Background
In the aftermath of their Synchronicity Tour in 1984,the Police announced that they were taking a pause of reflection before recording a new album. The same year Andy Summers released a second album of instrumental music with Robert Fripp,Bewitched. Stewart Copeland worked on the soundtrack of the Francis Ford Coppola film Rumble Fish ,with the single "Don't Box Me In" peaking at No. 91 in the UK Singles Chart. In 1985 Sting released his first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles ,with great critical and commercial success. The album was followed by an extensive promotional tour,that resulted in a double live album, Bring on the Night . In 1985 Copeland started working on The Rhythmatist,an ambitious project that led him to spend a significant amount of time recording and filming in Congo. About one year later Summers scored the soundtrack for the film Down and Out in Beverly Hills .
By the time the trio reconvened to play three concerts for the Amnesty International A Conspiracy of Hope Tour in June 1986,the atmosphere was tense. According to Sting,"It was a very symbolic moment. We'd broken up,then sort of reformed to do the Amnesty Tour. U2 were there as well and as we closed our set with "Invisible Sun",Bono came out and sang it with us. And then we symbolically handed our instruments over to U2,because they were about to become what we were —the biggest band in the world". [10]
In July the band booked time in the studio to record a new album. In the liner notes to the Police's box set Message in a Box ,Summers recalled:"The attempt to record a new album was doomed from the outset. The night before we went into the studio Stewart broke his collarbone falling off a horse and that meant we lost our last chance of recovering some rapport just by jamming together. Anyway,it was clear Sting had no real intention of writing any new songs for the Police. It was an empty exercise." With Copeland unable to play the drums,the short-lived reunion resulted in an attempt to re-record some of their previous hits. Copeland opted to use his Fairlight CMI to program the drum tracks but Sting pushed to use the drums on his Synclavier instead. As the group's engineer found the Synclavier's programming interface difficult,it ended up taking him two days to complete the task. Copeland ultimately finished the drum programming and claimed that the Fairlight's "Page R" (the device's sequencing page) saved his life and put him on the map as a composer. In a Qantas inflight radio program named "Reeling in the Years",Copeland was quoted as saying that the argument over Synclavier versus Fairlight drums was "the straw that broke the camel's back," and that this led to the group's unravelling.
"Don't Stand So Close to Me '86" was released in October 1986 as the final single from The Police. "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da" was also recorded but the band was unsatisfied with the result,and as such it was shelved,only to be subsequently included on the DTS-CD release of the Every Breath You Take:The Classics album in 1995.
As to signify the poor atmosphere pervading the session,the three band members did not appear together in the photograph on the album cover,nor in the video shot by Godley &Creme to promote "Don't Stand So Close to Me '86". Following the release of the album,the Police effectively disbanded.
The Police were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. Within a few months of their first gig, the line-up settled as Sting, Andy Summers (guitar) and Stewart Copeland, and this remained unchanged for the rest of the band's history. The Police became globally popular from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. Emerging in the British new wave scene, they played a style of rock influenced by punk, reggae, and jazz.
Synchronicity is the fifth and final studio album by the British rock band the Police, released on 17 June 1983 by A&M Records. The band's most successful release, the album includes the hit singles "Every Breath You Take", "King of Pain", "Wrapped Around Your Finger", and "Synchronicity II". The album's title and much of the material for the songs were inspired by Arthur Koestler's book The Roots of Coincidence (1972). At the 1984 Grammy Awards the album was nominated for a total of five awards, including Album of the Year, and won three. At the time of its release and following the Synchronicity Tour, the Police's popularity was at such a high that they were arguably, according to BBC and The Guardian, the "biggest band in the world".
"Every Breath You Take" is a song by the English rock band the Police from their album Synchronicity (1983). Written by Sting, the single was the biggest US and Canadian hit of 1983, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks, and the Canadian RPM chart for four weeks. Their fifth UK No. 1, it topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks. The song also reached the top 10 in numerous other countries.
Outlandos d'Amour is the debut studio album by British rock band the Police, released on 17 November 1978 by A&M Records. Elevated by the success of its lead single, "Roxanne", Outlandos d'Amour peaked at No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart and at No. 23 on the Billboard 200. The album spawned two additional hit singles: "Can't Stand Losing You" and "So Lonely".
Zenyatta Mondatta is the third studio album by British rock band the Police, released on 3 October 1980 by A&M Records. It was co-produced by the band and Nigel Gray.
Ghost in the Machine is the fourth studio album by English rock band the Police. The album was released on 2 October 1981 by A&M Records. The songs were recorded between January and September 1981 during sessions that took place at AIR Studios in Montserrat and Le Studio in Quebec, assisted by record producer Hugh Padgham.
Live! is a live album by The Police, released in 1995 on compact disc and cassette tape. It is the band's first live album and one of only two covering their initial period of activity before 1986, the other being Around The World (2022). A live album from the reunion tour, Certifiable: Live in Buenos Aires, was released in 2008.
"Roxanne" is a song by British rock band the Police. The song was written by lead singer and bassist Sting and was released as a single on 7 April 1978, in advance of their debut album Outlandos d'Amour, released on 3 November. It was written from the point of view of a man who falls in love with a prostitute. When re-released on 12 April 1979, the song peaked at No. 12 on the UK Singles Chart.
"Don't Stand So Close to Me" is a hit song by the British rock band the Police, released in September 1980 as the lead single from their third studio album Zenyatta Mondatta. It concerns a teacher who has a sexual relationship with a student, which in turn is discovered.
