Personnel: Henri Padovani (guitar); Jean Roussel (keyboards).

Recording information: Air Studios, Montserrat (02/1977); Le Studio, Quebec, Canada (02/1977); Pathway Studios, London, England (02/1977); Surrey Sounds Studios (02/1977); Wissellord Studios, Hilversum, The Netherlands (02/1977).

Photographers: John F. Rodgers; Norman Seeff; Jill Furmanovsky.

Released to coincide with the Police's long-awaited 2007 reunion tour, this self-titled two-disc anthology neatly chronicles the band's progression from faux punks to New Wave avatars to pop superstars. Reconfiguring the notion of the power trio by playing less instead of more, the Police hid their technical prowess at first, clothing their pop smarts in simple, punky riffs on "Fall Out" and "Next to You." At the same time, they were pioneering the fusion of rock and reggae with such tracks as "I Can't Stand Losing You" and the mega-hit "Roxanne."

As the collection moves along, we hear the band opening up their approach to allow in horns, keyboards, and a sophisticated pop sensibility. The Police of the smoothly textured "Wrapped Around Your Finger" are nearly unrecognizable as the same band that came raging out of the gate on "Truth Hits Everybody." This capable distillation of the Police oeuvre is a testament to their legacy-- a distinctive style that, as popular as they were, few even attempted to imitate.

To coincide with their 30th anniversary reunion tour in 2007 the Police released the anthology The Police, the first two-CD retrospective ever assembled on the group. They may not have had a double compilation to their credit, but they had single discs and box sets, which may raise the question of whether they need a set like this -- and the answer is yes, but this set falls just a bit short of being the definitive Police double disc. At only 28 tracks, this feels a little too slim. It may be twice as long as 1995's Every Breath You Take: The Classics (and, in a way, that was only 12 tracks, since that contained the 1986 remake of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and a classic rock mix of "Message in a Bottle," which were little more than padding), but there are a handful of Police staples that are missing, including "Born in the '50s," "The Bed's Too Big Without You," "Shadows in the Rain," and "Rehumanize Yourself," and the heavy emphasis on Synchronicity (all but three songs from the LP are present; yes, Andy Summers' bizarro "Mother" is one of the tunes missing in action) threatens to overwhelm the second disc. That said, Synchronicity does deserve such a heavy exposure, given that it's the band's biggest album, and it's hard to argue with the rest of the selections here since it covers all the familiar hits and most, but not all, of the second-tier classics including "Truth Hits Everybody," "Bring on the Night," "Canary in a Coalmine," "Driven to Tears," and their first single, "Fallout." It may not seem like much, but if those aforementioned four tunes were here, The Police would have all the core songs from the trio and this would be truly definitive, but as it stands this collection stands as simply an excellent overview. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine