A hard cell

Mind out, here comes a vinyl box of the complete works of The Police. What’s all this then? asks

IT’S FORGOTTEN now, but The Police, loosely marketed as a punky-reggae notquite supergroup, weren’t an instant hit in Britain. Future hits Roxanne, Can’t Stand Losing You and So Lonely all tanked first time around. The criterati were suspicious of them. But anyone who knew those records understood their sophistication and power. Dropping Roxanne, shortly after its initial release in 1978, during a spell monopolising the stereo at a party, I was pressed to repeat it again and again, until a heaving roomful of my teenage peers, who’d never heard of the band, and didn’t care that they were old proggers and jazzers, were threatening the foundations and bellowing “You don’t have to put on the red light!” It wouldn’t be an actual hit for another year. Finding favour on the live circuit in the US before they connected here, The Police were a surprising booking for BBC TV ’s Rock Goes To College and walked out to a room sprinkled with sceptical punks and a few kids who’d got the memo that this unlikely trio of attractive older men with dyed blond hair had superstar potential. Shepherded down front, the ‘crowd’ added up to barely seven rows. Sting was looking aloof in aviator shades because he’d coated his eyes with hairspray seconds before showtime. People actually booed when they came on. But that grumpy, meagre crowd was utterly under arrest by the end of the show. Early adopters keenly anticipated the first album. Outlandos D’Amour turned out to be a thinly recorded round-up of the singles and some other shit, bottoming out at Be My Girl, where Andy Summers assayed a ‘comic’ monologue about an inflatable sex doll. Police filler was always particularly skippable. Hands up who has treasured memories of Peanuts or The Other Way Of Stopping? Thought not. With their similar formula, similar sleeves and similar jokey Esperanto titles, there was a sense of will-this-do about the first three Police albums, yet the good bits were giddy enough that they were soon shifting millions. Every Move You Make: The Studio Recordings (★★★) (A&M/UMC), marking the 40th anniversary of the band’s first appearance, gathers everything they cut on great-sounding halfspeed remastered vinyl, the five original releases rounded out with a sixth album, Flexible Strategies,a diehards-only compilation of non-album B-sides and offcuts, most of which lap around the watermark of album filler. Summers’ years spent as a sideman for Kevin Coyne are clearly audible during his bleakly humorous turns on Dead End Job and Friends. A handsomely presented booklet of black and white photos of the band, also by Summers, is nice, but some context for the music, some history or recording anecdotes would have added more value. In fact, thank-yous apart, there is no additional information here at all. You’ll search in vain for who wrote the songs on the bonus disc. If one draws a veil over the infamous, cod-Jamaican Stinglish accent, on-song Police can still tingle a spine. Roxanne ascends on the exuberance of the playing. Every Breath You Take deserves its enduring reputation as a moody-pop staple. Walking On The Moon, though slight, is a gem of on-thesurface tension. As they shrugged off reggae, becoming more lofty, chopsy and solo Stingy, the pop thrills receded to be replaced by a more atmospheric, chillier allure. Stewart Copeland’s Darkness, from Ghost In The Machine, sounds exactly like late-period Yes. And one further fun fact, Sting sings the word “cunt” at least twice during their career. Edgy.

“The good bits were soon shifting millions.”