"Message in a Bottle" is a song by British rock band the Police. It was released as the lead single from their second studio album, Reggatta de Blanc (1979). Written by the band's lead singer and bassist Sting, the song is ostensibly about a story of a castaway on an island who sends out a message in a bottle to seek love. Having received no response for a year, he despairs, believing that he is destined to be alone. The next day, however, he sees "a hundred billion bottles" on the shore and realizes that there are more lonely people like him.
The Very Best of... Sting & The Police is a compilation album issued by A&M Records on 3 November 1997, containing a mix of Police songs and Sting's solo works. It originally featured one new track, a remix of the 1978 song "Roxanne" by rap artist Sean "Puffy" Combs. The album was reissued in 1998 by PolyGram International with "Russians" removed and three added tracks: "Seven Days", "Fragile", and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da". The original European version issued by A&M Records of this compilation instead included these tracks without removing "Russians".
"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" is a song by the British rock band the Police from their fourth studio album, Ghost in the Machine (1981). It was a hit single that reached the top of the charts in the United Kingdom in November 1981 and hit No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart that same year. The song, unusual for including Jean Alain Roussel, a guest keyboardist, dates back to a demo recorded by bassist and lead singer Sting in the house of Mike Howlett in the autumn of 1976. The song has been described as new wave blended with reggae elements—the signature Police style. The popularity of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" helped to make Ghost in the Machine one of the Police's most successful albums.
Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings is a four-CD box set by the Police, containing all five of their studio albums in chronological order, as well as non-album singles, non-album B-sides, and tracks from various compilation albums and the Brimstone & Treacle soundtrack (1982). The box set also comes with a 68-page booklet.
"De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" is a song by the Police, released as a single in 1980. Released as the lead single in the US and second single in the UK from their album Zenyatta Mondatta, the song was written by Sting as a comment on how people love simple-sounding songs. The song was re-recorded in 1986 as "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da '86" but not released until 1995.
"Wrapped Around Your Finger" is the second single in the UK from the Police's 1983 album Synchronicity. Written by Sting, it was released worldwide by A&M Records and featured the non-album track "Someone to Talk To" as the B-side in the UK, while a live version of "Tea in the Sahara" was the B-side in the US.
Greatest Hits is the second greatest hits album by the Police, released in September 1992 by A&M Records. It is the band's second compilation album following Every Breath You Take: The Singles. In contrast with its predecessor, it features all 14 original UK top 20 chart singles and five UK number-ones released by the band from 1978 to 1984, including the two missing singles from the previous 1986 compilation, "Synchronicity II" and the original version of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" which had been replaced with the 1986 re-recording. The album also includes two bonus album tracks, "The Bed's Too Big Without You" and "Tea in the Sahara". The cover photograph was by Duane Michals and it was taken at the time of the Synchronicity album. The inner sleeve featured a collage of pictures of the band shot by different photographers during their career, including Miles Copeland, Peter Baylis, Adrian Boot, Akihiro Takayama, Anton Corbijn, Danny Quatrochi, Gabor Scott, Janette Beckman, Kim Turner, Michael Ross, Watal Asanuma and Andy Summers.
The Police is a self-titled compilation album released by the Police on 5 June 2007, to both celebrate the 30th anniversary of their recording debut and accompany their reunion tour. It contains 28 tracks over two discs, a mixture of hit singles and fan favourites. All the singles are included, with the exception of "Secret Journey" and '"Don't Stand So Close to Me '86". International editions contain two bonus tracks, "The Bed's Too Big Without You" from Reggatta de Blanc and "Rehumanize Yourself" from Ghost in the Machine. The band's non-studio album debut single, "Fall Out", originally recorded in 1977, is also included; other than Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings (1993) the song has never been included on any other Police album.
Certifiable: Live in Buenos Aires is a live album and concert video album by the Police. It was recorded in December 2007 during the band's reunion tour and was released in November 2008. The album was released in the US exclusively through Best Buy. The album has a number of releases including a four disc version containing two CDs and two DVDs. The two CDs contain the live album from River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The first DVD contains the 109-minute wide-screen concert presented in Dolby Surround and Stereo. The concert film was directed and produced by Jim Gable and Ann Kim, of Graying & Balding, Inc. The second DVD contains the 50-minute bonus feature, "Better Than Therapy," directed by Stewart Copeland's son Jordan Copeland, detailing The Police's reunion with behind-the-scenes interviews from the band and road crew, plus two photo galleries of The Police on tour: one shot by guitarist and photographer Andy Summers, and one by photographer Danny Clinch. The DVDs were also released on Blu-ray format. A triple vinyl format was also released that contained a digital download of the concert.
The English rock band the Police has released five studio albums, three live albums, seven compilation albums, fourteen video albums, four soundtrack albums and twenty-six singles. The Police sold over 75 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
"When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" is a song written by Sting that was first released by English rock band the Police on their 1980 album Zenyatta Mondatta. Along with another song from Zenyatta Mondatta, "Voices Inside My Head", the song reached No. 3 on the Billboard Dance Music/Club Play Singles chart in 1981. In 2000, a remix version credited to Different Gear versus the Police reached No. 28 on the UK Singles Chart, No. 7 on the Billboard Dance chart, and No. 94 in the Netherlands. On radio stations, the song is often played directly after "Driven to Tears".
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