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“Don’t Stand So Close to Me” isn’t the upper tier of Police tunes, but it’s an agreeably perky little pop song with a slightly uncomfortable undertone. Or at least the original version is. On their 1986 compilation album Every Breath You Take: The Singles, history’s blondest three-piece rerecord the song as this plodding, Bauhaus on Valium dirge.
Deep Purple pulled a similar fuck up with their early uptempo groove rocker “Hush.” Check it out here. It’s got this exuberant groove and joy of performance that it just jumps out the speakers. Then, to mark the song’s 20th anniversary, they rerecorded it in 1988, and employed every single shitty studio trend available at the time to turn it into something Foghat would have dismissed as too on the nose and clunky.
Mister Bulger 