Search - Sting, Police :: The Very Best of... Sting & the Police

A Lotta Great Music on Odd Compilation

Paul Allaer | Cincinnati | 05/10/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Music: 4.5 stars; Compilation: 3.5 stars.



Saw Sting in concert a few weeks back (surprisingly strong set with LOTS of Police-nuggets such as Bed's Too Big Without You etc.) and that lead me to revisit this album. This was rushed out in 1997 as a result of P.Diddy's monster hit "Missing You", sampling "Every Breath You Take".



"The Very Best of Sting and the Police" (18 tracks, 78 min.) is "politically correct" in that it brings an equal number of Police hits and Sting solo-hits (9 each). It has a lot of things going for it: first and foremost, much of the music is outstanding. Best of all is the inclusion of "So Lonely", a major hit which somehow was omitted from The Police's "Every Breath You Take: The Classics". This can directly be attributed to using the full extent of a single CD capacity. The sound quality is surprisingly good as well. What is very unfortunate is that all 18 songs are mixed and matched without any apparent rhyme or reason. Thus we go from the Police's "Can't Stand Losing You" directly into Sting's "An Englishman in New York. Say what? Or we go from Sting's "Seven Days" into the Police's "Walking on the Moon"! Why couldn't they simply present the songs in chronological order? That said, there IS a lot of great music on this CD. It's simply up to you to play it in an order that makes more sense and pleases the ear more.



"

Why bother?

718 Session | Brooklyn, NY United States | 10/29/2002

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The music on this disc ranges from 3 stars to 5 stars, which would give it an average of 4.5 But I'm subtracting 1 star for false advertising and 1.5 stars for the abyssmal remix of Roxanne. There are a lot of problems with this CD. For starters, some of the best songs, like "King of Pain", aren't even on it. And this isn't MY personal opinion. "King of Pain" was a chart-topping grammy-nominated tune. In fact, it sold more copies and got more airplay than most of the other singles on this disc. Wouldn't that make it a "best of" hit? And why are there NO tracks from "The Soul Cages"? "All This Time" sold a whole lot more records than "Desert Rose" or "Russians". So clearly, this is not "The Very Best Of"Why else might you buy it? Well, if you're a fan, you'd want to be completist and get it for the Roxanne remix. Don't bother, it is TERRIBLE. It is really really really bad. Really. I now want to invent a time machine to go back to a point before I ever heard it.Why else might you buy it? If you're not a fan, you might want an intro to the band and it's music. Well then please indulge me in a little quick education so you'll understand why this is not the disc for you. Sting and The Police are two seperate entities. The Police was a Rock Band infused with punk and reggae stylings. Sting is a singer/songwriter. While Sting may have written most of The Police's songs (and all of their hits), the idea for the band came from Stewart Copeland and the sound of the band owes much more to the atmosphereric arrangements and keyboard work of Andy Summers. The Police are certainly one of the greatest bands of the 80s and had a great influence on the 90s.The Police sold out Shea Stadium. Sting sold out Jones Beach.That is NOT to say that Sting's stuff is poor. Far from it. Sting's first three solo albums "The Soul Cages" (1990) and "Nothing Like The Sun" (1988) and the be-bop influenced "Dream of the Blue Turtles" (1986) have a level of sophistication in songwriting, production, and lyrics that are a cut above The Police's stuff in many ways. But they are very different. Then there's Sting's recent stuff.There is this great Onion parody editorial "written" by Sting entitled "You Know, I Used To Be Cool Once." In it "Sting" reminisces on the period in his life where he wrote abrasive challenging tunes. A time before he became the Compaq spokesperson and began writing songs for Disney movies.Sometime shortly after 1991 things started going downhill. Whatever you want to call it, "Mercury Falling", "Brand New Day" and "Ten Summoner's Tales" are sub-par.So if you're not a fan, and you're looking for an introduction, I'd like to recommend getting The Police's Greatest Hits collection "Every Breath You Take". Then, if you're looking for something else, pick up "Sting's Greatest Hits" or one of his first three solo albums (which all top the greatest hits).But don't sell yourself short by buying this disc. There's no real reason for this disc even to exist!"

Solid But Still Incomplete

Chris S. | atlanta, ga United States | 10/14/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"One of the most popular groups of the eighties, the Police disbanded at the peak of their popularity so that frontman Sting could begin a solo career. This disc updates the collection of the same name from a few years back, adding recent Sting tracks like 'Brand New Day'(excellent) and 'Desert Rose'(overplayed and overrated). Still, like the previous set, this one is of a piece, excluding both 'King Of Pain' and 'Wrapped Around Your Finger', which I consider essential Police singles, and 'All This Time', which is simply one of Sting's best solo records. Thankfully, on the other end of the spectrum, the Puff Daddy remix of 'Roxanne' is gone. Overall, a solid overview, but the addition of the aforementioned tracks would have made it nearly complete."