Police Gave Rock Global Perspective

In 1979, the Police were one of the first bands of their generation to look at the world abroad and see things going wrong. Bored with contemplating suburban English snobbery and the timeworn love-gone-wrong themes, the trio once dubbed the hottest band in the world finally began to wonder about its place in it, and set off on an unbeaten path toward rock 'n' roll globalism.

By the time the Police burst onto the London scene in late 1977, they were already too old and too sophisticated to be punks. Sting had been an English teacher and played in jazz bands. Stewart Copeland had played drums with art-rockers Curved Air. Guitarist Andy Summers, who was nearly 10 years older than his mates, had professional roots reaching back into the '60s: Zoot Money, Kevin Ayers and the Animals. They were all accomplished musicians who could play competently, even expertly, and their abilities made them suspect. Punk values lay elsewhere. The Police were intelligent, well-read, ambitious and relatively sober men.

And though their first two albums, both brimming with hit singles and catchy hooks, showed some allegiance to punk by way of reggae- infused and jazz-inflected rock, their full potential as a band was not realized until "Zenyatta Mondatta." In 1979, the band toured the world for the first time, or as Sting said at the time, "the world and elsewhere," including dates throughout Asia and the Indian subcontinent. On tour, the problems of poverty, human rights abuses, despotism and militarism came into the band's collective view through train and taxi cab windows, from hotel balconies, on television and in the papers, even from onstage.

Copeland, the son of a CIA station chief, had lived all over the Middle East and Asia in his youth and served as the group's de facto guide through this period of discovery, bringing political insight to questions about social problems. The political realities were indeed severe. The Cold War was at its peak. The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan to suppress a jihadist insurgency (that the United States funded, armed and trained) in an adventure that became a communist mirror of Vietnam.

In Iran, a reactionary Islamic revolution overthrew a corrupt Western- backed regime, became a repressive religious state and held 90 hostages, 53 of them American, for more than a year. Peace between Egypt and Israel was attained. There was snow in the Sahara and strange explosions in the waters of the South Atlantic.

Upon returning to the studio after the tour, the band broadened its focus and recorded "Zenyatta Mondatta." The album charted three singles, went to No. 5 in the United States in 1980 and snagged two Grammy Awards. Though overshadowed by massive hits three years later, critics and fans almost always list "Zenyatta Mondatta" as the group's crowning achievement.

In particular, the Middle East and Central Asia figured into many of "Zenyatta's" strongest tracks. On the slow, funky "Shadows in the Rain," Sting's faraway voice echoes as if through a desert canyon, while Summers sketches angular sounds on his electronically morphed guitar, referencing Middle Eastern instruments like the oud. Summers' own Grammy-winning instrumental, "Behind My Camel," takes things a step further, with his scales hearkening an Islamic call to prayer.

"Bombs Away" paints the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan as clueless interlopers, and their in-country supporters as willing tools. Summers' solo again features Eastern-sounding scales played with Western rock gravitas. And for a bit of comic relief, Copeland's bouncing "Man in a Suitcase" parodies the life of a rocker on the road, complete with the voice of a French airport intercom.

For the first time, a band was noticeably searching for something outside the dated hippie ideology and recognizing the futility of remaining static. "Zenyatta's" most fully realized tune is Sting's tense blues- reggae hybrid "Driven to Tears." The song was inspired by television images of famine abroad. He sings from the perspective of a journalist recording the nightmare of famine. "Too many cameras and not enough food/This is what we've seen," he sings. "Protest is futile/Nothing seems to get through/What's to become of our world/Who knows what to do."

No other group of the Police's generation was singing about global problems with such intelligence and sophistication. Only the Clash came close. Just about every star-studded benefit in rockdom, from Live Aid to Live 8, can trace an unbroken, ever-blooming path back to the global consciousness championed by the Police. This year's massive Police reunion tour benefits WaterAid, a nongovernmental aid agency that funds clean-water access and sanitation projects in developing countries. The tour stops at Hersheypark Stadium Friday night.

The band explored human rights issues further on "Ghost in the Machine," the dancy, horn-laden follow-up to "Zenyatta," on songs like "Rehumanize Yourself," "Invisible Sun" and "One World (Not Three)." But personalities clashed, sidetracking the band's momentum, and their best-selling 1983 album, "Synchronicity," once again looked inward.

After the final show on the 1986 Amnesty International Human Rights Now Tour at Giants Stadium, the Police were ready to call it quits. No one had said so publicly, but the band knew it. In one of the most touching, if contrived, moments in rock history, the Police, still onstage, unceremoniously turned over their instruments to the members of U2 at the close of their performance. Today, U2 is the most prominent rock group in the world and, by any estimation, the standard-bearer of progressive ideals in rock music. Looking back, no one can deny the symbolism, or the absolute rightness, of the passing of that torch.