For me, the Police were a prototypical "high school band". Their four years in the spotlight (1979-1983) coincided exactly with my high school years, and I think of their last four albums in tandem with my freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior years.The month I graduated from high school (June 1983), the Police put out their last album Synchronicity, which I took as the symbolic end of my high school era. After that, they broke up and I pretty much stopped listening to them.
At least voluntarily. I still hear their music on the radio and in the checkout line, but I don't own any of their music on that newfangled compact disc format, and haven't felt the need to pull out my cassette of Ghost in the Machine. Their "regatta de blanc" sound hasn't aged that well for me, and their lead singer is (as the Brits would say) kind of a wally.
Still, when I found out the Police were kicking off Grammys last night, I figured I should reconcile my high school self by tuning in to see them. At the very least it would build up my DVR buffer, so I could watch the Simpsons commercial. They played "Roxanne", their first international hit, and it was a great performance. With all the baggage associated with the Police, it's hard for me to remember that they used to be a pretty decent band. When Stewart Copeland started banging his drumkit before the first chorus of "Roxanne", it was like the first time I heard that song, in the summer between middle school and high school.
I changed over to Fox and the Simpsons after T.I. and Pink (two people who weren't even born when "Roxanne" was a hit) gave a lifetime achievement to the Doors, another band inexorably tied to high school for me. Apocalypse Now came out during my freshman year, and I liked "The End" so I bought the first Doors album, followed in succession by the second thru fifth albums. Jim Morrision had already been dead for ten years then, so I thought they some obscure band that only Francis Coppola and me knew about. My "Doors phase" ended abruptly in the summer of 1982 after I read Danny Sugerman's No One Here Gets Out Alive and found out that Morrison was kind of a drunken loser. Say it ain't so, Jim!
But even after nearly 25 years of Doors detox, I still like some of their music.. In this interview from pitchfork today, David Brewis of Field Music talks about playing a Doors tribute band, which I think might work. In their standard live setup, FM has a guitarist, a keyboardist, and a drummer, but no bass player. Just like the Doors.
By the way, Field Music's new album Tones of Town which I plugged a few weeks ago, is now officially out, so pick it up. It doesn't sound like the Doors or the Police.
3 comments:
I always thought the main problem with the Doors was Morrison and his enormous-ego -ridden lyrics - but then I heard a track or two from that album they released after Morrison died.
Their music is still pretty high on the cringe-quotient, lyrically - but I do like some of the music.
The Police, of course, is another act hobbled by an outsized ambulatory ego of a vocalist - but they too wrote some pretty decent songs and arranged them very well. Still, every one of their albums is really only about an EP's worth of good songs, with three or four tracks of filler per album.
I think Jim Morrison and Sting both wrote lyrics that seem really profound when you're 15, but silly once you're grownup.
I have a tape of the post-Morrison Doors albums (Full Circle & Other Voices). They make that post-Reed Velvet Underground record sound listenable.
I can't remember who said it, but some wise person once observed, "Jim Morrison sounds exactly like your dad singing in the shower." I pretty much stand by that assessment. Plus, I associate the Doors with all the stoner dudes I couldn't stand in h.s.
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