Customer Reviews

Every Breath You Take : The Classics

5 star:		(83)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As is the point, this is a great collection for the casual fan. Basically this is just the old "Singles" album updated. The difference here is the inclusion of two versions of "Message In A Bottle" and "Don't Stand So Close To Me", neither of which I care about. I think any fan would much rather have two of many missing songs instead. A big plus to this collection is the remastering, and it's truly nice to hear. The biggest complaint would be that this is really just 12 songs, and again what we don't get. Truth be known, if I was getting my first or only Police disc, I'd get the "Greatest Hits" import. It has every track this does, plus "So Lonely", "Bed's Too Big Without You", "Synchronicity II", and "Tea In The Sahara". I guess it's just a matter of how big a Police fan you are.

NOBODY has written a comparison of these two multichannel releases, so let me be the first. I A/B'd the DTS 5.1 CD and this new SACD 5.1. I have two Pioneer DV-47Ai machines hooked up for this review and here is what I found: accoding to my SPL meter, the SACD is about 2-3db higher than the DTS CD. I can compensate for this via programming my Yamaha receiver to play the DTS version at the exact level. WHAT DID I FIND??? I will go out on a limb here, but the same surround mix was used on BOTH CDs. The edge goes to the SACD for better resolution of the cymbals and a very slightly more solid bass. A better way to describe it is that there is more air around the performers. The DTS feels a like the performers are closer together which sometimes gives the impression that Sting's solo vocals are clearer and steered a little more to the right of center stage on the earlier recorded tracks. However there is a presence on the SACD that is more immediate and less laid back. The DTS CD was one of the very best and would have been hard to beat under any circumstances. However eight years and more technology have produced an SACD that betters it ever so slightly. I guess my recommendation is for the SACD since it is a hybrid and has two additional tracks that were not available on the DTS version.

Well, after getting my copy of this album in the mail today, I just spent the afternoon comparing the original CD with this DTS album.

On the good side...

The fidelity of sound achieved by moving to the higher 24bit/48-96KHz that DTS provides, compared to the 16bit/44.1KHz that CD is limited to, is remarkable (although, as an aside, the notes say that this album was first mixed in 20bits, making me wondering if a) it was left at that resolution or b) it was 'upsampled' to 24bits for DTS. I'd bet on the latter).

The net result is much more analog sounding that the previous album, and when I say 'analog', I'm referring to the kind of source fidelity one usually only gets with a mega-kilobuck turntable coupled with an equally expensive cartridge and tone-arm (the kind of system I don't own, but have been lucky enough to hear). While the older CD was hardly the worst CD out there, it definitely suffered from 'digitis', notable in particular when Sting would hit high falsetto notes. One need only compare the high-pitched wails in 'Roxanne' to hear the difference. On the original CD, Sting's voice voice would exhibit a strange brittleness that would quickly cause listening fatigue, unless listened to very softly.

In comparison, the new DTS sounds much more natural. While the Sting's voice, at times, still screeches just as high as it should, gone are the nasty high-frequency artifacts that make the old album such a (literal) pain to listen to.

At the same time, the dynamic range has been expanded. Whether this is due to the lowered noise floor, as the increased number of bits would allow, or simply more skillful mastering, is hard to know. What is apparent is that the album sounds much less compressed, with the leading edges of drum attacks, in particular, sounding much more impactful.

Along with the increased dynamics comes an increased sense of volume and space, as if more of the acoustic clues and ambient air noise of the original recording studios had been captured. While welcome and pleasant, this is particularly puzzling as it is almost certain that these songs were almost certainly not recorded using a purist miking method (such as two stereo cardioids), but instead multi-miked and multi-tracked.

Which leads us into the mix. On the positive side, the LFE channel is well-blended and balanced, allowing for judicious subwoofer use, unlike some other DTS albums. Bass frequencies, for the most part, come out well-balanced. Sting's bass, especially on 'Every Breath You Take' and 'Wrapped Around Your Finger' is tight, rhythmic, and distinct, with no icky bass boost emphasis added.

Now, on the negative side...

I use a set of fully-matched speakers in my 5.1 setup. All of the speakers are timbrally matched, and have been calibrated to within +/- 1 dB of each other at the listening position using pink noise and SPL A-weighted measurements. When a 5.1 recording is well mixed (and there are very few of these), the speakers effectively disappear. Unfortunately for the current state of 5.1 sound (I imagine the engineers are still learning), this rarely happens. In contrast, the 'disappearing speaker effect' happens very reliably and consistently on even halfway decent 2-channel recordings.

Imaging is one area where the original CD is definitely superior. For all the harshness of the original CD, it is definitely superior to the 5.1 recording when it comes to making the speakers disappear and create an image of the musicians floating in space.

Ironically, considering it has more channels, the 5.1 recording sounds spatially flat when compared to the 2 channel CD. The exception to this is when the rear channels are used for some gimmicky effects, in which case it doesn't sound spatially flat, but just weird. I became so bothered by this at one point that I disabled my rear speakers and just listened to the 3 front channels. However, even using a front only setup (LCR + subwoofer), the 5.1 recording has less of a sense of space than the original CD. Not even once, using the DTS version, did I have the illusion that the musicians were singing invisibly from a point in space somewhere behind the plane of my speakers.

So, in summary, I give the quality of sound on the new DTS disc 5 stars. It is definitely much smoother, more natural sounding, dynamic, and listenable than the original album. On the other hand, I give the 5.1 mix itself 3 stars, averaging out to 4 stars.

The album is definitely worth buying, but until recording engineers learn how to mix 5.1 channels in a way that provides superior imaging, I wish they would include a DTS 2-channel track on the disc, as some multichannel SACD discs are beginning to do.

The Police are a great, classic band like many of the others. But what makes them different is the dark, repetitive vocals along with the haunting music. Some of the songs such as "Spirits In The Material World" and "Invisible Sun" have real catchy music. "Can't Stand Losing You" and "Message In A Bottle" have repetitive but catchy lyrics. And others such as "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" and "Every Breath You Take" are examples of songs that are almost perfect in any way.

I grew up listening to The Police, but only in the past year did I really know who they were, and I started listening more. The first thing I noticed is that The Police might have some of the strangest lyrics of any group or artist, but I can't think of ANY songs that are more catchy. I'll hear a song on the radio or play one of my cd's and it might be stuck in my head for an hour at the most. But when a Police song gets stuck in my head, it stays there the rest of the day no matter what I do.

I recommend this album to anyone. It's just too bad that The Police didn't stay together long enough to make some more great, catchy songs and more classics like "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," "Every Breath You Take," and "Wrapped Around Your Finger."

I am a Police fan of 30 and have been a fan of the band since1978. This is an excellent CD to buy as an intro to the music of thePolice who, in my humble opinion, are one of the best bands to come out of Britain during the post-punk "New Wave" era of the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were also a band who I felt never totally fulfilled their potential, although they quit whilst still on top. I would totally disagree ... (that) the band is awful but the songs are good - yes the songs are great and have stood the test time - but no way were the Police an awful band. In Sting you have a brilliant songwriter and a first-rate bass player, in Andy Sunmmers a technically brilliant guitarist whose understated style and clever use of chorus and delay effects were exactly the right ingredient for Sting's songs, and in Stewart Copeland a superb drummer who again (like Summers) had a distinct and much-revered and much-copied style of his own. I was lucky enough to see the Police play live - in London in 1983 (their final official UK concert in fact) and they were a superb live band. The sound for a 3-piece band was awesome. If anything the records never really did their songs justice as the power of their live sound seemed to be diluted on vinyl - even more so on CD. The Police were respected by the reggae community for bringing reggae into the mainstream (reggae artists have even made tribute albums covering the band's songs) and they also earned the respect of musicians in the jazz world - mostly for their approach to improvisation onstage (something very few of today's rock bands would try - take note Oasis & co). Their sense of space in the arrangements is superb - just listen to the interplay between the instruments on Walking On The Moon, for example. The band's early material was a clever fusion of rock and reggae (Roxanne, Can't Stand Losing You, Message In A Bottle, Walking On The Moon, etc) and it's these songs that are the real timeless classics along with, of course, Every Breath You Take - which simply has to be THE most perfect pop song ever written. It is flawless. Sorry Queen fans, but Bohemian Rhapsody just does not do it for me. Sure, it wins all the polls for this sort of thing but Every Breath You Take is THE definitive all-time classic pop song. Even Lennon and McCartney would have been proud of that one. Unfortunately the song has been misinterpreted as some sort of love song (whicn it isn't) and even Sting has laughed at the fact that it gets played by horrible nasty function bands at weddings and dinner parties. Function bands, Puff Daddy and anyone else who dares to mess with this song should leave it well alone. Anyway this CD gives you most of the band's hits plus a rather pointless "new" remix of Message In A Bottle, which sounds nothing more than a re-EQing of the bass. I would rather have seen the space filled with a good album track, say Bring On The Night or Tea In The Sahara, or even So Lonely - one of the early singles not included on this compilation. If you are new to the Police, this CD is a good starting point but if you want something more complete, check out the Message In A Box 4xCD box set - it's better value than buying all 5 albums and you get extra tracks too.

