Are the Police worthy of making a reunion?

Yoga = kewl, but *emphatically not* a spectator sport.

[Esp.when I suddenly recall what precise practices Sting is teaching himself w.it: he didn't use the infamous "elephant's trunk out-door-as-an-in-door technique" by any chance, did he?]

xoxo

It has to be noted that the people Sting plays with now are much, much better musicians, especially the first band he had with Branford Marsalis and Kenny Kirkland. I like the Police better as a band, but any of Sting's musicians could wipe the floor with anybody in the Police.

If the Police got back together, it'd probably sound like Ten Summoner's Tales. That wasn't really a world music album, it was just a little overproduced. Take half the reverb off and listen to what Vinnie Colaiuta's doing on songs like "Saint Augustine in Hell", it's very Copeland-ish and pretty interesting to boot. The same can't be said for his new record, unfortunately...

Big Load o' crap! Are you implying that the yawnsome jazzbo sessioneers currently on Mr.Sumner's payroll have even half the chops -- let alone style -- of Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers?

I'm with Omar, though. The Police are one of the most overrated bands to ever crap on the global music landscape, and I only wish Sting had enough humility to just shut his pretentious overexposed yap and make movies or baskets or something less obtrusive. (Though I'm still astonished by his contribution to the _Leaving Las Vegas_ soundtrack, in that he sounds like he's SINGING. Blessed be our Lord, he was SINGING. And it was GOOD.) (And he does have talent, the shit.)

I've not been an ardent follower of his career curve, but his one unique talent (for short, sharp melodic guitar hooks) is best served by simplicity.

He could then get back to producing the harmless but memorable background pop that he was surely put on this Earth to produce.

I've not been an ardent follower of his career curve, but his one unique talent (for short, sharp melodic guitar hooks) is best served by simplicity.

He could then get back to producing the harmless but memorable background pop that he was surely put on this Earth to produce.

Police do at least have the original lineup.

As a reunion it makes a lot more sense than most others. The Police material always had a kind of nerdy / adult vibe (as opposed to rebellious, youthful, or self-important, which can be so unbecoming on 50 year olds). Plus, you're practically gauranteed not to hear any solo Sting material! I want to here these guys play again. The whole is definitely more than the sum(ner).

Casual pronouncements are made every so often that the lute songs (the lute is a plucked stringed instrument, an early cousin to the guitar) and madrigals of Elizabethan and Jacobean England were the popular music of their day. And Sting, who alludes to the likes of Vladimir Nabokov in his lyrics, is hardly uneducated in the legacy of fine arts, and he has a certain cerebral, inward sadness that matches the dominant mood of English music around 1600 well enough. Thus some might easily have thought it would be a short leap from Sting's own music to the lute songs of John Dowland (1563-1626). But the leap is anything but short, and Sting gets credit for having thought out fully the problems in making it. It is not just the issue of what pianist Katia Labèque, one of the classical musicians who introduced Sting to Dowland's music, called his "unschooled tenor" — Dowland's songs are not really difficult. It is the great divide between rock (and other traditions ultimately rooted in Africa) and the European tradition: speaking in generalities, the former prizes "noise" — sound extraneous to the pitch and to the intended timbre of an instrument or voice — as a structural element, whereas in the latter it is strenuously eliminated. Sting's voice has plenty of "noise." The listener oriented toward classical music will object to its being there; the rock listener, noting that Sting is singing very quietly, may wonder why there isn't more of it.

on another note, sting is a pompous jerk whose entire solo catalog is soulless, ball-less crap. the police have a few good songs, but when they do that 'white-boy-reggae-from-england' shit, it's just absymal to the point of nausea.

I flipped thru this at a bookstore awhile back and have to say I was flabbergasted when Sommer declared himself the most influential and innovative rock guitarist since Jimi Hendrix. All those years standing so close to Sting must take a toll on a guy's ego.