‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.
Conceived and delivered during a time of band strife, Synchronicity was nevertheless the biggest record (and cassette) in the world in 1983, and was the fourth consecutive #1 album for The Police. Every band who formed in the ‘80s, and many subsequently, knew their music. Already on rotation on the radio, The Police also timed their run well to coincide with the launch of MTV, and they and their publicity team were keen to harness the power of that medium. When a new musical format emerged (a regular occurrence in the ‘80s) re-releases of The Police would be top of the list as guaranteed sellers, generating more listens. The back catalogue is quite compact, but it hums with complex, sophisticated music that speaks to many.
That breadth of interest means that the world of Police covers is particularly rich. Reggae and dub artists, keen to repay and mark the favor that The Police did for them in publicizing their craft, were grateful and expressed themselves in their genre. Sting recorded phonetic vocals for some tracks in Spanish and Japanese, and there are great covers in those languages as a thank you. Indie god Juliana Hatfield was the perfect age to be a Police completist as she dreamed of a career in music, and repaid that love with a whole tribute album. There is a great goth and emo covers album, and not all of it is covers of “King of Pain” and “So Lonely.” Punks can see themselves in the ramshackle start of the band. Genre tribute albums have to incorporate The Police, with a greater or lesser level of success.
Musicians who have a different taste in music, but similar in nasal stimulants, can be difficult to keep together. Especially when one of them keeps 80% of the writing royalties to himself, not allowing his talented bandmates to record more than one of their own songs per blockbuster album. Synchronicity was the last studio album the band made. The other great thing about ubiquity, though, is that you can find copies, in multiple formats, of their records in vinyl and thrift stores throughout the world. New bands will be formed from what people find there. It was a challenging task to identify the best Police covers, but it was very worthwhile.
— Mike Tobyn
The title More Than A Whisper – Celebrating The Music Of Nanci Griffith probably says it all, given the disproportionate heft of the footprint left behind by this self-effacing singer. Her mild and bookish persona, all ankle socks and cardigans, might suggest a small town librarian or primary school teacher, but what she gave, and what you got, was so very much more. A consummate writer of literate story songs (she called them folkabilly), Griffith could captivate any an audience with her Texas charm and sweet/sour voice, attracting the best musicians to play by her side. Both as a writer and an interpreter, she lived and breathed the characters in songs she made her own, several of which are well on the to becoming standards. Her run of albums, from her 1978 debut There’s A Light Beyond These Woods through to Storms, a decade and a bit later, was little short of astonishing, the traction of the one building on the next until she became quite the star. And if she became, latterly, drawn, or possibly led, more to the mainstream, with the country hayride honed down a little, still the songs remained the same, elegant constructions, meticulously put together. Illness quietened her workload this century, her last album made in 2012, before her death in 2021.