10 Musicians Who Came Back From Huge Band Breakups

The entire dissolution of the Police was one of the most practical band breakups of all time. There was chance that these guys could have been pop superstars for the rest of the '80s, but the fact that they were going in different musical directions made them search for something new outside of the band. While Stewart Copeland may have entered the world of musical score and Andy Summers disappeared down his own musical rabbit hole, Sting found his calling in the world of jazz rock.

Although there were already some jazz elements on the Police's final records like Murder By Numbers, albums like Dream of the Blue Turtles gave Sting sufficient room to stretch, working with jazz and fusion veterans to create strange pop songs like Englishman in New York and Fortress Around Your Heart. Sting never wanted to be limited to one genre though, and he continued to expand his sound into the '90s, almost verging on new age music and carefully constructing songs that didn't have to cater to the traditional pop song format.

While Sting may have always wanted to serve the song every time he went into the studio, later projects like Fields of Gold don't even feel like pop songs half the time, looking to create landscapes of sounds that aren't confined to what the Top 40 has to do. The Police may already have a decent place in rock history, but Sting always knew there was a lot more that could be done once you set yourself free.