(Credits: Far Out / Last FM)
Sting was never a snob when it came to good pop music.
The Police were always interested in toying with something new whenever they made their records, but there’s a reason why Sting always had a knack for finding the right melodies to throw on top of ‘Roxanne’ or ‘Every Little Thing She Does is Magic’. But as we’ve seen time and time again, “pop” music can look a little different depending on which decade we’re talking about.
If we think of the greatest artists that were put into the pop category in the 1960s, for example, you’re going to find a lot of rock and roll bands and singer-songwriters on the hit parade rather than the counterculture equivalent of Madonna. The idea of modern pop music might have been shaped by people like Michael Jackson becoming larger than life, but when talking about pop, it can range anywhere from rock to R&B to soul to country in many respects.
But the idea of a pop band is usually something bigger, and that tends to come back to The Beatles. As much as Elvis Presley could be considered the first in a new age of pop stars, there was no such thing as a rock band that made everyone stand at attention quite like the Fab Four did. So when looking at pop, Sting wasn’t simply looking for artists who made popular songs. It was about finding the kind of band that could have a firm grip on the public in a way no one else could.
Then again, it’s always going to be a hard sell judging a band rather than a solo artist. It’s easier for a record company to play it safe with an act that simply does what they’re told whenever they go out onstage, but that’s not what pop’s supposed to be. It’s meant to be a little unpredictable, and the greatest are the ones that grab everyone by the throat and demand that they pay attention to them.
And in the world of rock, it’s hard to think of another rock band that had a bigger splash than Nirvana did. Kurt Cobain might not have openly looked for that kind of adulation, but as soon as Nevermind became the biggest thing in the world, it served as a call to arms for everyone who was tired of listening to flashy rock and roll. Music wasn’t meant to be a corporation anymore, and even if he was in his adult contemporary phase, Sting could see when the tides were turning.
When talking about Nirvana, Sting considered them one of the last in a line of bands that had a massive effect on people, saying in 1993, “Pop music is basically a dead form. I’ve said it so many times, and I’ve been proved right year after year. Occasionally, you’ll get a band who will re-create it — Nirvana did it. But after that point, it has to go on somewhere. Unless it goes to the songwriting tradition, I don’t think there’s any way out.”
Granted, Sting does have a point about Nirvana’s impact in regards to songwriting. Cobain broke down the conventions of what a pop song could be on Nevermind, and while every kid listening could value in it, there were also classic rockers coming out of the woodwork to praise it, like Tom Petty calling the band one of the biggest things to happen to music since the dawn of The Beatles.
Even though there have been staggering rock and roll bands that have come out since Nirvana, from Oasis to Green Day to My Chemical Romance to Paramore, there’s a reason why people always go back to Nevermind as the moment where everything changes. Each band that came afterwards made phenomenal records of their own, but no one had the power to give the charts as much of a thrashing as Cobain did.
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