Wednesday, July 18, 2007

The Police played a reunion show in Detroit last night. That's fine and good, and I hope they made a lot of money. They were a really good band. I liked them an awful lot in the 80's. They were on-par with Duran Duran and Men At Work at the time, but for some reason there is a level of reverence The Police have which the other two do not - which in my opinion is delusional.



The Police knew when to quit, while Duran Duran dragged on past their relevance. Duran Duran was actually a much better band, but they took it too far and made some really crap music later on. The Police broke up at their peak - which is the smartest thing any band can do. It solidifies their place in history and makes fans long for something that can never come.



I take issue with this reverence for The Police as a point of record. There was noting that made The Police more "serious" that Duran Duran or Men At Work in the 80's. They were all pop bands of the time. Duran Duran, as stated and brilliant as they were, made some real junk late in their career. The Police broke up, and Sting went on... to make a career of nothing but utter crap. I rank his entire catalog of solo work up there with Celine Dion and DJ Paris Hilton. Even Andy Summers put out a lot of cheese-ball shite since The Police dissolved. Only Stewart Copeland (son of a famous spy) had managed to maintain respectability as an artist.

If Duran Duran's diligent, if not misguided, work were to be compared to the collective solo work of The Police post-1986... who would be less embarrassing? Clearly Duran Duran, and this is exactly why I did not want to ruin my memories of The Police by attending this show of desperation for relevance from a once very good band.

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