Zenyatta Mondatta Revisited-tta

The Police
Zenyatta Mondatta
A&M; 1980

Usually dismissed as the weakest album in the small Police discography, Zenyatta Mondatta is also distinguished for being the only Police album not to make Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” But what does Rolling Stone know anyway? Zenyatta Mondatta is certainly no Outlandos D’Amouror Synchronicity,but I think it captures the trio in their purest and most distinctivephase. Shedding the punkier aspects found on their first two albums, Zenyatta Mondatta finds Sting, Summers, and Copeland fully embracing previous dalliances with reggae and exploring the inimitable atmospherics that mark its direct followup, Ghost in the Machine. And apart from classics like “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” and “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” it’s also got crackers like “Driven to Tears,” the impossibly bouncy “Canary in a Coalmine,” and “Man in a Suitcase,” which makes its case in an incredible two minutes and nineteen seconds. If that weren’t enough, it also boasts “When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What’s Still Around,” “Voices Inside My Head,” and “Shadows in the Rain.” If the album gets a bad rap, it’s probably because of its rushed feel (it was recorded in four weeks), the simplistic Copeland-penned “Bombs Away,” and two plodding instrumentals. But even one of those — Summers’ “Behind My Camel” — won a Grammy in 1982. That Zenyatta Mondatta since been reassessed as a masterpiece was a long time coming. – P. Thorpe