The more I think back upon those days, the more it dawns on me that 1986 was a very weird year for music. For reasons that remain as blurry as the gated reverb used on every freakin' album, everything that had once been so cool just a year or two earlier had suddenly turned to shit.
Sting must have felt this too because he set out on an ambitious mission to turn some of the Police's biggest hits into soft pop schlock with the consistency of week-old oatmeal.
Meanwhile, those of us still reeling from the band's split in late '84 were suddenly on cloud nine again with the announcement of the band's reunion to participate in three Amnesty International Concerts with U2 and others.
What had us most excited, however, was that Sting had mentioned that the band would also be going into the studio.
Having found The Dream of The Blue Turtles to be an exercise in tedious jazz-lite muscle flexing, this Police fan was ready to hear Andy and Stewart push Sting like a race horse.
What could possibly go wrong, you ask?
Well, when your drummer fancies himself quite the polo player, but times his latest tumble from Trigger to coincide with the beginning of new recording sessions, what else is there to do but completely neuter two of your most potent songs?
The first, as many are aware, was the band's "Don't Stand So Close To Me '86", which was added to the band's Every Breath You Take: The Singles for the sole purpose of enticing those of us who already owned all the albums to buy the hits package too just to get our greasy mitts on the new cut.
Of course, said song turned out to be a fetid carcass of a once-great beast, proving that if the band continued, Sting would systematically demolish their greatest works with sleep-inducing Muzak versions of their biggest hits.
At least Devo had had the good sense to do so with irony intact and, even then, to make the results available to only their most die-hard fans via two cassette only compilations made available to Club Devo members only.
While their completely synthetic remake of "Don't Stand So Close To Me" had managed to get seemingly endless MTV and Top 40 radio play, the single missed the Top 40.
That the band recorded an equally pointless remake of "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da" during these same short-lived sessions has remained a well-kept secret, even after it was quietly issued on the 1995 DTS CD version of Every Breath You Take: The Classics.
Thanks to YouTube, though, you won't have to pop for that proprietary CD format just to hear the exact moment this once-formidable trio met their death by Synclavier drum machine.
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