Rarely Coveredlooks at who’s mining the darkest, dustiest corners of iconic catalogs.
What a great year 2024 was for The Police!
No, they didn’t reform. And no, we’re not talking about yet another cover of “Every Breath You Take,” to add to the 358 already made by the likes of Andy Williams, Sacha Distel, Shirley Bassey, and Dolly Parton. We’re not even talking about the 137th cover of “Roxanne,” to complement those by George Michael, Aswad, and terrible a cappella group The Flying Pickets. Instead, we’re talking about all three ex-members of the mighty new-wave band having been out on the road and performing live sets sprinkled with revitalized versions of Police tracks, to remind us of the remarkable range of their iconic catalog.
That man Sting? The ex singer, bassist, and chief songwriter of the group, who went on to occasional–shall we say?–po-faced solo stardom in his liking for lutes, madrigals, and live albums from his Italian villa? He performed Police songs, at places like the Wiltern in LA, with just one killer guitarist (Dominic Miller) and one killer drummer (Chris Maas), and sounded more urgent and more rock than he had in ages. He tore into era-defining favorites like “Can’t Stand Losing You” and “Message in a Bottle,” but also “Driven to Tears” and “Reggatta de Blanc”!
Guitarist Andy Summers? He performed intimate solo gigs at venues like Le Poisson Rouge in New York, armed with “Roxanne” and “Spirits in the Material World,” but also “Tea in the Sahara” and “Bring on the Night.” And drummer Stewart Copeland? He put on “Police Deranged for Orchestra” shows at such opera houses as Teatro degli Arcimboli in Milan, with renditions of “Walking on the Moon” and “King of Pain,” but also “Murder by Numbers” and “Walking in Your Footsteps.”See AlsoThirty years after Dog Man Star, Brett Anderson looks back on Suede's album covers
So, no, we’re not here today to discuss a country legend putting her spin on a song about sexual possessiveness and stalking, which is seemingly up there with “Happy Birthday to You” in terms of social ubiquity and popularity (as fun as that may be). We’re here, instead, to reflect Sting and co.’s own dusting down of some lesser known–yet still essential–Police tunes by concentrating on the acts that have dug deep into their catalog to bring us compelling covers of tracks from “O My God” to “Once Upon a Daydream” and “Behind My Camel.” We’re all about the artists who’ve reinterpreted the instrumentals, the early songs, the deep cuts, and the B-sides, in celebration of the punk- and reggae-inspired power-trio brilliance of the band in their blond-haired 1977-83 pomp.
Come, then, on an alternative journey though Policedom that takes inSeattle rock legends, a German dub act, ex-thrash-metal heads, ex-Lemonheads, and, actually, an a cappella group. A good one!
Juliana Hatfield – Hole in My Life (The Police cover)
Great place to start, because US alt-rocker Juliana Hatfield made clear her love of the Sting-fronted band on her 2019Juliana Hatfield Sings The Policealbum, by putting her heart into four of their big hits alongside eight more obscure ones. Maybe being leader of punk-pop trios (the Blake Babies, The Juliana Hatfield Three) for much of her career helped, because she sounds natural as anything on her picks, recognizing the “tension in the music” that came of the famously fraught Sting/Copeland/Summers relationship (they “kind of hated each other, but they also loved each other”). She’s raw and angsty on edgy DIY reconstructions of “Landlord,” “Next to You” and “Murder By Numbers,” but the desperation in her voice on “Hole in My Life” makes her take on that 1978 ode to emptiness the standout track.
Primus – Behind My Camel (The Police cover)
Okay, so “Behind My Camel” isn’t that underappreciated in the sense that it won a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1982, but there are precious few willing to cover the wordless track, penned by Summers and hated by Sting and Copeland. You’d need a band of pretty special musicians, that’s for sure. A bass player able to wield an extra-heavy groove. A drummer able to emulate Copeland’s technical prowess while adding a little John Bonham ferocity. A guitarist able to twist that deranged axe sound a little further into eerieville. But wait a minute… There’s Californian rock band Primus, circa 1998, on the Rhinoplasty EP! Les Claypool! Brain! Larry LaLonde!
