The Police - Bring On the Night

Forgive me for veering off onto a totally unrelated side story here, but several years ago, I spent nearly a full month visiting Colombia, South America and was struck by all the '80s pop and rock music hits, mostly by British artists it seemed, that I heard played in stores and shopping malls in a country where most people speak little to no English. In particular, I remember hearing no less than five different songs by The Police, and thus, I began wondering if the band had a large following in Colombia? Well, when I asked a native about this, he simply told me that the music is largely treated as "background ambience" and that most people in Colombia probably don't pay much attention to it. Anyway, I just found that very interesting and imagined what it would be like to be here in the U.S. and regularly hear "foreign" music from four decades ago in a different language at most retail and business establishments? :-)

Edited by Todd Ireland

Todd Ireland wrote: Forgive me for veering off onto a totally unrelated side story here, but several years ago, I spent nearly a full month visiting Colombia, South America and was struck by all the '80s pop and rock music hits, mostly by British artists it seemed, that I heard played in stores and shopping malls in a country where most people speak little to no English. In particular, I remember hearing no less than five different songs by The Police, and thus, I began wondering if the band had a large following in Colombia? Well, when I asked a native about this, he simply told me that the music is largely treated as "background ambience" and that most people in Colombia probably don't pay much attention to it. Anyway, I just found that very interesting and imagined what it would be like to be here in the U.S. and regularly hear "foreign" music from four decades ago in a different language at most retail and business establishments? :-)

Your experience and vision of The Police in South America
is very interesting. Here in Argentina, The Police is a
well-known and popular band with many followers and fans.
It is one of the most influential bands in Argentine rock
(Soda Stereo, Charly García, Virus, Zas, etc.). It
emerged after the military dictatorship and the arrival
of democracy. The arrival of democracy allowed the entry
of cassettes and vinyl records of uncensored
international rock, so that people could understand what
happened in Argentina during the military governments.
You could only get a Police, Queen, or Bob Marley album
if you were lucky enough to travel abroad, or if a family
member or friend brought one with them when they left
Argentina. Everything else was censored, or the national
editions had some songs removed from the LP, etc.
Everything was controlled by the military, a terrible
time, but it existed.

Todd Ireland wrote: Thank you for sharing that, Marcelo! I'd be very interested to know if other South American countries like Colombia ever went through a similar situation with censorship of international popular music? I really ought not further deviate from the original message board topic, however, so feel free to Private Message me more about this, if you'd like!

Of course, Todd, I like to share with you all how music was
and is received in other parts of the world, with a huge
influence on the American and European charts.

I think it should be waiting for me at my PO Box. I'll report back once I have it here.

I put my headphones on for a closer listen, and I noticed something I hadn't before. "Bring On The Night" from Message In A Box has added reverb compared to the promo 45 AND the more recent remasters of Regatta De Blanc (2003 and 2019). When I worked on compiling things for my own collection a few years back, I liked the mastering on of this album on Message... over the later ones, but I clearly did not realize they used "doctored" masters (at least for this one track). Makes me wonder if they added reverb to any others on the box set.

EDIT: This might not be reverb but rather something related to Dolby decoding making it sound like the hi-hat has extra reverb.

Edited by aaronk