The iconic punk band Sting said he had “no respect” for
When The Police first burst onto the scene, it was almost an anomaly to see someone like Sting becoming a star.
This was at the height of the new wave scene, and since every single person was trying their best to forget everything they ever knew, it was a breath of fresh air seeing someone who was willing to let everyone know that they knew the ins and outs of what songwriting was. It may have been a bit more sophisticated, but it’s not like Sting couldn’t put some punch behind it when he needed to.
After all, if you’re working with a drummer like Stewart Copeland, you’re going to need songs that have a decent pulse to them. Copeland was the true punk rock spirit of the band every single time he got behind the kit, and even if he and Sting had their disagreements about how the rhythm section should sound, his fills on a song like ‘Message in a Bottle’ have become as iconic as any melody the bassist ever wrote.
But even with Sting’s advanced vocabulary, Andy Summers could match him every time they went into the studio. The basis of ‘Walking on the Moon’ isn’t necessarily the most groundbreaking thing in the world, but when you look at the way that Summers put the track together, there are still countless artists that are trying to match that wall of guitars that kick off the song. His affinity for jazz chords didn’t hurt them either, but it wasn’t exactly the coolest thing to be doing in England at the time.
You have to remember that this was 1978 when the band’s debut record came out. Punk was still the order of the day, and even though the Sex Pistols were on the verge of implosion, it’s not like the aesthetic lived and died on the strength of John Lydon and Sid Vicious. Other bands were more than happy to throw their hat in the ring, and The Clash were probably the closest thing to progressive as punk ever got.
They weren’t exactly progressive in the same way that Yes or Genesis were, but they were willing to bring a lot more to the table than a bunch of power chords. Their fascination with reggae and dub music really helped broaden the playing field for punks that didn’t have anything but a few power chords to work with, but compared to what The Police were doing, even Copeland remembered that some of the band members would ask Sting what he was doing whenever they toured together.
But when it came to their political agenda, Sting felt that it was incredibly hypocritical seeing the band turn their performance at the US Festival into a political stunt, saying, “There was [Clash aide] Kosmo Vinyl bellowing, ‘Eh, yeah, you can be sure the Clash e’ gon be sayin’ somfink!’ What, I wondered, are they going to be saying? Ranting the thoughts of Karl Marx while they rake in the dollars strikes me as slightly ambiguous. I’ve no respect whatever for the Clash, and I once did.”
Then again, there’s no harm in bringing people together to rally around a good cause. In fact, what Joe Strummer tried to do with The Clash is the reason why bands like U2 existed today, and even for those who can’t stand anything that Bono touches, you can’t deny that he means everything that he’s saying in between songs when talking about the nature of humanity and helping our your fellow man.
Sting may have had a slightly more nuanced take on using politics in music when he made songs like ‘Russians’, but if you were going to get upset at a band that rose to prominence with ‘Rock the Casbah’ and ‘London Calling’, you clearly didn’t understand what they were about. For them, their role as rock and roll prophets was like life and death, and if they were going to live up to their title as ‘The Only Band That Matters’, it’s only fair for them to say something that mattered as well.