DubXanne– Once Upon a Dubdream (The Police cover)
Now a mournful 1983 Police B-side penned by Sting and Summers that starts with a couple falling in love and builds to one heck of a tragic ending: “Once upon a nightmare / I bought myself a gun / I blew her daddy’s brains out / Now hell has just begun”? Any takers? Well, only one: a Hamburg-based dub act called DubXanne who, in fact, forsake the lyrics of “Once Upon a Daydream” in favor of emphasizing the reggae elements of the song and riffing brilliantly on its haunting keyboard melody. That makes it a standout work on their 2008 Police in Dub album.
Anthrax– No Time This Time (The Police cover)
“No Time This Time” is a gloriously raw and frantic slice of early Police that got promoted from “So Lonely” B-side to closing track of their second album Reggatta de Blanc. New York band Anthrax brought a suitably manic flavor to their cover of it on their 1996 Fueled EP, thereby displaying a love for the Police’s early punk sound that they would develop on their version of “Next to You” in 2003. John Bush, replacing Joey Belladonna in a band that was perhaps a little less thrash-metal than it was in the ’80s, provides the vocal. And what a vocal that turns out to be! He sounds like an underwater Sting, basically, over three minutes of wonderfully infectious mayhem.
Kurt Elling–O My God (The Police cover)
Sting sure could funk it up on the bass when he wanted to, as well as play some funky sax. He does both on track 3 of Synchronicity, “O My God,” while lamenting a serious loss of faith, and a God “so far away.” US Blue Note singer Kurt Elling was, consequently, more than able to turn the song into a jazz number in 1999 for his Live in Chicago album, with Rob Amster supplying the funk magic on double bass. The baritone-voiced Elling gave it a remarkable stylistic makeover, actually, by applyinghis best scatting and vocal improvisations on the back ofa conga solo, much to the delight of the folk gathered at Green Mill Jazz Club.
Pearl Jam –Driven To Tears (The Police cover)
If Elling had the jazz chops to reinvent “O My God” successfully, then Pearl Jam certainly had the brooding-rock credentials to make a stunning job of “Driven to Tears,” which was a regular live number of theirs between 2003 and 2009, and which graced many a Bootleg CD. Singer Eddie Vedder simply emanates righteous anger in his performances and was absolutely in the right place to give the politically driven song from 1980’s Zenyatta Mondatta the necessary gravitas. Indeed, on the chosen subject of gross inequality and the First World’s incompetence to help those starving and in dire poverty, he spits out the lines: “Seems that when some innocent die / All we can offer them is a page in a some fucking magazine.” He’s aided by some suitably visceral guitar solos, and a fantastic thrashy ending.
Maxeen –Murder by Numbers (The Police cover)
As satirical songs about serial killers and warmongers go, the Sting/Summers-penned “Murder By Numbers” is right up there, magisterial in its original form, thanks largely to its long drum intro that’s super busy with rim-clicks and hi-hats (nice job, Stewart!) and lays the basis of a serious polyrhythmic groove (nice job, all!). Few artists could hope to replicate the Police version, then, which they purportedly nailed in one take, for the“Every Breath You Take” B-side. Yet Maxeen take it some place else in their capacity as a tasty noughties three-piece from Long Beach, California. Their version isn’t as inventive and experimental as the one by Juliana Hatfield (who we’ve already included here), but it’s harder and more menacing, with a Sex Pistols riff and a chorus that just rattles along. It’s also a punk/emo highpoint of the 2005 album Policia: A Tribute to the Police.
Rock4 –Bring on the Night (The Police cover)
“De dung de da! Ba ba ba cha!” Are Police songs particularly suited to the a cappella treatment? Not entirely sure, but it’s clear that the Police’s 1979 original of “Bring on the Night,” off Reggatta de Blanc, is just chock full of mesmerizing component parts that translate well into, well, vocal stuff. That gorgeous and ethereal Summers guitar riff: all “classical arpeggios up and down the fingerboard.” That unhinged and squealing Sting guitar solo. That irresistible ska groove from Copeland. And yet another top-drawer bassline from the frontman: purupupupumpum. It’s all the result of a band on fire, basically, on “another song about longing” which got somewhat overshadowed by fellow Regatta tracks “Message in a Bottle” and “Walking on the Moon,” even though it could have been a contender in the singles charts. Anyway, Rock4 might look and sound slightly comical, but you’ve got to admire the passion they put into recreating the song with their vocal acrobatics. “Gur pussssssssh,” indeed!
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