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Stewart Copeland confirms The Police ‘Around the World’ reissue

1982 documentary restored and expanded

By Paul Sinclair

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45

The Police / Around The World DVD+vinyl LP deluxe edition

Stewart Copeland has confirmed via his official website that The Police Around The World video will be reissued across various formats, in May.

Originally released on VHS in 1982 (and later laserdisc), Around The World is a documentary that chronicles The Police’s first world tour, as the band travel to Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, India, Egypt, France, Latin America and Los Angeles. It has never been issued on DVD or blu-ray.

Last August, Andy Summers told SDE that it was coming, saying “It’s taken forever to get it sorted, because of issues like restoring 16mm film and getting the extras up to 4K level. There are a lot of bonus tracks and footage, including film from Japan that’s never been seen. The performances in that film are really nice and I’ve very pleased it’s coming out”.

According to the Stewart Copeland post, the formats will be CD+DVD combo, CD+book and 2LP vinyl, although SDE has seen artwork that appears to confirm there’s an LP+DVD (see above) with “9 live tracks previously unavailable on LP”. No word about a blu-ray, but if indeed it has been restored to 4k levels there surely must be one.

The track listing offered by Copeland is below. Reading between the lines, the first disc must be the DVD and the second a CD. We are promised “more information and details” soon.

There are no pre-order links, as yet, but the release date is supposed to be 20 May 2022.

Track listing

CD+DVD1 / 2:
1. Around The World [115:2]
2. Menu / The Police / Around The World [04:03]
3. Walking On The Moon [04:59]
4. Next To You [02:35]
5. Message In The Bottle [05:07]
6. Born In The 50’s [03:44]

CD+DVD2 / 2:
1. Walking On The Moon [05:09]
2. Next To You [02:51]
3. Deathwish / Bo Diddley [05:22]
4. So Lonely [06:50]
5. Can’t Stand Losing You / Day-O [07:52]
6. Truth Hits Everybody [02:58]
7. Visions Of The Night [03:19]
8. Roxanne [07:06]
9. Intro [00:25]
10.Born In The 50’s [03:44]
11.Message In The Bottle [05:11]
12.Bring On The Night [05:50]

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45 Comments

45 thoughts on “Stewart Copeland confirms The Police ‘Around the World’ reissue”

  2. Born In the 50s, not 50’s. Even if the orginial is a mistake, don’t perpetuate it ;-) Apart from that, this is a long awaited release and it looks like some effiort has been put into it.

  4. Just before Christmas, the BBC in the UK rebroadcast logo free the Whistle Test special called ‘Police in the East’. The 52 minute documentary has DJ Annie Nightingale following the band and conducting interviews. Some of the live material was also used for the first part of ‘Around The World’.
    It’s the first time I’ve watched it in such good quality picture wise though the sound was in mono.
    As a bonus, this could be added to the release as it fits in with the time period.

  6. I can appreciate even with the 4K extras being polished for streaming a physical 4k release being unlikely.
    But as to no blu that is getting a bit silly as the actual costs between a standard DVD and blu production aren’t that great and surely most people have a blu-ray player in some format or other sheesh I can count 4 no 6 in my house.

    2. I agree that they should release a blu ray in this day and age.
      FYI the reason many Films, TV shows, etc are released on DVD and sometimes not on Blu ray is not because of physical media production costs but because of Blu ray licensing costs. Steve Jobs once described blu say licensing as “a bag of hurt” when trying to include blu ray players in Apple computers.

  7. Hi Paul
    So you have seen my mail informing about this
    I thank you for the wonderful job you’re doing with SDE
    All the best
    Greetings from Italy

  9. I’ve been waiting for this news for such a long time, this is wonderful. I’m still watching my digitized VHS transfer which is pretty awful looking. I do hope the live versions of Next To You and Truth Hits Everybody on the audio disc are the versions from the film. Would be great to hear them without the talking bits edited in, stopping the songs from time to time. Also, Police in the East would make for a great bonus feature. I only discovered this program recently, it’s a nice alternate version of Police Around The World.

  11. Hmm. The DVD+LP sticker says it contains 9 live tracks. But the CD track listing contains 11 songs (plus an “intro” track), and its timings add up to over an hour, so the LP is clearly missing two songs that are on the CD. (But even deleting the two longest tracks, it would still run more than 46 minutes, so there must be other trims too.)

    1. Now that we have an LP track list, which confirms that “Next to You” and “Visions of the Night” are CD-only, I went back and did the math using the shortest time given for each track (where the video timings are shorter than the CD timings) and I get 25:03 for Side 1 and 24:45 for Side 2.
      Wouldn’t surprise me if they shave off a few more seconds here and there, especially on Side 1, but I’m guessing they won’t be trimming musical content (apart from the two missing tracks).

  12. Great news. I’ve been waiting for a reissue of this doc for decades now.

    I’ll be fine with a CD+DVD of this. Don’t think a Blu-Ray disc is essential, given the quality of the original film.

    As usual, if the DVD has better audio content and/or better mastering, I’ll rip the DVD instead of the CD. I’ve done this with a fair number of releases over the years by various artists.

    Also, somewhat disappointed with the CD tracklist. I was hoping for some live versions of Zenyatta Mondatta songs. The first two studio albums were extensively covered by the Live! album from the ’90s.

