The Police

从70年代到80年代，在日益喧嚣的欧美流行乐坛上，“警察”乐队以其讲究旋律的慢摇滚风格， 异军突起,受到依然缅怀“甲壳虫”光景乐迷们的拥戴。
“警察”乐队被看作是一支英国乐队,主要是因为乐队的台柱斯汀(Sting)是一个英国人。斯汀原名叫戈登.塞纳，1952年出生于英格兰一个工人家庭，上大学和朋友组织了一个爵士乐组合，常在公共酒馆演出。事有凑巧，另两个年轻的流行乐手科浦兰（Copeland)和帕多瓦尼（Padovani)不满于自己的乐队组合，正在到处寻找着合作者，他们一眼就看出，酒巴中听众的热情是冲着斯汀来的。尽管斯汀一开始对他们的建议不甚热心，因为他一心要在爵士乐方面出人头地，但是最终还是被说动，一个艺人乐队诞生了。 为了给科浦兰在美国任高官的父亲开个玩笑，取了“警察”这个名字。1976年他们靠借贷出了第一张唱片，居然累计卖了一万多张。帕多瓦尼改换门庭后，乐队请来了老资格的吉它手安迪.萨默斯。 这其间，乐队内部关系融洽，气氛和谐，斯汀的创作决定了乐队的基调。在西德的演出中，斯汀推出了他的叙事民谣“Roxanne”，这明显与朋克摇滚不同，更软，更柔和，旋律更动听,广受欢迎。科浦兰当时正热衷于牙买加音乐,于是便将两者加以揉合出版了新唱片,其收益使他们有能力进行一次美国巡回演出。这次演出不太成功，评论界反应不强烈。1978年，他们又将“Roxanne”收入唱片出版,这一次评论界开始注意这支乐队的与众不同之处了。尽管BBC还禁播他们的歌曲,但这首歌还是在英美同时上榜。接下来的几年几乎是警察”乐队的巅峰期,1981年获得葛莱美奖。
1982年乐队消失了一年,成 员们忙于处理个人事务,但是1983年复出时,依然一举上榜,尤其是《你的一颦一笑》（Every Breathe You Take)畅销不衰，是多年少见的盛况，再度获得葛莱美奖，证明了他们的雄厚实力和忠实,广泛的听众群。1986年，“警察”为大赦国际义演三场，按照斯汀的说法，他们用这种有意义的形式，向大家告别了。
Nominally, the Police were punk rock, but that's only in the loosest sense of the term. The trio's nervous, reggae-injected pop/rock was punky, but it wasn't necessarily punk. All three members were considerably more technically proficient than the average punk or new wave band. Andy Summers had a precise guitar attack that created dense, interlocking waves of sounds and effects. Stewart Copeland could play polyrhythms effortlessly. And Sting, with his high, keening voice, was capable of constructing infectiously catchy pop songs. While they weren't punk, the Police certainly demonstrated that the punk spirit could have a future in pop music. As their career progressed, the Police grew considerably more adventurous, experimenting with jazz and various world musics. All the while, the band's tight delivery and mastery of the pop single kept their audience increasing, and by 1983, they were the most popular rock & roll band in the world. Though they were at the height of their fame, internal tensions caused the band to splinter apart in 1984, with Sting picking up the majority of the band's audience to become an international superstar.
Stewart Copeland and Sting (born Gordon Sumner) formed the Police in 1977. Prior to the band's formation, Copeland, the son of a CIA agent, had attended college in California, before he moved to England and joined the progressive rock band Curved Air. Sting was a teacher and a ditch digger who played in jazz-rock bands, including Last Exit, on the side. The two musicians met at a local jazz club and decided to form a progressive pop band with guitarist Henri Padovani. For the first few months, the group played local London pubs. Soon, they were hired to appear as a bleached-blonde punk band in a chewing gum commercial. While the commercial provided exposure, it drew the scorn of genuine punkers. Late in 1977, the band released its first single, "Fall Out," on IRS, an independent label Stewart Copeland founded with his brother Miles, who was also the manager of the Police. The single was a sizable hit for an independent release, selling about 70,000 copies.
Padovani was replaced by Andy Summers, a veteran of the British Invasion, following the release of "Fall Out." Summers had previous played with Eric Burdon's second lineup of the Animals, the Zoot Money's Big Roll Band, the Kevin Ayers Band, and Neil Sedaka. The Police signed with A&M by the spring of 1978, committing to a contract that gave the group a higher royalty rate in lieu of a large advance. A&M released "Roxanne" in the spring of 1978, but it failed to chart. The Police set out on a tour of America in the summer of 1978 without any record to support, traveling across the country in a rented van and playing with rented equipment. Released in the fall of 1978, Outlandos d'Amour began a slow climb into the British Top Ten and American Top 30. Immediately after its release, the group began a U.K. tour supporting Alberto y los Trios Paranoias and released the "So Lonely" single. By the spring of 1979, the re-released "Roxanne" had climbed to number 12 on the U.K. charts, taking Outlandos d'Amour to number six. In the summer of 1979, Sting appeared in Quadrophenia, a British film based on the Who album of the same name; later that year, he acted in Radio On.
Preceded by the number one British single "Message in a Bottle," Reggatta de Blanc (fall 1979) established the group as stars in England and Europe, topping the U.K. charts for four weeks. Following its release, Miles Copeland had the band tour several countries that rarely received concerts from foreign performers, including Thailand, India, Mexico, Greece, and Egypt. Zenyatta Mondatta, released in the fall of 1980, became the Police's North American breakthrough, reaching the Top Ten in the U.S. and Canada; in England, the album spent four weeks at number one. "Don't Stand So Close to Me," the album's first single, became the group's second number one single in the U.K.; in America, the single became their second Top Ten hit in the spring of 1981, following the number ten placing of "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" in the winter. By the beginning of 1981, the Police were able to sell out Madison Square Garden. Capitalizing on their success, the band returned to the studio in the summer of 1981 to record their fourth album with producer Hugh Padgham. The sessions, which were filmed for a BBC documentary hosted by Jools Holland, were completed within a couple months, and the album, Ghost in the Machine, appeared in the fall of 1981. Ghost in the Machine became an instant hit, reaching number one in the U.K. and number two in the U.S. as "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" became their biggest hit to date.
Following their whirlwind success of 1980 and 1981, in which they were named the Best British Group at the first Brit Awards and won three Grammys, the band took a break in 1982. Though they played their first arena concerts and headlined the U.S. Festival, each member pursued side projects during the course of the year. Sting acted in Brimstone and Treacle, releasing a solo single, "Spread a Little Happiness," from the soundtrack; the song became a British hit. Copeland scored Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish, as well as the San Francisco Ballet's King Lear, and released an album under the name Klark Kent; he also played on several sessions for Peter Gabriel. Summers recorded an instrumental album, I Advance Masked, with Robert Fripp. The Police returned in the summer of 1983 with Synchronicity, which entered the U.K. charts at number one and quickly climbed to the same position in the U.S., where it would stay for 17 weeks. Synchronicity became a blockbuster success on the strength of the ballad "Every Breath You Take." Spending eight weeks at the top of the U.S. charts, "Every Breath You Take" became one of the biggest American hits of all time; it spent four weeks at the top of the U.K. charts. "King of Pain" and "Wrapped Around Your Finger" became hits over the course of 1983, sending Synchronicity to multi-platinum status in America and Britain. The Police supported the album with a blockbuster, record-breaking world tour that set precedents for tours for the remainder of the '80s. Once the tour was completed, the band announced they were going on "sabbatical" in order to pursue outside interests.