The Police
Zenyatta Mondatta

THE REVIEW

Well, I boldly review perhaps the weakest point in the Police's production. Perhaps. Because in this album, you can find very interesting cues and notable gems.

After the great worldwide success of Reggatta, the Police found themselves playing for a world tour of considerable size (Police Around The World, if someone helps me find this rare video, I thank them...). Success, covers, lights: the band perhaps begins to "unravel", Sting finds himself catapulted into the star system, and his creative streak suffers from it. And yet... despite the inevitable dilution heard in the tracks of this album, it's worth pointing out true "classics" of undisputed quality.
"Driven To Tears" is a little gem in dub, with a bitter lyric and a Summers solo that testifies to recent re-frequentations with his friend Fripp. Copeland is always a guarantee, a true "lord" of the cymbals. "When The World..." follows closely: a disorienting funky, with an insistent rhythmic march, and the guitar... we're always there, Summers manages with just three, super-harmonized chords to create a fabulous harmonic base. "Voices..." seems to be a faded copy of "Reggatta De Blanc", an anthem which, when listened to carefully, reveals a pretty decent tribal march.
Two reggae-ska episodes, cute but rather weak ("Canary In A Coalmine" and "Man In A Suitcase"), the sadly famous "De du du du...", definitely represent the weakest point of the album: little pop tunes thrown in without much thought, and without notable arrangements.
The album greatly improves with "Shadows In The Rain": a fantastic dub track, with a reverberated sound that envelops everything, doing some justice to the inventive capabilities of the trio. You even hear a stick strike from Copeland, perhaps a mistake (deliberately left?).

All in all, an album that if it had been conceived and produced more calmly, or perhaps without pressures from the record label, could have yielded better results. Let's say an unfinished work...