The one album that Sting wants you to forget: “Most flawed”
The entire journey that The Police took throughout their career was only preparing Sting for his solo career.
Although he would have been nowhere without Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers laying down a basis for his songs, you could hear him slowly starting to find out what he wanted to be when working on tunes like ‘Walking on the Moon’ and eventually working on knockdown-dragout hits like ‘King of Pain’ and ‘Every Breath You Take’. But even if they were baby steps, not all of them were the most delicate leap forward by any stretch.
For instance, a lot of the greatest pieces of the band’s career also came with tracks like ‘Mother’ or ‘Be My Girl–Sally’. You can like the songs if you want, but considering how much more they had to offer when they played their instruments, hearing an avant-garde piece about a blow-up doll or Summers spending an entire song talking about his strained relationship with his mother while he’s on the verge of madness wasn’t exactly what the fans were clamouring for in the beginning.
But right in between the two halves of their career is Zenyatta Mondatta, which stands as one of the single strangest albums in their discography. It’s a lot easier to see its weirdness these days when you look back on singles like ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’, but whereas the few albums before that had all been about trying to get the best vibe for whatever song they were working on, this was like putting a bunch of great jam sessions next to pop marvels.
Are there still some great moments? Sure. ‘Driven to Tears’ is one of the finest jam songs that they have ever worked on, and ‘Behind My Camel’ is a decent showcase for what the band could sound like when they make a full-on instrumental. But since Sting regarded Regatta De Blanc as the best album from that period, Zenyatta was nothing but diminishing returns for them after they started to become pop darlings.
There are still places where the songs work, but aside from a handful of decent tunes, Sting always felt that the band could have given a lot more effort on this one, saying, “There are a few really good songs on ‘Zenyatta’, like ‘Driven To Tears’, ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’, ‘When The World Is Running Down’, ‘De Do Do Do…’ The rest of it you can forget. That’s our most flawed record. Surprisingly, that was also the one that made us big.” But judging by his penchant for hooks, is that really a surprise?
Regardless of the questionable subject matter, ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ is one of the best hooks that he ever made, and considering he thought enough of the tune to sing the same hook again on ‘Money for Nothing’, it’s not like he wasn’t proud of it. But you do tend to feel the push and pull a little more often on this album than what was bound to start happening only a few years down the road.
Since Sting was starting to work on songs by himself and present them to the band, like ‘Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, it was a lot easier for him to get his point across instead of resorting to jamming all the time. But then again, getting his songs written beforehand also meant that the fangs came out more often than not when he felt that Copeland was getting in the way of what he was doing or if Summers wasn’t playing certain songs exactly how they were meant to be played.
But that’s part of the charm of Zenyatta Mondatta. The band were facing down both sides of their career and making that pivot in real time, and while all records like that are going to be more than a little bit awkward in practice, it’s better to have masterpieces like ‘De Do Do Do De Da Da Da’ than for Sting to press that side of himself whenever he worked with his mates.
