RECORDS: THE POLICE

(One thing's for certain: the Police sure have funny album titles! Zenyatta Mondatta. Outlandos D’Amour.../f sounds like you're back in your high school foreign language class! Printed below are the official CREEM reviews of those silly-titled Police LPs Since the band has four 12-inch pieces of vinyl to its credit, we didn't have to dig back very far Regatta de Blanc, the boys' second LP. was originally missed by CREEM. so J. Kordosh was kind enough to review the LP especially for this special edition. Otherwise the original CREEM review is reprinted below, with running date duly noted. — Ed.)

THE POLICE Regatta de Blanc

_(A&M)_

Well, well, a second three-week masterpiece from the Police. Good of them to take the time, wot? Not only that, A&M’s released Regatta in a limited edition 10” set (2 discs), just in case you want to hear a “little” music.

Despite some obvious filler, this is a generally good album, though, dotted with peaks and valleys. Here’s a handy scorecard, starting at the summit and working our way down:

(1) Sting, whose voice just might’ve kept the Titanic floating. It’s not completely fair to say this is his album. Actually, it’s mine—I bought it and I’m gonna keep it. He’s probably got a copy, too.

(2) “Message In A Bottle." Odd, perhaps, that de Best of de Blanc happens exactly 33 seconds into the LP (going by my pulse, probably a mite slow.) This is where they go into the bridge of the year, “I’ll send an SOS to the world " A clever build, complete with one note piano for listeners who wax sentimental over the Stooges. Plus a guitar riff lifted from “Don’t Fear The Reaper,” for listeners who wax sentimental over endangered wheat fields.

(3) Andy Summers. The Handy One keeps his profile low, occasionally losing a song in the sun (“Bring On The Night”) but redeeming himself on the jazzbo “The Bed’s Too Big Without You.”

(4) “Walking On The Moon.” Easily the #2 number, this stilted and sparse toon is just sick enough (in a happy-go-lucky way, of course) to make it. Summers gets a truly rare chance to play like the Kinks on Quaaludes, something no musician should retire without. Sting wrote it when he was drunk. I guessed.

(5)Stewart Copeland. Stu does some good drumming here, most of it at the ends of songs, particularly the fake endings of “No Time This Time.” Unfortunately, he’s a godawful songwriter, proving it on “It’s Alright For You” (co-writ w/Sting), a song that’s been penned 3,821 times since 1956 and sounds almost exactly like Burton Cummings singing' “Pump It Up” this time around. Hey, I guess it has some redeeming value at that. No excuse for “Contact,” though, which is strictly from The Joanie & Chachi School of Dribble, on “On Any Other Day.”

There’s a fair share of other .good stuff in the phase shifted 'ticky-tack of Regatta, most of it contributed by Sting. His knack of writing straightforward lyrics (e.g., “Seems I’m not alone bein’ alone”) is not to be taken lightly because it’s a lot tougher than it seems. At least, I think it is.

Otherwise, the reggae element I’ve avoided mentioning so far is not that big of a much on Regatta (a/k/a Speedy Gonzales Does London). This isn’t reggae; what do you think, a bunch of white popsters are gonna start playing a patently derivative Jamaican form (that’s reggae) so they can sell 100,000 albums and be a big deal (that’s reggae, too)? Copeland just changes half of each song (as Regarda de Beat) and Sting adds the word “Oh” at the end of every sentence enough times to put up a good front.

Reggae fans will, of course, buy reggae; pop fans will buy the Police. What about the title, you ask? Hey, a regatta’s a boat race, for Christ’s sake. The White Boat Race. Kinda has a ring, huh?

J. Kordosh

THE POLICE Zenyatta Mondatta

_(A&M)_

The Police are a phenomenally successful, modem pop band in a classic mold. They’re witty, inventive, charismatic, and possess a unique vocal and instrumental style. They’ve even staked out their own turf, a sensual bleached-reggae combining exotic Jamaican rhythms with accessible English pop song structures. Yet, the Police are constantly maligned in the press for their “homogenized” new wave sound. Not that a group in their position might acknowledge a few hack critics, but this band has yet to make the album their lofty sales or even their vast potential might indicate. Once you skim off the hits, you’re left with uninspired though well-crafted filler.

Zenyatta Mondatta does contain the hits though. “Don’t Stand Too Close” is impossibly catchy in the style of “Roxanne” and “Message In A Bottle.” Sting reveals his academic roots in this tale of classroom seduction, including a sly reference to Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita. The top 20 single, “Da Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” is resplendent in its inarticulate simplicity, an 80’s version of “Doo Wah Diddy.” My favorite track, though, is the upbeat “Canary In A Coalmine” and obvious follow-up single. Check this one for Sting’s cutest vocal performance yet.

A major factor in the Police’s rise to stardom is their crafty management, who pulled a brilliant publicity ploy in sending the band (along with the world press) to India and Egypt for the first live rock concerts in those third world countries. It might have raised the rock community’s consciousness, but the resultant songs are not exactly the shining stars of the album. “Behind My Camel” is a one idea instrumental that sounds great for half a minute before wearing thin. “Voices In My Head” serves as a new wave mood piece should anyone care for one, while “Bombs Away,” apart from some hot Andy Summers riffing and lyrical references to Bombay and Afghanistan, could be an outtake from Outlandos d'Amour, the first Police record.

Yet the album is a worldwide smash. A good deal of credit for that lies in the beautiful production job by Nigel Gray and the band itself; a sparsh, yet lush sound in the 1980’s style the band helped to originate. This is achieved through precise and imaginative playing, where each member occupies his own sonic space without intruding on the other’s territory, bass and drums creating a relentless dance beat, while Andy Summers’ effects laden guitar provides rhythmic color. The Police are here to stay; let’s just hope the classic album this band deserves to make is their next one.

Andy Shernoff March 1981

THE POLICE Ghost In The Machine (A&M)

Garry Ahrenberg couldn’t get into the Police, an esthetic predeliction that caused him no small amount of derisive peer pressure. When his buddies—and, worse, Darla Frakiss, the girl who distracted him almost to the point of swooning in Trig 304—piled into Jim’s van and hightailed it to Philadelphia for the outdoor Police show last summer, Garry stayed behind in Dover, New Jersey. “I don’t see trios in stadiums,” he proclaimed. “Your loss,” Jim shouted, as Darla squeezed into the seat next to him, loopy from the batch of pre-trip margaritas.

“Wait,” Garry muttered to himself as he watched Hill Street Blues, “next thing you know, the Police’ll cut a Christmas album with Rupert Holmes: Pinata Colada. ”

Come October, the gang all rushed to buy Ghost In The Machine (well, Kirk Chatsworth rushed to buy it; everyone else rushed to buy Maxell blank cassettes: the artwork sucked anyway, and there was no necessary info on the cover or the sleeve). Garry withheld judgement. He likes “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” fine, but then again he’d also liked “Message In A Bottle” and “Da Do Do Do” (especially in Spanish, but even more by the guy on SCTV) yet found the respective albums otherwise tedious.

Soon, the sound of the new Police LP was wafting through the schoolyard, blasting from Discovery record store at the mini-mall, a fixture at weekend sleaze-blasts. “I’m so tired of the omega man,” Sting sang. Garry was singularly unimpressed. “You will see the light in the darkness,” Sting sang. “Lasarium music,” Garry sang. “Too ambitious, too simple-minded. Not unpeppy, though. I’ll give them that.”

One lunch period around Columbus Day—the school chef made a Spanish-Italian Special, a pizzarito—Jim, with a concerned look on his face, sidled up to Garry. “When’re you going to get cool, pal? Been bad-mouthing the Police again.”

“Cool?” Garry sputtered. “Coo/? Hey, I’m not into one-upmanship, but when my cousin Charles sent me the 'Can’t Stand Losing You’

single from London, you turkeys called it ‘reggae-punk garbage.’ A few months later, you were 'Raahxann’ing all over the place. True or false?”

“Well, true, I suppose, but—”

“Nothing. Look, like whomever you like, all right? But you have to admit that this Ghost In The Machine thing is as lame as Grandpappy Amos. The Police get pedantic. 'Spirit In The Material World’? ‘Darkness’? 'Invisible Man’?

‘Secret Journey’? What is this? Hawkwind? Snoozearama city, pal."

“So why is WBDR on it so heavy?"

“Brain Damage Radio. Doesn’t that tell you something? They fit right in there, right alongside Stevie Nicks, Journey and Genesis. What can I say? It leaves me cold. Sounds impersonal. Let’s drop it.”

“Looky there," Jim said, and Garry’s head swiveled to catch

Darla bopping in the aisle. Walkman II riding on the succulent slope fo her hip, headphones resting on her sleek black hair. “Go talk to her, Garry. Tell her you want to raise her rock consciousness. Tell her she’s dancing to the wrong beat." Jim got up. “Pm going to the vendomat. Wanna cupcake?”

“Funny guy. This year, she’s rriine. Watch.” Garry brushed the crumbs from his denim jacket and walked over to Darla’s wall.

“Hi,” he managed to eek out. “Hi.”

“J’aurais toujours faim de tois."

“What’s that?”

“That means, '1 am always hungry for you.’ It’s from the Police album. You know. Great track. 1 thought their early albums were pretty much out there, but this one’s really melodic and, um—”

“Progressive.”

"Progressive, that’s it. Hey, did you hear the b-side of the single? It isn’t on the album, and I happen to have a copy at home, and I was kind of thinking, well...”

Mitchell Cohen January 1982

POLICE 45 DISCOGRAPHY

Nothing Achieving b/w Fallout (Illegal Records IL 001 U.K. only)

Roxanne b/w Dead End Job (A&M AM 2096)

Can’t Stand Losing You b/w No Time This Time (A&M AM 2147) Message In A Bottle b/w Landlord (A&M AM 2190)

Bring On The Night b/w Visions Of The Night (A&M AM 2218)

De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da b/w Friends (A&M AM 2275)

Don’t Stand So Close To Me b/w A Sermon (A&M AM 2301)

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic b/w Shambelle (A&M AM 2371) Spirits In The Material World b/w Flexible Strategies (A&M AM 2390)

Spirits In The Material World b/w Secret Journey (12")

(A&M AM 17182)

Forget Me Not" 45 Series

Roxanne b/w Can’t Stand Losing You (A&M AM 8622)

De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da b/w Don’t Stand So Close To Me

(A&M AM 86311