History Music / ZenyattaMondatta

-->--'''"Don't Stand So Close to Me"'''

''Zenyattà Mondatta'', released in 1980, is the third album by English-American PostPunk[=/=]NewWaveMusic band Music/ThePolice. Recorded in four weeks during the leadup to their second tour, the album marks the start of a shift away from the {{reggae}} fusion sound of ''Music/OutlandosDAmour'' and ''Music/ReggattaDeBlanc'' in favor of a more atmospheric, electronic-friendly style that would grow increasingly prominent on their following two records. For tax reasons, the band moved recordings away from their regular Surrey Sound studio and moved over to Wisseloord Studios in the Netherlands, bringing along producer Nigel Gray for the ride and on a still-modest budget of £35,000 (the majority of which was spent on rehiring Gray).

** The first one, produced for the 1980 version, is one of their standard "the band sing and muck about a room" videos, themed around a classroom setting in reference to the lyrics.

''Zenyattà Mondatta'' was supported by two singles: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da".

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The album title mixes "Zen" (as in Buddhism) with "Kenyatta" (as in the president of UsefulNotes/{{Kenya}}), the French word ''monde'' ("world"), and the title of their previous album, ''Music/ReggattaDeBlanc''. Oh, and an meaningless diacritic. It's evocative of the band's world-music-inspired sound, but that's it.

* WordSaladTitle: In an interview, Stewart Copeland explained that the album title came from a series of {{portmanteau}}s: the first word comes from Zen and the name of Kenyan leader Jomo Kenyatta, while the latter is a combination of the Italian word for "world" and a nod to their earlier ''Music/ReggattaDeBlanc''.

[[caption-width-right:350:''You live you life like a canary in a coalmine\\

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The album title mixes "Zen" (as in Buddhism) with "Kenyatta" (as in the president of UsefulNotes/{{Kenya}}) and the French word ''monde'' ("world"). Oh, and an meaningless diacritic. It's evocative of the band's world-music-inspired sound, but that's it.

* SanitySlippageSong: "Shadows in the Rain", narrated by an asylum patient who repeatedly asserts that he's mentally stable despite being delusional and lacking the ability to form long-term memories.

* SuddenlyShouting: The first verse of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" is sung by Sting at his lower register. The last line adds a second track with him singing the same line a full octave higher, giving this impression. The remainder of the song is at that octave and even higher, perhaps to emphasize the impropriety of the situation.

* SuddenlyShouting: The first verse of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" is sung by Sting at his lower register. The last line adds a second track with him singing the same line a full octave higher, giving this impression.

** "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" references "Music/JamesBrown on the ''[[Film/TAMIShow T.A.M.I. Show]]''."

** "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" namedrops Music/JamesBrown.

** The third video goes back to the 1980 version, being a holiday-themed showcase of the band riding snowmobiles in wintry Canada. This video actually was shot in 1980 concurrently with that for "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" (hence reusing the location), but remained unreleased until December 8, 2021, 41 years after its parent album came out.

** The third video goes back to the 1980 version, being a holiday-themed showcase of the band riding snowmobiles in wintry Canada. This video actually was shot in 1980 concurrently with that for "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" (hence reusing the location), but remained unreleased until December 8, 2021, forty years after its parent album came out.

* TitleOnlyChorus: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "When the World is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around" (the latter by virtue of how outrageously long the title is).

** The first one, produced for the 1980 version, is one of their standard "the band sing and muck about a room" video, themed around a classroom setting in reference to the lyrics.

* CanisLatinicus: In the video for "Don't Stand So Close to Me", the chalkboard in the classroom scenes features the schoolboy fake Latin poem "Caesar adsum jam forte / Brutus et arat / Caesar sic on omnibus / Brutus in his hat."[[note]]That is, "Caesar had some jam for tea / Brutus eat a rat / Caesar sick on omnibus / Brutus in his hat."[[/note]]

* AlternateMusicVideos: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" has three different videos:

This girl's an open pag\\

'''This girl is half his age!'''

* DarkerAndEdgier: The subject matter here grows far more bleak and mature than on their previous two albums. The first three songs alone respectively describe child sexual abuse, nihilism induced by worldwide suffering, and using escapism to avoid tense current events, and the tracks after them rarely ease up.

