Description
Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
listen to intrumental version
listen to karaoke version
The Police were an English new wave band formed in London in 1977. For most of their history the band consisted of Sting (lead vocals, bass guitar, primary songwriter), Andy Summers (guitar) and Stewart Copeland (drums, percussion). The Police became globally popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s and are generally regarded as one of the first new-wave groups to achieve mainstream success, playing a style of rock influenced by punk, reggae, and jazz. They are also considered one of the leaders of the Second British Invasion of the United States. They disbanded in 1986, but reunited in early 2007 for a one-off world tour that ended in August 2008.
Their 1978 debut album, Outlandos d’Amour, reached No. 6 in the UK. Their second album Reggatta de Blanc became the first of five consecutive UK No. 1 albums with its lead single, “Message in a Bottle”, their first UK number one.Their next two albums, Zenyatta Mondatta (1980) and Ghost in the Machine (1981), saw further critical and commercial success. Their final studio album, Synchronicity (1983), was No. 1 in both the UK and the US, selling over 8 million copies in the US alone. “Every Breath You Take” became their fifth UK number one single, and first in the US.The Police have sold over 75 million records, making them one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time. They were the world’s highest-earning musicians in 2008, thanks to their reunion tour.
The band has won a number of music awards, including six Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards—winning Best British Group once, an MTV Video Music Award, and in 2003 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.Four of their five studio albums appeared on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The Police were included among both Rolling Stone’s and VH1’s lists of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
In late November 1976, while on tour in Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England with the British progressive rock band Curved Air, the band’s American drummer Stewart Copeland met and exchanged phone numbers with an ambitious singer-bassist (and former schoolteacher) called Sting (so nicknamed due to his habit of wearing a black and yellow striped jersey mirroring a bee), who at the time was playing in a jazz-rock fusion band called Last Exit.[11] On 12 January 1977,[12] Sting relocated to London and the very same day of his arrival, he sought out Copeland for a jam session. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
“I was inspired by the amazing energy of the whole thing, and I thought, ‘Well, I’m new to London and I’m totally unknown, so I’ll give it a go.’ We did a 15-minute lightning set and I squealed and screamed.”
—Sting on his first jam session since arriving in London.
Curved Air had recently split up and Copeland, inspired by the then-current punk rock movement, was eager to form a new band and join the burgeoning London punk scene. While less keen, Sting acknowledged the commercial opportunities, so the duo formed the Police as a punk power trio with Corsican guitarist Henry Padovani recruited as the third member. After their debut concert on 1 March 1977 at Alexander’s in Newport, Wales (which lasted only ten minutes), the group played London pubs and toured as a support act for Cherry Vanilla and for Wayne County & the Electric Chairs. Their first single “Fall Out,” recorded at Pathway Studios in Islington, North London on 12 February 1977 with a budget of £150, was released in May 1977 by Illegal Records.
Also in May 1977, former Gong musician Mike Howlett invited Sting to join him in the band project Strontium 90. The drummer Howlett had in mind, Chris Cutler, was unavailable to play, so Sting brought Copeland. The band’s fourth member was guitarist Andy Summers from Lancashire in northwest England. A decade older than Sting and Copeland, Summers was a music industry veteran who had played with Eric Burdon and the Animals and Kevin Ayers among others. Strontium 90 performed at a Gong reunion concert in Paris on 28 May 1977, and played at a London club (under the name of “The Elevators”) in July.The band also recorded several demo tracks: these were released (along with live recordings and an early version of “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”) 20 years later in 1997 on the archive album Strontium 90: Police Academy. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
“I thought there was fantastic potential in Sting and Stewart. I’d always wanted to play in a three-piece band. I felt that the three of us together would be very strong. They just needed another guitarist and I thought I was the one.” Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
—Summers on Sting and Copeland after first hearing them at the Marquee Club in Oxford Street, London.
