914. The Police / Zenyatta Mondatta. 1980. 3/5

I didn't listen to Zenyattà Mondatta until a number of years after its original release, and well after I had discovered the two albums that followed this, Ghost in the Machine and Synchronicity. I do remember when I first sat down and listened to the entire album, and that I was... well... disappointed. It wasn't what I imagined it would be, stuck right in the middle between what the band once was, and then what the band became.

I have spent the majority of my The Police listening time in the last week or so taking in this album again. Not because it is my favourite, but because of their five studio releases it was always the one I was unsure of, and I wanted to be sure how I felt about it when it came to reviewing it. At the end of that time, as I sit here and compose this review, has anything really changed?
The songs that still don't sit well with me aren't as inflamed as they once were. I can accept that songs such as "Driven to Tears" and "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" are portents as to what was coming in new wave and what had been in long formless experimental instrumental pieces with lyrics almost being dropped in on a whim. The elements of reggae still exist, but perhaps in lessening degrees. In many ways you need to be in a certain mood to take way this album is recorded. Take "Voices Inside My Head", which really just uses one riff from Andy and the same solid drumbeat from Stewart and then meanders along for the better part of four minutes with very little change.
The better parts of the album still have a more marketable vibe which are highlighted by Sting getting higher in his vocal range while Andy and Stewart both throw in more of their better off-the-cuff licks and rolls which add glamour to each track. The single "Don't Stand So Close To Me", "Bombs Away", "Canary in a Coalmine" and "Man In A Suitcase" are the best examples of this on Zenyattà Mondatta.
I've more or less always been less than enamoured with "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da". It's okay, and I will pretty much always sing along with it when I hear it, but as a great song I'd much prefer those songs already mentioned above. "Behind My Camel" reminds me a lot of music passages from Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds, while the album also concludes with "Shadows in the Rain" and another instrumental "The Other Way of Stopping", neither of which endear me with any great enthusiasm.

I struggle in Zenyattà Mondatta even now. Sure, I can listen to it and I enjoy about half of it as I would any other of The Police's albums, but the other half still bugs me. Meh. You can't be completely brilliant all the time, and the style of the band was evolving no doubt, and it turns out that I just don't connect as well to this part of it.

Rating:  "Must I be a man in a suitcase".  3/5