Reggatta de Blanc by The Police

Reggatta de Blanc, the Police's second album, hit the racks on A&M in October 1979, and it's the sound of a band that has found its angle and means to work it to the bone. The title is mangled French for "White Reggae", their second Franglais gag after the 1978 debut Outlandos d'Amour, and it doubles as a mission statement: an English band taking the loping, spacious pulse of reggae and wiring it to a jittery, wound-up nervous system. Nigel Gray and Stewart Copeland are credited as producers.

It's a lean record full of air. The guitar chops and hangs, the bass bounces, the drums skitter all over the offbeat. "Message in a Bottle" rides a guitar figure that won't let go of you, and "Walking on the Moon" drifts along on so much empty space you could park a truck in it. Those two gave the band its first pair of UK number-one singles, and the album became their first to top the UK Albums Chart. Even the title track, an instrumental romp, walked off with their first Grammy, for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

It beat its predecessor on every count that matters, and in early 1980 it was reissued in the States as a pair of 10-inch discs, one album side apiece, along with a collector's edition that came with a poster of the band.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.