Summers’ musicality impressed Sting, who was becoming frustrated with Padovani’s rudimentary abilities and the limitations they imposed on the Police’s potential. Shortly after the Strontium 90 gig, Sting approached Summers to join the band. He agreed, on the condition the band remain a trio, with him replacing Padovani. Restrained by loyalty, Copeland and Sting resisted the idea, and the Police carried on as a four-piece version but they only performed live twice: on 25 July 1977 at the Music Machine in London and on 5 August at the Mont de Marsan Punk Festival. Shortly after these two gigs (and an aborted recording session with ex-Velvet Underground member John Cale as producer on 10 August), Summers delivered an ultimatum and Padovani was dismissed from the band. The effect of Summers’ arrival was instant with Copeland stating: “One by one, Sting’s songs had started coming in, and when Andy joined, it opened up new numbers of Sting’s we could do, so the material started to get a lot more interesting and Sting started to take a lot more interest in the group. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
The Police’s power trio line-up of Copeland, Sting, and Summers performed for the first time on 18 August 1977 at Rebecca’s club in the English city of Birmingham in the West Midlands. A trio was unusual for the time, and this line-up endured for the rest of the band’s history. Few punk bands were three-pieces, while contemporary bands pursuing progressive rock, symphonic rock and other sound trends usually expanded their line-ups with support players.The musical background of all three players may have made them suspect to punk purists, with music critic Christopher Gable stating, “The truth is that the band merely utilized the trappings of 1970s British punk: the bleached blond short hair, Sting in his jumpsuits or army jackets, Copeland and his near maniacal drumming style. In fact, they were criticized by other punk bands for not being authentic and lacking “street cred.” What the Police did perhaps take from punk was a brand of nervous, energetic disillusion with 1970s Britain.” The band were also able to draw on influences from reggae to jazz to progressive and pub rock.
While still maintaining the main band and attempting to win over punk audiences, Police members continued to moonlight within art rock. In late 1977 and early 1978, Sting and Summers recorded and performed as part of an ensemble led by German experimental composer Eberhard Schoener; Copeland also joined for a time. These performances resulted in three albums, each of them an eclectic mix of rock, electronica and jazz. Various appearances by the Schoener outfit on German television made the German public aware of Sting’s unusual high-pitched voice, and helped pave the way for the Police’s later popularity. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
The bleached-blond hair that became a band trademark happened by accident. In February 1978, the band, desperate for money, was asked to do a commercial for Wrigley’s Spearmint chewing gum (directed by Tony Scott) on the condition they dye their hair blond. The commercial was shot with the band, but was shelved and never aired.
RStewart Copeland’s older brother Miles Copeland III was initially sceptical of the inclusion of Summers in the band, fearing it would undermine their punk credibility, and reluctantly agreed to provide £1,500 to finance the Police’s first album. Recording Outlandos d’Amour was difficult, as the band was working on a small budget, with no manager or record deal. It was recorded during off-peak hours at the Surrey Sound Studios in Leatherhead, Surrey, a basic recording facility run by brothers Chris and Nigel Gray. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
During one of his periodic studio visits, Miles Copeland heard “Roxanne” for the first time at the end of a session. Where he had been less enthusiastic about the band’s other songs, the elder Copeland was immediately struck by the track, and quickly got the Police a record deal with A&M Records on the strength of it. “Roxanne” was issued as a single in the spring of 1978, while other album tracks were still in the midst of being recorded, but it failed to chart. It also failed to make the BBC’s playlist, which the band attributed to the song’s depiction of prostitution. A&M consequently promoted the single with posters claiming “Banned by the BBC,” though it was never really banned, just not play-listed. “We got a lot of mileage out of it being supposedly banned by the BBC,” Stewart Copeland admitted 23 years later. “In fact, all that really happened was that we didn’t make their playlist, so we turned that into ‘Banned by the BBC. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
Shortly after “Roxanne” was released, and while Outlandos d’Amour was still being recorded, Stewart Copeland (using the alias ‘Klark Kent’) released a solo single called “Don’t Care”. It peaked at No. 48 in the UK in August 1978, and led to a TV appearance on BBC1’s Top of the Pops. Copeland sang and played all instruments on the single, but for his Top of the Pops appearance he was backed by various friends wearing masks (including Sting and Summers) who mimed the instrumental accompaniment.
The Police made their first television appearance a few months later, in October 1978, on BBC2’s The Old Grey Whistle Test to promote the release of Outlandos d’Amour. Though “Roxanne” was never banned (despite A&M’s claims to the contrary) the BBC did ban the second single from Outlandos d’Amour, “Can’t Stand Losing You”. This was due to the single’s cover, which featured Copeland hanging himself over an ice block being melted by a portable radiator.The single became a minor chart hit, the Police’s first, peaking at No. 42 in the UK.The follow-up single “So Lonely”, issued in November 1978, failed to chart. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
In February 1979 “Roxanne” was issued as a single in North America, where it was warmly received on radio despite the subject matter. The song peaked at No. 31 in Canada and No. 32 in the US, spurring a UK re-release of it in April. The re-issue of “Roxanne” finally gained the band widespread recognition in the UK when it peaked at No. 12 on the UK Singles Chart. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
The group’s US success led to a gig at the famous New York club CBGB and a gruelling 1979 North American tour in which the band drove themselves and their equipment around the country in a Ford Econoline van. That summer, “Can’t Stand Losing You” was also re-released in the UK, becoming a substantial hit, peaking at No. 2. The group’s first single, “Fall Out”, was re-issued in late 1979, and became a minor chart hit, peaking at No. 47 in the UK.
