The Police might have been no strangers to the top of the charts, but it didn’t take long after their 1977 formation for the cracks to appear between the three members. While the trio would carry on until 1984 and would enjoy immense success throughout their career, going out on a high with their final album, Synchronicity – a number one hit on both sides of the Atlantic – to say it was a slog to the finish line would be an understatement.
After all, the making of the final body of work was a Herculean effort for all involved, with Sting long believing that he was the finest songwriter in the group since the making of 1980’s Zenyatta Mondatta. In addition to believing his songwriting was far superior to that of Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, he also felt that the configuration of a trio also had limits creatively.
While Sting knew he wanted to leave for a long time, there was one show that convinced him that he had to make the jump. This was when he played a short solo set at The Secret Policeman’s Ball, an apt name for the event.
“They just wanted me to sing a song on my own with a guitar,” he once recalled. “I performed ‘Roxanne’ and ‘Message In A Bottle’… alone, just with a guitar and my voice. It was the moment that I thought, I can do this on my own. Not that I was ungrateful for the band, but I saw a way of evolving.”
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Following their worldwide tour in support of 1983’s Syncronicity, the Police officially called it a day in March 1984. Now that he was unshackled from the group, Sting set about forging a solo career. He released his debut solo album, the comically titled Dream of the Blue Turtles, which was based on a dream featuring the fantastical creatures, in June 1985. Featuring legendary musicians such as Omar Hakim and Darryl Jones, it clearly demonstrated that Sting was moving far away from the sound of his old band.
Explaining how the success of his solo debut gave him the confidence to carry on, Sting said: “In my mind it was the start of my solo career, though it was a projected as a sort of hiatus. And luckily that experiment was very successful, which gave me the confidence to carry on and not run back to the Police. In my mind, I’d already left the Police and never intended to go back.”
Ironically, the lead single of the album was ‘I You Love Somebody Set Them Free’.
