10 Classic Rock Bands That Got Better After Selling Out
6. The Police
Ever since their debut, the Police always seemed to be on a path towards something big. As the band moved from one record to the next, they pushed themselves that much further into different instrumentation and musical styles. While most bands get accused of selling out once they reach the charts, the Police's gradual ascent felt less like a betrayal and more like the logical next step.
By the time the band got around to making albums like Ghost in the Machine, fans had already grown accustomed to Sting's more poppy material on songs like "Message in a Bottle" and "Don't Stand So Close To Me."
Once they hit Synchronicity, they hit a higher mark than they could have ever anticipated, with "Every Breath You Take" becoming one of the most successful songs of the entire decade. Even with the band's more commercial success, their music still had its off-kilter weirdness, with songs like "Synchronicity II" featuring inventive drum work from Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers expanding on his sonic effects wizardry.
The main melodies behind the songs may have been a bit simpler than normal, but the subtle nuances made these songs nearly impossible to reproduce. When most bands use more commercial material to woo the corporate big wigs, the Police are the one instance where the mainstream came to them rather than the other way around.