In Praise of …

MOR: the sellouts who always sell out

Neil Armstrong

AS A ROCK BAND, THE POLICE came in for a lot of stick. Their first four singles, which included “Roxanne” and “So Lonely”, were flops when first released in 1977 and 1978. The trio were sneered at by the cool kids of the music press, dismissed as “white reggae”, a term used pejoratively to suggest inauthenticity. Rolling Stone’s review of the band’s first album, Outlandos d’Amour, called it an “infuriating and condescending parlor trick”. How dare they presume to ride in on punk’s coattails? Andy Summers had studied classical guitar for four years at university. Drummer Stewart Copeland’s father had been a CIA station chief. The CIA! Could they possibly be any less rock’n’roll? Rock is meant to be about, as Jack Black’s character puts it in School of Rock,…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 2023

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