The Police - Zenyattà Mondatta (1980)
Considered by some to be the fifth-place-out-of-five-studio-albums effort (and by others to be "one of the best rocks albums EVAH"), Zenyattà Mondatta finds The Police somewhere amongst their polished punk-ska origins, their New Wave heights and their adult contemporary Sting-BS demise. I.e., they're already rock stars, so the exuberant ragged youth that framed their early album is fairly well gone, but they're not quite the smooth-edged pop machine that would deliver the uberslick Synchronicity. And Sting was nowhere near waxing pansily about fields of sunshine yet. :) The consequence is a heterogeneous album that blends a lot of styles while sticking to the general Police aesthetic of Sting's glossy vocals, splashy, effect-laden but quite clean guitars, and upfront, catchy melodies against an intricate-interplay backdrop of a super-talented drum-bass-guitar trio. (Seriously, as pop-immediate as The Police's song-writing chops were, the mere fact that this alleged punk-ska would-be band was so damn dexterous and inventive with their instruments made them stand out, too). It's a thoroughly intriguing listen thanks to the off-kilter mystique it generates by its genre-variation, and even if it is limited in its delivery of the normal Police hits avalanche, that just makes it a *relative* gem.
Not an avalanche, sure, but that's not to say hits aren't there. The album opener, "Don't Stand So Close to Me," is a cinematic piece that might as well taunt other albums with its economy of lyrics. With a dark mood that starts with a lower-range vocal from Sting over buzzing synths and escalates to his usual falsetto fireworks, this epitome-of-the-New-Wave-pop-sound tune relays the story of an illicit teacher-student near relationship. The song is almost anxiety-provoking - its upbeat chorus clash jarringly with the mood that the verses set, and this content-tone mismatch only adds to the taboo-tension. The tune is quick but extraordinarily memorable, even before you read a little and learn that Sting used to be a schoolteacher. Hmmm...
The other hit* from the album, "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da," tensely rides another excellent guitar pattern as it loosely riffs on the inanity of meaningless speech (particularly of politicians, but also of ... wait for it ... pop songs). If any song is guilty of Beck's most-hated Police-sin - that of endlessly repeated choruses - this is the one. You *could* argue that this is meta-commentary at its finest, the meaningless tune about meaningless tunes, a sort of genius in simplicity ... or you could argue that such a point is pretty trite and just gets annoying after a few listens. I tend to the latter, willing to grant Sting a little koan-capture in his ode to pop-babble.
* - Both of these hits have questionable lyrics that prick my ears every time. "DDDD,DDDD" is the only pop song this side of a Nirvana album to liberally use the word "rape(s)." "DSSCtM" has the all-time awful couplet of "He starts to shake, he starts to cough / Just like the old man in that book by Nabokov." It's a terrible rhyme regardless, but more than that, it's a painfully obvious allusion and cheapens the song quite a bit. Not to mention the inconrguities between "Mr. Stung" and Humbert Humbert - other than the generalized pedophiliac content, it's not clear that these two men really have all that much in common. So the two big swingers on this album have their issues, one thing that holds it back a little for me.
The non-hits accent this album well, though again, noticeably not as well as other Police albums*. The band engages in some you-thought-the-English-Beat-was-hoppy,eh? oneupmansship with the infectious beats (sorry) of both "Canary in a Coalmine" and "Man in a Suitcase." Ska pop YEAH! "Driven to Tears" is a classic Police reverb-drenched suite that boasts a filthy, angular guitar solo, and "Bombs Away" plays with bell tones and sing-songy choruses underneath its overtly political lyrics. "When the World..." is a Eastern-influxed three chord meditation, accomplishing more on the tenth listen than the first, and a cool bit of minimalist songwriting. "Shadows in the Rain," another bit of world music that dances all over a central circular bass riff, is a surprise highlight of the disc, another meditative work that displays the notion that the power of the trio did not lie solely in Sting's popcraft.
* - This may be a bizarre association that applies to only the Nyetverse, but I really feel a lot of these early '80s albums carry the shared mark of showing one or two tracks that are legitimate standouts and several other songs that maintain a special status for those born in approximately 1967. It's not just that, it's a certain sparse production aesthetic that I associate with New Wave that ties them together, but really, a lot of these B-sides benefit greatly from their context. I swear I've heard arguments from that demographic that e.g. "Man in a Suitcase" is genius in how it retells the classic rocker-on-the-road-blues narrative, but methinks this is playing the "rock achieved perfection when I was in middle school" card a little too strongly. I mean, it's a catchy enough ska-bumper, but genius? I don't see it - I think that classic status as a lot more to do with the band and the era that song qua song. I digress...
The rest of the disc is fleshed out with three not-entiurely-melodic, dark instrumentals* (a routine feature of Police albums) that don't entirely measure up to past efforts (even though one did win a Grammy). That one, "Behind My Camel," is particularly strident and disrupts affairs a bit. They're solid, film score-esque entries, but it's clear that the pop machine engaged in some album-filling from time to time. Again, I'm no instrumental-basher, and other Police instrumental entries are fantastic, but these reek of a quick album production time.
* Quasi-instrumental, whatever - "Voices in My Head" contains a chant, sure.
I think the characterization of ZM as a relatively weak Police disc is a fair one and one that carries the automatic caveat that relatively bad Police is pretty interesting, cool stuff by normal standards. It is definitely shwank to hear the band in transition and basically grab-bagging from the world's genre supply (hence "Mondatta") while on tour. I'm not sure that they really "make it their own," but they do channel it well. It's a nice document of the mixed bag that their music could be, both stylistically and qualitiatively, and well worth your investigation. And just to drop a final emphasis, be sure to give those backup songs time - they're not going to grab you by the face like other efforts, and close-listening reveals a lot going on in the seemingly limited three person dynamic.
Status: Recommended (solid)
Nyet's Fave: "Canary in a Coalmine." SKA!
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