New Wave Outpost Forum

True or False: The Police were new wave in the same sense that the Bee Gees were disco. They didn't start out new wave/disco, but once they smelt the trend, they hopped on that genre and rode it into the ground.

<font size=1 color=#CC0000>
[i]"So I kill children, I love to see them die
I kill children and make their mamas cry
I kill children, I bang their heads in doors
I kill children, can't hardly wait for yours"[/i]--The Dead Kennedys, "I Kill Children"</font>

YOu're correct. The Police started out as a punk band, another trend they jumped on because that was where the record contracts were. If you listen to their first single Fallout it's a great poppy punk song, mile away from Every Breath You Take. Opportunists? Shrewd businessmen? Not my call to make, but before they got Andy Summers in the band they had some pretty rockin songs.

I never thought of the POlice as new wave, but it's funny because they're usually in all our Top 10 groups at the time. And most of us acknowledge how awesome they are even if they're not really in our Top 10. But I still don't think of them as New Wave. Ollie's right--they're more of a punk outfit; stripped-down, tight, poppish punk.

[quote][i]Originally posted by Ollie Stench[/i]
<br>YOu're correct. The Police started out as a punk band, another trend they jumped on because that was where the record contracts were. If you listen to their first single Fallout it's a great poppy punk song, mile away from Every Breath You Take. Opportunists? Shrewd businessmen? Not my call to make, but before they got Andy Summers in the band they had some pretty rockin songs.
[/quote]

Punk? I always viewed them as orignally prog-rock--in their stronium 90 days, that is.

<font size=1 color=#CC0000>
[i]"So I kill children, I love to see them die
I kill children and make their mamas cry
I kill children, I bang their heads in doors
I kill children, can't hardly wait for yours"[/i]--The Dead Kennedys, "I Kill Children"</font>

Punk? Yes. I saw them on their very first tour of the US. They played in Boston in the main punk venue at the time, The Rathskellar (The Rat). They were working out of a van and I recall them buttonholing people asking if people had a place for them to stay.
I was working at the MIT radio station, which was entirely punk at the time at the time and we were playing Roxanne heavily.

Funnily enough, they played four nights at the Rat; the first night, a Thursday when I saw them was almost empty. Couldn't have been more than 50 people there. By Saturday night they'd sold out both their final shows.

Definately New Wave. Outlandos D'amour has that stamp all over it. Gritty, tight, nervy (ala Look Sharp!, Parallel Lines & This Year's Model of that same period). Stewart moonlighted as Kark Kent. His brother owned IRS records. Sting was Ace Face. They starred in Urgh! A Music War. New wave all the way...