I'm not the biggest Police or Sting connoisseur but of all of their songs that I do know & love this is by far my favorite. Second place goes to "Voices Inside My Head" (although I prefer the deeper dub disco version by Common Sense). Anyway, this song really speaks loud as much now as it did 30 years ago. Excellent song writting, arrangement and production. If I knew how to make music I'd attempt to cover this, and probably fail! hahaha...seriously though, there's certain songs that always sound better by the original artist. Maybe that's why you haven't heard a successful cover of this? I think The Roots could pull it off in a way that makes sense. Perhaps U2 and possibly even Prince & NPG but it would be really tough to top the Police.
I can't even front on this song. This is certainly one of the best pop songs from the '80s and undeniably a great song for the ages. Plus, the man can play the bones! Other songs that remind me of this song and vice versa are Every Kind Of People by Robert Palmer (which I posted back in December) and End Of Innocence by Don Henly. The lyrics speak for themselves in all of these...jus' lissen.
Now in the last post we saw one extreme of this new generation of house/techno..but we also have the " Ol' Heads " to consider. Dudes like Armand Van Helden can get away with doing some retro hip-hop shit because he IS hip-hop. Sure, he's made his money in the house scene but real heads know, he was a dope hip-hop producer first. I guess that's why a lot of his tracks have that edge to them. This dude has been one of the most consistent and prolific producers in the last 20 years. DON"T SLEEP! This first video came out last year I believe and is pretty dope. I gotta admit though, I rarely played the original...the Jesse Rose remix just bangs harder and worked better on the dance floor.
However, I still play this next track out every-so-often and it STILL gets people moving even if they've never heard it (I know that's hard to believe...). Bonified classic in every sense of the word. Any respectable DJ playing disco should know the sample instantly. The raw edit of this track is crazy too.
Here's a bonus.. If you're a "DJ" and don't own the song that was sampled for this on vinyl you should just quit! hahaha..