  13. I would much rather prefer to see a rush release of the 2008 Paul McCartney concert at Independent Square in Kiev, with Macca/UMG donating all profits to the Red Cross and other organisations taking care of the refugees. The concert was filmed and televised in Ukraine and bootleg CDs of the concert has been widely available. Thus a release can easily be done.
    To quote the man himself (“If I ever get out of here” from Band on the Run):
    If I ever get out of here
    thought of giving it all away
    to a registered charity
    all I need is a pint a day
    if I ever get out of here
    Well, McCartney did get out of the African country where BotR was recorded. Now it’s time to help people suffering in Ukraine by donating to a “registered charity”.
    Releasing the DVD “Paul McCartney at Red Square” (featuring Vladimir Putin) in 2005 was probably a good decision at the time.
    But now it would be a wise and humane decision to release “Paul McCartney at Independence Square”.

    2. Probably needs a pint of blood a day Thea’s days!!
      Great idea and while he is at it he should release the song FREEDOM and give all that money to them as well!!,, Sure it’s a poor song but band aids song was also not the best was it?? But for a good cause it will sell by the millions,15 weeks at no 1 ,no escaping it,!!!

  14. Excited to see this come out. A great video for sure. Will be able to retire my VHS copy. Remember Miles Copeland saying it was planned as a DVD release around the time of Sting’s Brand New Day album. Glad it is finally coming out and look forward to the future reissues.

  15. This was one of the first video cassettes that i rented and copied circa 1985. My video system was Sony Beta. I still own the cassette and Beta player. If i’m not wrong i think i haven’t watch it after 80’s. Has anyone counted how many times Sting and Andy has jumped in the air in their heyday at late 70’s and early 80’s? And which one has jumped higher?

  16. Looks a great release.
    Any idea if there will be a reissue of the 1995 vhs live history from outlandos to synchronicitys onto dvd.

  17. With respect to Universal Music artists, it is all fine and good for artists,managers (or artist estates) to announce archival projects, whether it’s “the Police-Around The World” DVD release, “The Police-Outlandos D’Amour” CD boxed set, “The Who-Who’s Next” CD boxed set, “John Lennon & Yoko Ono-Sometime in New York City” CD + Blu-Ray boxed set or the re-launch of the Aerosmith catalog, but Universal Music themselves won’t announce any of these releases, commit to a release date or tracklisting. 2022 is getting off to a very sluggish, discouraging start for archival classic rock music. Is there a problem in securing pressing plant time to manufacturing these releases? As for whether any of the afformentioned projects are ever released, I’ll believe it when I hold them in my hands. I would have bought all of them.

  19. Since this weekend Dutch record stores have different sets for preorder. A 2cd-dvd set for 22 €, a 2 cd+bluray set for 23 € and the 2 lp for 35 €.

  20. Well, everyone is banging on about the DVD, which I welcome and will enjoy watching, but I’m more excited about the CD. I tend to watch these box-set DVDs a couple of times, (usually only once if it’s documentary material) but then that’s it – I don’t have time in my life to sit in front ont of a TV watching the same thing over and over again. Too much great stuff to watch! But it’s the music that I’ll listen to over and over again, in the car, whilst pottering around the house, in the garden, whilst eating, going for a run, on the train, background whilst working etc. So I’m really glad they’ve gone with the CD as well.

  21. This is a better Police reissue. Of course, I’m cynical, because now that Sting has sold his publishing rights, who’s really invested in putting this out, the band…or the publishing rights holder? Sting will never see another dime from the sale of this product (not that he needs the money)…but hopefully Andy and Stewart will.

  22. So exactly why would you get the video quality to 4K but not release it on regular Blu-ray or 4K? Unless after we shell out for the DVD edition[s] they release it later on.

    1. Digital and streaming. Like Atmos audio mixes you can only hear on Apple Music or Tidal. I fear this future, but it feels almost inevitable, unless SDE (and/or similar enthusiasts with pull and credibility) can do what it has done for Tears For Fears and xPropaganda on a considerably wider scale.

      1. Now THAT’S an idea. Maybe Paul could arrange for the release of a Police blu-ray (or 4K even?) as part of the SDE release program? I wonder how many he’d have to sell to make it viable…..

  24. Very happy with that! I have the old LD and needed a proper release, including full audio tracks, but I don´t see De Do Do Do and Don´t stand So Close To Me from Fréjus… fingers crossed for an HD / 4K release…

  25. All fingers crossed for a BluRay edition. Back in 1982 the rented copies of this and The Compleat Beatles…and er.. Xanadu never got returned to the video shop. My mom rang up and got the loan extended each week, until the magical day I found out how to get a video tape copied.

  26. So very excited to see this film again. I have not seen it since I first viewed it, and it was literally the first VHS cassette my family ever rented.

      1. I thought it was a subtle refernce to the classic Peter Cook/Dudley Moore ‘Tarzan’ sketch – “solo knee”. Now, back to looking for more clues Paul is dead in the lyrics to ‘Glass Onion’…

  28. Great news, hopefully the start of many more releases.
    For some reason they used a live photo from ‘the Ghost in the Machine’ tour as cover art.
    You can see the GITM logo behind Stewart

    1. Well if there is no Blu-ray?? Then probably better just to get certifiable as that is one off the best Blu-rays you will ever see, reference quality, every little speck of dust that rises from the stage is captured!! I remember this when I think the tube did a special and showed it( I taped it) might be wrong!!! Anyway saw them in Glasgow Apollo a year later brilliant, think IV made a mistake I think it was the sinchro tour that I taped, anyway both are jumping on cover,,!! Suspiciously high as Andy was elderly even then!!,

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