In October 1979, the group released their second album, Reggatta de Blanc, which topped the UK Albums Chart, and became the first of five consecutive UK No. 1 albums. The album spawned the hit singles “Message in a Bottle” (No. 1 UK, No. 2 Canada, No. 5 Australia) and “Walking on the Moon” (No. 1 UK). Elsewhere, the album’s singles failed to dent the US top 40, but Reggatta de Blanc still hit No. 25 on the US album charts.
The band’s first live performance of “Message in a Bottle” was on the BBC’s television show Rock Goes to College filmed at Hatfield Polytechnic College in Hertfordshire. The instrumental title track Reggatta de Blanc won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. In February 1980, the single “So Lonely” was re-issued in the UK. Originally a non-charting flop when first issued in late 1978, upon re-release the track became a UK top 10 hit, peaking at No. 6 Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
In March 1980, the Police began their first world tour, which included places that had seldom hosted foreign performers—-including Mexico, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Greece, and Egypt.The tour was subsequently documented in the film The Police Around the World (1982), directed by Kate and Derek Burbidge, which encompasses footage shot by Anne Nightingale originally intended for a BBC production The Police in the East.
In May 1980, A&M in the UK released Six Pack, a package containing the five previous A&M singles (not including “Fall Out”) in their original sleeves plus a mono alternate take of the album track “The Bed’s Too Big Without You” backed with a live version of “Truth Hits Everybody”. It reached No. 17 in the UK Singles Chart (although chart regulations introduced later in the decade would have classed it as an album).
Pressured by their record company for a new record and a prompt return to touring, the Police released their third album, Zenyatta Mondatta, in October 1980. The album was recorded in a three-week period in the Netherlands for tax reasons. The album gave the group their third UK No. 1 hit, “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” (the UK’s best selling single of 1980) and another hit single, “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da”, both of which reached No. 10 in the US. While the three band members and co-producer Nigel Gray all expressed immediate regret over the rushed recording for the album, which was finished at 4 AM on the day the band began their world tour,[36] the album received high praise from critics. The instrumental “Behind My Camel”, written by Andy Summers, won the band a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, while “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” won the Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance for Duo or Group. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
The Police’s fourth album, Ghost in the Machine, co-produced by Hugh Padgham, was recorded at Air Studios on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, with the exception of “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” which was recorded at Le Studio at Morin Heights, Quebec, Canada, and released in 1981. It featured thicker sounds, layered saxophones, and vocal textures. It spawned the hit singles “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” (featuring pianist Jean Roussel), their fourth UK No. 1 (No. 3 in the U.S.), “Invisible Sun”, and “Spirits in the Material World”.[3][31] As the band was unable to agree on a cover picture, the album cover had three red pictographs, digital likenesses of the three band members in the style of segmented LED displays, set against a black background. In the 1980s, Sting and Summers became tax exiles and moved to Ireland (Sting to Roundstone in Galway, and Summers to Kinsale in County Cork) while Copeland, an American, remained in England.
The group opened and closed the 1981 concert film, Urgh! A Music War. The film, which captured the music scene in the wake of punk, was masterminded by Stewart Copeland’s brothers Ian and Miles. The film had a limited release but developed a mythic reputation over the years. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
At the 1982 Brit Awards in London, the Police received the award for Best British Group. After the Ghost in the Machine Tour concluded in 1982, the group took a sabbatical and each member pursued outside projects. By this time, Sting was becoming a major star, and he established a career beyond the Police by branching out into acting. Back in 1979, he had made a well-received debut as the “Ace Face” in Quadrophenia, the film version of The Who’s rock opera, followed by a role as a mechanic in love with Eddie Cochran’s music in Chris Petit’s Radio On. In 1982, Sting furthered his acting career by co-starring in the Richard Loncraine film Brimstone and Treacle. He also had a minor solo hit in the United Kingdom with the movie’s theme song, a cover of the 1929 hit “Spread a Little Happiness” (which appeared on the Brimstone & Treacle soundtrack, along with three new Police tracks, “How Stupid Mister Bates”, “A Kind of Loving”, and “I Burn for You”). Over 1981 and 1982, Summers recorded his first album with Robert Fripp, I Advance Masked. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
In 1983, Stewart Copeland composed the musical score for Francis Ford Coppola’s film Rumble Fish. The single “Don’t Box Me In (theme From Rumble Fish)”, a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway (of the band Wall of Voodoo) received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. Also in 1983, Sting filmed his first big-budget movie role playing Feyd-Rautha in David Lynch’s Dune. As Sting’s fame rose, his relationship with Stewart Copeland deteriorated. Their increasingly strained partnership was further stretched by the pressures of worldwide publicity and fame, conflicting egos, and their financial success. Meanwhile, both Sting’s and Summers’ marriages failed. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the Western world during the 1950s and 1960s, deriving from rock and roll. The terms “popular music” and “pop music” are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular (and can include any style).
Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other styles such as urban, dance, rock, Latin, and country; nonetheless, there are core elements that define pop music. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure) as well as the common employment of repeated choruses, melodic tunes, and hooks.
David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as “a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, and folk musics”. According to Pete Seeger, pop music is “professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music”.Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately.Thus “pop music” may be used to describe a distinct genre, aimed at a youth market, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock and roll.
The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that the term “pop” refers to music performed by such artists as the Rolling Stones (pictured here in a 2006 performance) Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
The term “pop song” was first recorded as being used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music “having popular appeal”.However, the term was in mainstream use at least ten years earlier. Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music.
According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, called Grove Music Online, the term “pop music” “originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop’s “earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience … since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus[ic], usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc”. Grove Music Online also states that “… in the early 1960s [the term] ‘pop music’ competed terminologically with Beat music [in England], while in the USA its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of ‘rock and roll'”.
Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from most other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz, country, and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, and has recently appropriated spoken passages from rap. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
It has also made use of technological innovation. In the 1940s improved microphone design allowed a more intimate singing style[13] and ten or twenty years later inexpensive and more durable 45 r.p.m. records for singles “revolutionized the manner in which pop has been disseminated” and helped to move pop music to ‘a record/radio/film star system’.[13] Another technological change was the widespread availability of television in the 1950s; with televised performances, “pop stars had to have a visual presence”. In the 1960s, the introduction of inexpensive, portable transistor radios meant that teenagers could listen to music outside of the home. Multi-track recording (from the 1960s); and digital sampling (from the 1980s) have also been utilized as methods for the creation and elaboration of pop music. By the early 1980s, the promotion of pop music had been greatly affected by the rise of music television channels like MTV, which “favoured those artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna who had a strong visual appeal”. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
According to several sources, MTV helped give rise to pop stars such as Michael Jackson and Madonna; and Jackson and Madonna Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
Pop music has been dominated by the American and (from the mid-1960s) British music industries, whose influence has made pop music something of an international monoculture, but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music, sometimes producing local versions of wider trends, and lending them local characteristics. Some of these trends (for example Europop) have had a significant impact of the development of the genre.
According to Grove Music Online, “Western-derived pop styles, whether coexisting with or marginalizing distinctively local genres, have spread throughout the world and have come to constitute stylistic common denominators in global commercial music cultures”.Some non-Western countries, such as Japan, have developed a thriving pop music industry, most of which is devoted to Western-style pop, has for several years produced a greater quantity of music of everywhere except the USA.[20] The spread of Western-style pop music has been interpreted variously as representing processes of Americanization, homogenization, modernization, creative appropriation, cultural imperialism, and/or a more general process of globalization. Select subgeneres of pop such as the guitar-driven “Jank” subgenre have consciously reversed the trend toward homogenization by combining elements from world and classical music into more traditional pop structures.
According to British musicologist Simon Frith, characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, and an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal “artistic” qualities.[4] Music scholar Timothy Warner said it typically has an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, rather than live performance; a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments; and aims to encourage dancing or uses dance-oriented rhythms.
The main medium of pop music is the song, often between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length, generally marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure.[22] Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, and a chorus that contrasts melodically, rhythmically and harmonically with the verse. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment.The lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.
Harmony and chord progressions in pop music are often “that of classical European tonality, only more simple-minded.” and then to the tonic) and blues scale-influenced harmony. There was a lessening of the influence of traditional views of the circle of fifths between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, including less predominance for the dominant function. Every breath you take karaoke instrumental
A study in 2012 that examined over 464,000 recordings of popular music recorded since 1955 found “three important trends in the evolution of musical discourse: the restriction of pitch sequences (with metrics showing less variety in pitch progressions), the homogenization of the timbral palette [tone colour] (with frequent timbres becoming more frequent), and growing average loudness levels (threatening a dynamic richness [changes in volume] that has been conserved until today).”[28] It was reported that the study “seems to support the popular anecdotal observation that pop music of yore was better, or at least more varied, than today’s top-40 stuff.