I'm not big on greatest hits packages. I believe the artist has an idea in mind when they release an entire album. It's like taking excerps from a great novelist's many books and putting them in one book. However, with time passed by, it appears that The Police were an excellent singles band. A lot of their albums now sound like filler around their power-pop hits. This is the CD to own, if you don't feel like buying their entire collection. The sound is a wonderful improvement over their original greatsest hits release from the 80's and the inclusion of the original "Don't Stand So Close To Me" finally makes this a complete package. The Police has always been one of my favorite groups. The rhythmic interplay between this trio is exciting and creative. Each one of the songs on this CD is excellent and covers the best of all their albums. One of the finest greatest hits packages ever from one of rock's most intelligent and creative forces.

I wish amazon would learn to properly distinguish the difference between a dvd audio disc and a dts cd. This is a dts cd, not a dvd audio disc. The surround mix on this CD is terrible. I prefer the original versions. Sadly they do not include a stereo version on this disc.

This album was released this past year (2005) as a cheaper version of the Hybrid SACD Digipak album of the same title. It's in a jewel case, not a Digipak, and it offers the Police's biggest hits. Yes, there are notable omissions (Synchronicity II, So Lonely, Secret Journey, The Bed's Too Big Without You) but it's still a great disc to own. However, the Very Best of Sting and the Police has 18 tracks, but 9 of them are Sting solo songs, so this has more Police tracks. For more Police, check out their studio albums now on Digipak, or you can be daring and get the Message in a Box complete set. Until then, you need this if you like rock.

Maybe you'll only read one sentence in which case I will SCREAM: GET THIS DTS DISC BECAUSE IT HAS A NEW VERSION OF "DE DOO DOO DOO DE DA DA DA" THAT BLOWS THE ORIGINAL AWAY! Granted, the remix of Don't Stand So Close To Me ('86) was far inferior to the original. The band says as much in the liner notes to the supposedly complete "Message In The Box," but on this DTS Audio disc lies a GEM that came out of NOWHERE. De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da has been reworked into a much more stripped down, vocal hamony masterpiece! Like the aforementioned 1986 remake, it is COMPLETELY different, except THIS TIME IT WORKS! (NOTE: The DTS Surround Mix is best played on a DVD deck with a DTS symbol on it. Even though these DTS discs are technically for DTS CD players, I've yet to see the DTS symbol on one, however most DVD players have the DTS symbol0 because many movie soundtracks are DTS!) If someone would've told me I would like another version of anything from Zenyatta Mondatta, I would've LAUGHED in their face. I firmly believe their third studio effort is by far their BEST recording. The only semi dud (Andy Summer's strange instrumental Behind My Camel)was GIVEN A GRAMMY AWARD! The marketing people have made a major blunder in NOT announcing this newly found version of De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da, but maybe someone has been afraid that the "complete" Message In The Box Set would have to be recalled. Fear not, oh ye of little faith! Let the word go out to the whole world, a NEW Police song exists and it is good! Amen.

The Police were one of the key bands of the late '70s and early '80s. Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland made some of the best music of the time, and almost all of their songs and records have acheived great success over the years.

'Every Breath You Take - The Classics,' is an interesting compilation. It gathers 12 songs, plus a remix and a remake, making this an interesting listen. And, for the casual fan, it's got the bare bone hits. 'Every Breath You Take,' 'Roxanne,' 'Don't Stand So Close To Me,' 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' and my personal favorite 'Walking On The Moon.'

For the casual fan, this is perfect.

But, there are several very obvious and quite annoying omissions. 'So Lonely' is the biggest. How can you have a collection and call it 'The Classics' and omit that song? 'So Lonely' was one of their biggest hits, and yet, NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. Same for 'Synchronicity II.' A huge hit, probably one of their biggest, and yet, missing in action.

For the more serious casual fan, I strongly suggest the new two CD set 'Anthology,' which has just about everything the casual fan will need. And for the casual fan who wants a single disc, shell out a couple of bucks and buy the import 'Greatest Hits' album.

'Every Breath You Take - The Classics' is a fairly cheap excuse for a compilation. It's interesting, and the remix of 'Message In A Bottle' and the 1986 remake of 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' are interesting, but it can't really save this disc from mediocrity.

Take my advice, people. You'll be glad you did. 'Anthology' and 'Greatest Hits' are the way to go for The Police fans that just want to have a good collection of their hits.

Overall, I don't recommend this to anyone except for a very easily pleased casual fan or a collector (for the remix and remake). The music is five stars all the way, but the compilation itself, in my opinion, deserves nothing more than three stars.

Recommended for the easily pleased casual The Police fan.