Different Gear vs The Police 'When The World Is Running Down (You Can't Go Wrong)'

Chart Peak: 28

YouTube

London-based producers Quinn Whalley and Gino Scaletti joined forces over seven years ago and 'When The World...' is their first commercial release... The track is based on the 1979 Police recording 'When The World Is Running Down (You Make The Best Of What's Still Around)' which appeared on their Zenyatta Mondatta LP.

That attribution to the original Police album (actually from 1980, which fits neatly with the previous three tracks) appears in the credits page as well. Perhaps this was part of the deal for getting permission to include this track - the only representation of the entire group on a Now! album, though Sting has shown up a couple of times. Perhaps if they'd known how minor a hit this would end up, they wouldn't have bothered: I'd guess this was an example of a club hit that took so long to get a commercial release that the moment had passed.

I'm no expert on The Police, but apparently Zenyatta Mondatta was the album with 'Don't Stand So Close To Me', 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da' and the Grammy-winning instrumental 'Behind My Camel'; in other words, the point where they started to disappear up Sting's backside. Their original version is a late example of what the Onion once called the "I used to be kind of cool once years" - although I can cope without Sting droning on about a post-apocalyptic dystopia the actual musicianship is rather enjoyable. (And I quite like that the YouTube URL for that video ends "OyOghZum-Io" which sounds a bit like a Police album title itself). Unsurprisingly, there's not much Stewart Copeland in the Different Gear version, although Andy Summers' guitar part is heavily sampled. Playing against a house bassline it's actually quite catchy if not entirely my scene. I sort of wish they'd just sampled the guitar and left out the vocals.