in a Coma” which is pleasingly surreal. And I also love that Sting is so annoyed about DDDD,DDDD, it’s one of his most DO U SEE lyrics and deserves to be mocked a bit.

https://i.imgur.com/1DzMqud.jpg

22. Next to You
From: Outlandos d'Amour
Single Released: November 2, 1978
354 Points, 11 Votes

When Sting originally presented the song to his bandmates, they felt it was neither aggressive nor political enough for the early punk sensibility of The Police. Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland suggested replacing the lyrics, with Summers offering "I'm going to take a gun to you". Sting vetoed this and kept his original love song lyrics instead. The song also includes a slide guitar solo which Copeland dismissed as "old wave," yet Summers shared that as of 2000, he was still getting letters "about that brilliant slide guitar solo".

absolutely love "darkness" and "canary," pretty fun back-to-back juxtaposition

I love "Next to You," pop-punk classic.

LOL I misread your post as "blaxploitation" xpost

Also Summers otm re that slide solo, it's excellent.

Their best closer.

One reason I never listened to the new sequence of Ghost in the Machine was that I couldn't imagine any other song ending the record.

Also Summers otm re that slide solo, it's excellent.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra),

Precisely because it so off-brand: it's like Paul's solo in "Taxman."

write him a letter!

https://i.imgur.com/g1OnF0u.jpg

21. It’s Alright for You
From: Reggatta de Blanc
Released: October 2, 1979
366 Points, 11 Votes, 1 Number One

The song that pops into my head when I think of “new wave”

Great song, one of their few actual ska tunes. (There must be ska band versions of it, right?)

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Thursday, December 8, 2022

exactly why it never got anywhere near my ballot

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

20. Every Breath You Take
From: Synchronicity
Released: May 20, 1983
374 Points, 11 Votes

"Every Breath You Take" is the Police's and Sting's signature song, and in 2010 was estimated to generate between a quarter and a third of Sting's music publishing income.[5] In May 2019, it was recognized by BMI as being the most played song in radio history.[6][7] With nearly 15 million radio plays, Sting received a BMI Award at a ceremony held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills to mark it being the Most Performed Song in BMI's catalogue, a distinction previously held since 1999 by Spector, Mann and Weill's "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'". BMI President and CEO Mike O'Neill stated: "For the first time in 22 years, BMI has a new top song in our repertoire with Sting's timeless hit 'Every Breath You Take,' a remarkable achievement that solidifies its place in songwriting history."

Written by Sting, the single was the biggest US and Canadian hit of 1983, the song also reached the Top 10 in numerous other countries. In the 1983 Rolling Stone critics' and readers' poll, it was voted "Song of the Year". In the US, it was the best-selling single of 1983 and fifth-best-selling single of the decade. Billboard ranked it as the No. 1 song for 1983.[8] The song ranked No. 84 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. It also ranked number 25 on Billboard's Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs. In 2008, Q magazine named it among the top 10 British Songs of the 1980s. In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as The Nation's Favourite 1980s number one in a UK-wide poll for ITV.

Shocked that this placed so low, great job ILM. I do wonder if it's burn out issue, lyric content or other. I'm just sick of hearing it and didn't make my ballot even tho the song is sort of great.

too low????????????????

pay andy you fucks

but yeah it might be burnout. like when I listen to Reggatta I just can't stand to hear "Message in a Bottle" anymore. I know it's a great song but growing up it was both on the RdB CD and the Greatest Hits that was always playing around the house, AND it was on the radio all the fucking time. it's like listening to the Simpsons theme song for fun. "Every Breath You Take" is probably even worse because I also lived through Puff Daddy mania

Also someone sent in a ballot and had number 11 missing. I wrote back and said you missed a song, they said go ahead and add Every Breath to their ballot. So it slid on in to track number 20 on their ballot. What I'm trying to say is, if that wasn't added then it wouldn't have even made our Top 20.

still remember coming home with the single as a kid and playing it for the first time and thinking, what the hell is this garbage? not sure i ever really warmed to it much after that, something about the tune always made me think of 'sailing' by rod stewart, which was a real torture to listen to, thankfully that never persisted in culture like this thing did

it’s a fans’ poll not a casuals’ poll innit

(sorry for negativity, will try and KIP going forwards) xp

It didn't make my ballot, and I don't think burnout was the reason. It's just a creepy song. I realize it's far from the only creepy song Sting has written, it's just not a highlight for me.

It's one of the many, many famous songs that I enjoy briefly and then get bored with after listening to about 90 seconds.

It really hasn't gone away: I hear it in the wild at least three times a week, maybe more if I count the times I've tuned it out.

I wonder if the streaming age has affected Sting's publishing income for this baby.

There's still a lot of money in radio airplay, it's album sales that have suffered the most from streaming. Not to mention that I'm sure the song itself is getting streamed a lot, to the point where the fractions of pennies add up.

1,354 million plays on spotify

That's a crazy amount of plays especially for an 80s song.

"Spotify pays artists between $0.003 - $0.005 per stream on average"

1,354,000,000 x 0.003 = 4,062,000 (!!)

Sting could probably find more than that in his sofa cushions.

Not to mention the additional millions Sting would've earned in my friend Allison's Cadillac junior year when she played Every Breath You Take -- The Singles over and over and over, sometimes on the same drive.

Growing up and listening to KROQ I always thought "Canary in a Coal Mine" was a single. Great little 2:26 long song.

do we agree it's Stew's best song?

Shocked that this placed so low, great job ILM. I do wonder if it's burn out issue, lyric content or other. I'm just sick of hearing it and didn't make my ballot even tho the song is sort of great.

the Gizmodrome version of "Darkness" with Mark King on vocals. better than the original IMO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcNWlA11Llk

https://i.imgur.com/6KWmGws.jpg

19. Secret Journey
From: Ghost in the Machine
Single Released: April 1982
436 Points, 13 Votes, 1 Number One

lmao this is peak ILX corny indie fuckery. endearing as hell and absolutely bonkers for a track that ranks up there with "in the air tonight" for establishing an entire sonic template for the 80s. absolutely towering achievement. PAY ANDY.