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The Very Best Of Sting & The Police – Sting & The Police



Year Released: 1997

Label: A&M

Year Bought: 1999

When I was a wee lad of 14 and starting to learn guitar, I loved the Police. Their tunes were a mixture of sparseness and virtuoso, and you could spend hours picking apart what Andy Summers was doing - or not doing - on the guitar. Same with Stuart Copeland's drumming. And Sting was involved as well.

This collection was a regular fixture on my CD walkman - and then MiniDisc player - when I would walk to and from school, but I've not listened to it in many, many years.

The first four tracks – 'Message In A Bottle', 'Can't Stand Losing You', 'Englishman in New York', and 'Every Breath You Take' – are all brilliant. Yes, even 'Englishman in New York'. 

The next song, 'Seven Days', I was obsessed with when I was younger as it's in 5/4 time - which is the same time signature as the original Mission Impossible theme. Ah I am loving listening to this again. The drums are so good. The way the chorus just rolls likes waves after the more staccato playing of the verse. And then the outro when Sting sings some of 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' and the drums feel like they're double time. Glorious. Brilliant. 

Then it all gets a bit more up and down. 'Fields of Gold' annoys me, as it's just so terribly earnest. The lyrics are the kind a 'Live, Laugh, Love' person would get tattooed on them. 

'Fragile' is even worse though. The aural equivalent of the posh lamps section of John Lewis. 

Luckily it gets back going with 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'. There's so much to love about this track – the energy, the production, even the way Copeland uses the ride cymbal.

'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da' is better than it deserves to be, again mainly because of the musicianship of Copeland and Summers.

Then we get a run of solo songs from Sting. 'If You Love Somebody Set them Free' and 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot' is him trying to be Mick Hucknall, although the latter isn't bad in a Steve-Wright's-Sunday-Love-Songs kind of way.

'Russians' - which kickstarted Christopher Nolan's interest in Oppenheimer – is like a more serious version of 'Two Tribes' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, but it's not bad at all to be honest.

'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You' and 'When We Dance' are in a battle to see which one can have the most key changes, and the latter is so fucking sickly it makes the Ewoks look like fucking Shaft.

If you make it to the end you finally get to 'Roxanne', which still sounds mega.

Then we get the 'Puff Daddy Remix' of Roxanne. I mean, why. Why is this on here. Why does it exist. I'm not sure if Sting rerecorded his vocals for this, or it's just the way it's sampled but they are terrible. 

Surely they could have axed that to include 'So Lonely' - which is a brilliant tune. (Ha! I've just seen they did exactly that for the 2002 reissue.)

How do I rate this? Hmmm, when it's good, it's brilliant. When it's not, it's either bland or pointless.

7/10



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