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Copeland pounds out intricate polyrhythms on the drums while Sting provides the driving bass line and vocal chant, and Andy Summers lays down echoic guitar chords overtop to create an amazing sound collage. “Reggatta de Blanc” won The Police the 1980 Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance and it is easy to see why when listening. Stewart Copeland brings his drumming to the forefront on this album with his loose yet technically brilliant playing on songs like “Walking On The Moon,” “Contact,” and the title track “Reggatta de Blanc.” The cymbal work on “Contact” and “Walking On The Moon” is nothing short of extraordinary, as Copeland mixes complex rhythms on the cymbals and drum fills with his inherent metronome on the kick and snare drums.

The instrumentation by The Police is superb on Reggatta de Blanc. The Police further mix their punk rock roots with reggae and jazz influences to create an album that has great variety in song structure and feeling while retaining the energy of their previous album. The classic opening guitar line in the single “Message In A Bottle” is enough to draw the listener in and keep them interested for the whole 42 minute album. The Police’s second album, 1979’s Reggatta de Blanc, improves in almost every way upon their debut Outlandos d’Amour with catchy riffs and slick reggae grooves, coupled with superb instrumentation and lyrics. I show that the resultant interplay among the various topics in such hybrid songs not only enriches the musical language, but also amplifies the song’s overall message.Review Summary: Reggatta de Blanc stands the test of time as one of the greatest albums of the post-punk and new wave era, improving in almost every way upon The Police's debut album. While some songs (such as “The Bed’s Too Big Without You”) remain true to the reggae style throughout, others (such as “Roxanne” and “Spirits in the Material World”) wrestle between two or more conflicting styles. Second, I demonstrate these topics at work through detailed analyses of selected individual tracks. Taken together, this catalog of musical devices could be viewed as a kind of “Universe of Style” for the Police’s music. First, I identify a number of specific musical devices-or “topics,” after Leonard Ratner-each of which has come to be associated with a particular style or affect, either from within or outside of pop and rock.

Formed in London in 1977, a particularly turbulent year in the history of British pop, this groundbreaking trio-consisting of drummer Stewart Copeland, bassist, lead vocalist, and main composer Sting, and guitarist Andy Summers-fused elements of reggae, punk, prog, and jazz, among others, to create a hybrid style that was uniquely their own. Author(s): Mark Spicer (see profile) Date: 2010 Group(s): Society for Music Theory – Popular Music Interest Group Subject(s): Music theory, Popular music Item Type: Book chapter Tag(s): Popular Music Studies Permanent URL: Abstract: In this essay, I present a methodology for analyzing style in pop and rock that confronts the issue of stylistic eclecticism, focusing on a body of work that offers a particularly interesting case study in this regard, namely the music of the Police.