* DroneOfDread: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" opens with a long, deep pair of synthesized hums.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: In an interview, Sting confirmed that the teacher in "Don't Stand So Close to Me" raped his student in his "warm and dry" car, and that the end of the song depicts him being deservingly fired for this.

* TitleOnlyChorus: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "When the World is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around".

** The last verse of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" describes how the teacher, upon realizing that his sexual relationship with an underaged student is exposed, "starts to shake and cough, just like the old man in [[Literature/{{Lolita}} that book by Nabokov]]." an allusion to the controversial novel . In an interview, Sting described the novel in question as his inspiration for the song's storyline.

* SuddenlyShouting: The first verse of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" is sung at his lower register. The last line adds a second track with him singing the same line a full octave higher, giving this impression.

-->--'''"Don't Stand So Close To Me"'''

[[caption-width-right:350:''"You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line."'']]

Contrary to the band's CreatorBacklash, the album was critically acclaimed once it released. David Fricke of ''Magazine/RollingStone'' affectionately described the record as "near-perfect pop by a band that bends all the rules and sometimes makes musical mountains out of molehill-size ideas," with David Hepworth of ''Smash Hits'' praising Sting's improved vocals in particular. While Phil Sutcliffe of ''Sounds'' magazine agreed with the band that it was a step down from ''Reggatta de Blanc'', he nonetheless praised its "strength" and described it as successfully managing to avoid falling into the sense of pretention that characterized many other artists who previously reached the Police's stature. ''The Village Voice'' would go on to place the album at No. 28 on its Pazz & Jop critics' poll, and it would later take home the Grammy awards for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("Don't Stand So Close to Me") and Best Rock Instrumental Performance ("Behind My Camel"), the latter being the Police's second consecutive win in the category.

In addition to its immediate critical success, the album continued to improve the band's fortunes commercially as well, topping the charts in the UK and Australia and peaking at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. It would go on to become the second-best-selling album of 1980 in the UK and the ninth-best-selling album of 1981 in the US, where it would be certified double-platinum. It would also receive a platinum certification in the UK, Australia, Canada, France, and New Zealand, and went gold in Germany.

Since its release, ''Zenyattà Mondatta'' has only continued to receive acclaim among both fans and critics. In a retrospective review for ''[=AllMusic=]'', Greg Prato ranked it as the Police's greatest album and one of the greatest albums ever made, with J.D. Considine praising its increased sense of rhythm as a major element of the band's artistic evolution in 2004's ''The New Rolling Stone Album Guide''. In 2020, ''WebSite/AcclaimedMusic'' would list the record at No. 1105 on its [[UsefulNotes/AcclaimedMusicAllTimeTopAlbums dynamic compendium]] of the most critically lauded albums of all time. Among fans, it continues to be well-regarded as a major highlight of the band's career and a significant GrowingTheBeard moment.

* CanisLatinicus: In the video for the 1980 version of "Don't Stand So Close to Me", the chalkboard in the classroom scenes features the schoolboy fake Latin poem "Caesar adsum jam forte / Brutus et arat / Caesar sic on omnibus / Brutus in his hat."[[note]]That is, "Caesar had some jam for tea / Brutus eat a rat / Caesar sick on omnibus / Brutus in his hat."[[/note]]

Since its release, ''Zenyattà Mondatta'' has only continued to receive acclaim among both fans and critics. In a retrospective review for ''[=AllMusic=]'', Greg Prato ranked it as the Police's greatest albums and one of the greatest albums ever made, with J.D. Considine praising its increased sense of rhythm as a major element of the band's artistic evolution in 2004's ''The New Rolling Stone Album Guide''. In 2020, ''WebSite/AcclaimedMusic'' would list the record at No. 1105 on its [[UsefulNotes/AcclaimedMusicAllTimeTopAlbums dynamic compendium]] of the most critically lauded albums of all time. Among fans, it continues to be well-regarded as a major highlight of the band's career and a significant GrowingTheBeard moment.

* LastNoteNightmare: "Shadows In The Rain".

** "Driven to Tears" criticises the West's inattention towards global poverty.

* SanitySlippageSong: "Shadows in the Rain", narrated by a man who doesn't recognize that he's rapidly going insane and repeatedly asserts that he's mentally stable.

* SanitySlippageSong: "Shadows in the Rain".