A side-discussion broke out in this thread regarding how much Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland contributed to the success of the Police as opposed to Sting’s own talents:
I’m a huge fan of both the Police and Sting, and as such, wanted to provide a thread for that discussion to get hashed out properly. I’m no musician myself, so I can’t really speak to how much talent Summers and Copeland brought to the table, but I assume others can.
For the very, very little it’s worth, I think Sting’s first solo albums were amazing, but I don’t know that I’d call them miles above the Police’s work. Again, though, I’ll leave that to far greater minds than my own to flesh out.
I think that The Police were a great band and that Sting is a mediocre, annoying solo artist. That’s my opinion.
I have noticed something recently that I found interesting. My wife has Sirius XM in her car and listens to a channel called Coffeehouse quite a bit. One of the channel’s specialties is playing unplugged or stripped-down versions of familiar songs whose original versions were more produced.
A few Police songs are played frequently on this channel, and I have been struck by how poorly they stand up as songs when removed from the original arrangement and instrumentation. Roxanne, Message In A Bottle, and Every Breath You Take were great Police songs. They are not great songs as delivered by Sting, IMO.
I have read Sting’s Broken Music (meh) and Andy Summer’s One Train Later (went in with no expectations and found it excellent).
Sting was in a smooth jazz band that he wasn’t leading and wasn’t successful.
Copeland had grown up internatinally since his dad was a CIA bureau chief - he was exposed to a lot of world music. He had been in a proggish rock band that had some success, Curved Air, but wanted more. His brother, head of IRS Records Miles Copeland, suggested that Stewart form a band that had punk roots, but had reggae and worldbeat influences like The Clash was doing, but with Stewart’s superior musicianship.
Stewart recuited Sting, who didn’t know reggae and didn’t like punk but liked that Stewart’s bro ran a label.
they recruited a guitar player - Henry something-Polish - who wasn’t as good musically. They also ran into Summers who was a journeyman guitar player from the generation prior to them, but who didn’t make it when Clapton, Beck, Page, Green and others did. He had been left stranded in CA after a stint with Eric Burden did t pan out and had just come back to the U.K. Henry got fired and The Police toured their asses off to get exposure.
As they got bigger Sting got more famously controlling, showing up with the demos to Ghost in the Machine and saying “this IS the album- it’s done”.
Was Sting more talented? Musically, no - but he wrote songs, learned how to make them radio-friendly through his tenure with The Police and the influence of the Copeland brothers, then used that as a platform to return to his first love, smooth jazz.
As I said, he is an insufferable douchebag whose lyrics are too fancy by half. That book by Nabokov; I will turn your face to alabaster - ugh. They clank. And his fallback position of “nobody suffers like me” - King of Pain, double-ugh. He got it right the first time or three with So Lonely, Message in a Bottle, etc.
Sting wrote great pop songs for The Police, but no matter the band, he’s the least talented musician in it. It was a crime that he got all the royalties for The Police songs because he wrote the lyrics. He didn’t write the guitar or drum parts, which is really what separated the band from the new wave pack.
Some of Sting’s solo stuff is okay, but those “covers” are brutal. They really make one appreciate Summers and Copeland.
Stewart Copeland is one of the most respected percussionists around. His high hat work changed the game in terms of using them so sophisticatedly in a pop rock setting. He was neck and neck with Neil Peart in all the polls back in the day. Sting’s drummer Omar Hakim is an absolute monster as a jazz hired gun who has played on many chart topping albums, but Copeland is at that level, too.
Andy Summers is a super-talented player. I discussed in the other thread how he was on the cutting edge of using then-new multi effects boards that enabled him to layer his sound and create one of the most identifiable guitar voices of his day. His avant garde solos in songs like Driven to Tears, and his sophisticated use of partial jazz chords and arpeggios (Message in a Bottle; Every Breath) were huge in shaping the sound of Police songs.
