ewe2
23-02-2006, 07:24 AM
Walked out this morning
Don’t believe what I saw
A hundred billion bottles
Washed up on the shore
Seems I’m not alone at being alone
A hundred billion castaways
Looking for a home -- Message In A Bottle
Punk and reggae have always been odd bedfellows. The ska movement drowned in its own quest for authenticity, and the punkish reggae that the Clash epitomised ran out of steam. The Police jumped where the others stumbled and simply used punk and reggae as elements in an original rock/pop sound. This album is where those elements were tested out and merged. For some reason this hasn't dated.
Like many transitional albums those elements are a stasis between past and future. It's safe to say the punkish or more conventional rock elements are dying out here while the smoother funk-reggae elements are taking over the Police habitat. But this is to ignore the music's vitality and the sense of immediacy from the deliberate simplifications necessary for a three-piece band to fill the musical space.
Copeland's unique drumming style was crucial (as was his brother's management of the band), a cross between North African and Jamaican rhythms so powerful it enabled Sting to pare his basslines down to the minimum giving Andy Summers a lot of space to fill behind Stings freakishly high vocals. It's one reason why the punky rock had to go: it led to a dead end.
Message In A Bottle clearly shows this new direction with a rocker chorus but the reggae-like verses. Reggatta de Blanc (continuing Sting's obsession with French) describes the new vision in its entirety: who even needs words with this kind of space? We drop back to more conventional territory with It's Alright For You but zoom back to the new world with Bring On The Night, with challenging rhythmic verses (and the loudest rhythm guitar mix) and an infectious reggae chorus. Deathwish goes even further into future territory (and Sting's frankly emo subject matter) with slap-back verses and contrasting double-time choruses.
Walking On The Moon brings all this together in one beautiful pop moment. Clever drum delay and those wonderful chiming guitars are the perfect backdrop to the hypnotic bassline. The spell is broken by On Any Other Day amusingly penned by Stewart Copeland:
My wife has burned the scrambled eggs
The dog just bit my leg
My teenage daughter ran away
My fine young son has turned out gay
but is still ponderously heavy-handed. Sting rescues proceedings with the perfect Bed's Too Big Without You, which can only be described as Arab reggae and the transformation is essentially complete. We're left only to mop up the last remnants of the former direction in Contact and No Time This Time the last thrasher. Does Everyone Stare is a separate case, clearly in a no-mans land between conventional pop and the new Police sensibility. In some ways it musically belongs to later albums but the lyrics still peg it back to classic Sting emo, which gets rather tiresome.
The production varies wildly in quality: the last-mentioned song was carefully constructed and produced, but even Message In A Bottle could have done with a much cleaner job. In fact it seems that the more space inherent in the composition, the better the engineer did which suggests less than perfect equipment. This was lucky on Walking On The Moon for example.
Regatta de Blanc, the reggae for whites is a mixed bag then, full of promise and a few classics, and its really not the fault of the other songs that they sound tame next to them. More than half of the album stands up today and for a band who were just on the cusp of really making it, that's no mean achievement.
Don’t believe what I saw
A hundred billion bottles
Washed up on the shore
Seems I’m not alone at being alone
A hundred billion castaways
Looking for a home -- Message In A Bottle
Punk and reggae have always been odd bedfellows. The ska movement drowned in its own quest for authenticity, and the punkish reggae that the Clash epitomised ran out of steam. The Police jumped where the others stumbled and simply used punk and reggae as elements in an original rock/pop sound. This album is where those elements were tested out and merged. For some reason this hasn't dated.
Like many transitional albums those elements are a stasis between past and future. It's safe to say the punkish or more conventional rock elements are dying out here while the smoother funk-reggae elements are taking over the Police habitat. But this is to ignore the music's vitality and the sense of immediacy from the deliberate simplifications necessary for a three-piece band to fill the musical space.
Copeland's unique drumming style was crucial (as was his brother's management of the band), a cross between North African and Jamaican rhythms so powerful it enabled Sting to pare his basslines down to the minimum giving Andy Summers a lot of space to fill behind Stings freakishly high vocals. It's one reason why the punky rock had to go: it led to a dead end.
Message In A Bottle clearly shows this new direction with a rocker chorus but the reggae-like verses. Reggatta de Blanc (continuing Sting's obsession with French) describes the new vision in its entirety: who even needs words with this kind of space? We drop back to more conventional territory with It's Alright For You but zoom back to the new world with Bring On The Night, with challenging rhythmic verses (and the loudest rhythm guitar mix) and an infectious reggae chorus. Deathwish goes even further into future territory (and Sting's frankly emo subject matter) with slap-back verses and contrasting double-time choruses.
Walking On The Moon brings all this together in one beautiful pop moment. Clever drum delay and those wonderful chiming guitars are the perfect backdrop to the hypnotic bassline. The spell is broken by On Any Other Day amusingly penned by Stewart Copeland:
My wife has burned the scrambled eggs
The dog just bit my leg
My teenage daughter ran away
My fine young son has turned out gay
but is still ponderously heavy-handed. Sting rescues proceedings with the perfect Bed's Too Big Without You, which can only be described as Arab reggae and the transformation is essentially complete. We're left only to mop up the last remnants of the former direction in Contact and No Time This Time the last thrasher. Does Everyone Stare is a separate case, clearly in a no-mans land between conventional pop and the new Police sensibility. In some ways it musically belongs to later albums but the lyrics still peg it back to classic Sting emo, which gets rather tiresome.
The production varies wildly in quality: the last-mentioned song was carefully constructed and produced, but even Message In A Bottle could have done with a much cleaner job. In fact it seems that the more space inherent in the composition, the better the engineer did which suggests less than perfect equipment. This was lucky on Walking On The Moon for example.
Regatta de Blanc, the reggae for whites is a mixed bag then, full of promise and a few classics, and its really not the fault of the other songs that they sound tame next to them. More than half of the album stands up today and for a band who were just on the cusp of really making it, that's no mean achievement.