Call the Police exploitative if you must, but Reggatta de Blanc's title at least shows that they can be funny as well—chilly players who are nevertheless capable of a warm, pleasurable outburst like "Roxanne." It's the old story—black music played by white faces for maximum profit—but there's a twist. Lots of Jamaicans live in Britain (another old story, colonialism), so the reggae these new-wavish enforcers have grafted onto their pop is nothing more than the exploitation of a natural resource. (p. 92)

The Police are more razor cut than dreadlocks, a cool mixture of influences—icily modern (and generally thin) lyrics, a winning sense of hard-rock dynamics …, and Sting's voice, which floats in the arrangements like bubbles in Perrier. Their detached approach to pop riffers like "Can't Stand Losing You" and "So Lonely" (from the generally rockier Outlandos d'Amour) and "Message in a Bottle" (from the overtly reggaeish new album) also mixes stylistic commitments: though driven by a new-wavish drums-guitar propulsion, the sound is rendered commercially clean by Sting's simple bass lines and arch, syncopated voice. The result is both too frenetic for mainstream rock and too clean for hard-core new wave. By being nothing to nobody, the Police can be everything to everybody.

The lyrics don't blow their cover. Instead of burnin' and lootin', their reggae complains that "The Bed's Too Big Without You," but that's only proper. And while the one-dimensional sexual attitudes that inform the lyrics can be hard to swallow, a Rastafarian it's-a-man's-world rap would hardly be an improvement. "Roxanne," which Peter Tosh reportedly adores, has the singer out to make a prostitute his girlfriend: "You don't have to put on the red light," Sting gulps and stutters, though his blase attitude toward her profession leads one to believe that, like a fickle john, he'd likely turn sour if it stopped burning incandescent for him. But that's beside the point—"Roxanne" is a song about the loose-lipped laugh that starts the tune, the choppy guitar that frames the verse, and the upbeat chorus that creates the climax. (p. 95)