Sting / Gordon Sumner is a great bassist. He’s not as good as the other two are at their instruments - I don’t have a specific Sting signature bass voice that comes to mind like Copeland’s high hat work or Summers’s effects and jazz voicings - but he’s damn good and knew how to recruit talent for his solo band.
Oh yeah, it does. Songwriting is a HUGE thing - but the discussion started on questioning Copeland’s and Summers’ skills on their instruments vs Sting’s smooth jazz band, made up of top-shelf hired guns. Sting can be a great songwriter - that’s what made his career - but would be well served by having someone edit his ponderous lyrics.
His vocals are distinctive and suit his songs, so yay for that, but his vocal technique is solid, not spectacular.
Not for nothing but I think that “Can’t Stand Losing You” is one of their best songs. Sting had some interesting solo tunes. I’ve always liked “Fortress Around Your Heart” and “Fields Of Gold”, as syrupy as that song is.
Of course there’s always “I Hope The Russians Love Their Children” from the Cold War.
I liked the Police up until Sycronicity–I think it was the MTV video that soured me on them. Saw them at the Cow Palace in '82, easily one of the best shows I’ve seen. They opened with Voices Inside My Head, it was mesmerizing.
I really liked Sting’s early solo stuff too, especially Bring on The Night. I caught the Nothing But The Sun Tour–another excellent performance.
However…nowadays when I think of Sting, the very first thing that comes to mind is a single line from Dune. Cracks me up every time.
I still like Sting, even though he’s become a bit of a pretentious twat. But IMO he’s less of a pretentious twat than Bono. IMO, YMMV, etc. One gets the feeling that if a person had dinner with both of them, Sting could have a reasonably normal conversation, while Bono would be complaining that your handbag oppresses millions of people in sub-Saharan somewhere.
That movie is burned into the brains of a lot of women who liked Sting…
Every time I think of Sting, it’s like this. Which is too bad, because at least in terrible movie The Bride, he looked, well, Victorian-hot.
Also, my quick search for the unfortunate Sting-in-leather-underwear photo brought up some pics that made him look like Ramsay Bolton’s great-uncle or something. Seriously.
A friend of mine in college had that Klark Kent EP. It was awesome. If you listen to the songs that Copeland wrote on the early Police albums, it sounds very similar. I’ve got a cassette tape of it somewhere that I recorded off of him. Now I need to go find it and have another listen!
Let’s also not forget that Stewart Copeland composed the music for 80s TV show The Equalizer with Edward Woodward. Say what you want about the show - I loved it when I was a kid, doesn’t really hold up now - but the music was fantastic: it really lent the show a distinctive air and was definitely “80s” without being derivative or hackneyed.
Yeah, that’s the op-ed with some music. Sting says, “I don’t subscribe to his point of view” twice in that song. Once would have been bad enough. But twice?
I endorse everything WordMan has written in this thread, but want to add a couple of things:
Stewart Copeland is one of the greatest, most versatile and stylistically identifiable drummers working in rock and pop music today. His crisp attacks and mastery of the high hat are traits that many drummers have sought to emulate, as well as his innate grasp (and embracing) of complex polyrhythms.
Andy Summers, IMO, is forever stylistically and technically linked to Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew. IMO that says more about his abilities with his instrument than almost anything else will, because those guys are absolutely at the pinnacle for technical ability, experimentation with gear and with musical forms and with an ability to make complex music that is still massively enjoyable and connects with non-musicians. THAT is a rare amalgamation of talents.
Sting is a guy who really wanted to be famous and popular and managed to finally be in the right place at the right time all those years ago to finally be able hone his own skills at songwriting and marketing until he found a combination that was gonna work for him.
The Police are the greatest reggae band that has ever existed, IMO, but only because The Clash had more variety in their catalog.
Saw them at the Cow Palace in '82, easily one of the best shows I’ve seen. They opened with Voices Inside My Head, it was mesmerizing.
