by Stephen Thomas ErlewineBefore the Police formed in late 1977, Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland spent several months as Strontium 90 with Mike Howlett, the former bassist for Gong. Howlett had written several songs and recruited the trio individually to play on his demo, and shortly afterward, Strontium 90 formed. They recorded one demo tape and played a handful of concerts, but they never attracted any interest from record labels and disbanded within months. The Police became superstars, while Howlett became a record producer, and from the evidence on Police Academy, a nine-track disc that combines the original demos with three live tracks from the band's first concert, that was for the best, because Strontium 90 would never have attracted a large following on their own. In the liner notes, Howlett claims that the group was influenced by punk, but the music on Police Academy has little to do with punk -- it's an unwieldly amalgam of prog, arena rock and pop, and it doesn't do any of those particularly well. Howlett's songs are unfocused, unmelodic excuses to stretch out into instrumental interludes, while Sting's Visions of the Night and 3 O'Clock Shot are unremarkable attempts at hard rock fusion. The one track that stands out is a demo of Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, which Sting recorded alone with an acoustic guitar in 1976. Musically, it has little to do with the indulgent jams of Strontium 90, but that's a blessing -- Sting flourishes in the concise, melodic structure of a pop song, and Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic captures him at his best. What's most surprising about the demo, however, is that he had the melody and lyrics completely in place a full five years before the song was officially released, which begs the question of why he waited so long to record it. In any case, the demo does make Police Academy a historical curiosity worth exploring for hardcore Police fans, even if it is the only worthwhile music on the album.