{"title":"Albums","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"fields-of-gold","title":"Fields of Gold","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"They've (A\u0026amp;M) been saying that now is the time to do a greatest hits. I actually resisted it, because in a way I was thinking, 'Well, is this capitulating Shouldn't I really just do another album' Then I thought about it, and thought about the 10-year landmark.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Billboard, 10\/94\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The version of 'We'll Be Together' with Brian Loren seemed right at the time, so we shelved the Eric Clapton version. And listening back to it now, I think I like the Clapton version much better. For 'Fortress Around Your Heart', people with better ears than I have said that, sonically, it can be better. I mean, I don't have those kinds of ears - I only hear what I want to hear.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Billboard, 10\/94\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Not all the songs were huge hits, but were very successful in the longer term, and became almost standards in my repertoire. I didn't want to do an album just of the hits. I wanted it to reflect more than that, to reflect my whole 10 years.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Billboard, 10\/94\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Entertainment Extra magazine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFew performers who have been lead singers of great bands rarely transcend the greatness they achieved as part of the group. Ben E. King wasn't the same after The Drifters, Dion didn't shine as much without The Belmonts, and we all know how well Mick Jagger has fared without The Rolling Stones. But Sting - well, that's a different story. After a seemingly brief career with his \"other band,\" Sting - ego in full bloom - carted off with his bass in tow to start anew. At first, it was a rough journey. The press hounded him about why The Police disbanded, when they would permanently regroup, and why his music didn't have the same edge as it once did. Since his Police days, there haven't been any masterful pieces like 'Every Breath You Take' or 'Ghost in The Machine', or have there Pick up 'Fields of Gold' and you'll understand \"masterful\" doesn't always equate with chart-toppers. That isn't to say this greatest hits package doesn't deliver. On the contrary. From 'When We Dance' to 'Fields of Gold', 'All This Time', 'Fortress Around Your Heart' and 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You', this album is a testament to a stellar career. And unlike so many other \"greatest hits\" compilations, this one doesn't signal the end, but the first steps in the next phase of Sting's career. And it's well worth every minute of listening time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Q magazine by Jim White\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is one thing we all know about Sting: he's a joke. The source of a thousand comedy circuit gags, he's the one who spends his time trying to save things like the rain forest, the whale, the whippet. Sting, he's the funniest thing of all: a rock star with a conscience, the type of geezer who gives his fee for appearing in Hello! to a bloke with half a dinner service in his lower lip. And the other thing we all know about him is that Sting ain't what he used to be. In The Police he was a pop star, the best we had, a potent force delivering blistering reggae-tinged charts-friendly hits apparently to order. But when he lost the odd chemistry of working with a polo-loving drummer and a skirt-fancying guitarist, he blunted all his edge. He got into jazz, started surrounding himself with musicians, took himself seriously. All that stuff about turtles, hardly Roxanne, was it And what's more, these days to be half his age any girl standing too close to him would have graduated from university.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis compilation, the cream of 10 years' milking of the Sting imagination, goes a long way to proving that received wisdom is no wisdom at all. This is Sting in he's-not-bad-after-all shock territory. True, unlike last year's The Police compilation (those charitable foundations clearly need a regular royalty injection), this is not a romp through the memory banks. Only about four of these songs wheedled their way on to the collective consciousness in the way 'Walking On The Moon', say, or 'Can't Stand Losing You' did. But oddly they are the piece's weak link. There's the depressed response to a failed marriage ('If You Love Somebody Set Them Free'); there's the political commentary rendered obsolete by the historical turn of events ('Russians'); and there's the ill-conceived stab at wholly un-Sting-like campery ('Englishman In New York'). It is in the rest that the album's strength lies, in the esoteric moments when, unusually for a middle-aged former charts-topper, Sting shows no fear of experimentation. 'It's Probably Me', 'They Dance Alone', 'Fields Of Gold', 'Fragile' cover every style from Andean pipes, through flamenco guitar and head-down funk to the blue-eyed bass-fired reggae where it all began, songs performed with the unimpeachable quality you would expect from a man who can afford the pick of the session crop. And as he goes, making his points about the environment and the duplicity of politicians and his affection for his loved ones, rather than being smothered by all that talent around him, his husky falsetto seems to develop its full melancholic charge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You', for instance, the voice is constantly on the edge of its register, about to be chased up and out beyond its range. The ultimately successful manner in which it is kept reigned in complements the mournful fear of the material in a way which a Stewart Copeland drum beat never could. Maybe, listening to that moment, there is something new we will have to add to the sum of Sting knowledge. This boy has got better with age.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All Music Guide by Stephen Thomas Erlewine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEarly in his solo career, Sting defined himself as a man of taste, choosing to work with jazz musicians instead of rockers. Inevitably, this meant he walked the thin line between sophisticated pop and adult contemporary, but he did it with grace from 1985's Dream of the Blue Turtles to 1993's Ten Summoner's Tales. Unfortunately, Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting doesn't illustrate what a deft trick he pulled off with that quartet of albums. Naturally, Fields of Gold concentrates on his hit singles, just like any other greatest-hits collection, but Sting's material sounds surprisingly tame in this context. Sure, there is a number of great songs here -- enough to state his case as a fine songwriter or to satisfy his casual fans. Still, these songs are safe choices and all share a similarly tranquil quality, which means the collection itself becomes a little monotonous. Nevertheless, Fields of Gold performs the necessary service of rounding up all of the big hits -- \"If You Love Somebody Set Them Free,\" \"All This Time,\" \"Fortress Around Your Heart,\" \"They Dance Alone,\" \"If Ever Lose My Faith in You,\" \"Fragile,\" and an alternate version of \"We'll Be Together\" -- and offering them on one disc, which is reason enough to make it worthwhile, even with its flaws.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978489938,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400.jpg?v=1758314752"},{"product_id":"brand-new-day","title":"Brand New Day","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I started last summer, but I pretended I wasn't working on a record. I pretended I was just gonna get some musicians together and have fun in the house and jam a little, and then pick the bones out of the jams in the mornings, and then adapt them a little bit. This was in Italy, in Tuscany. I converted a granaio, a big barn, into a playing space with a little desk in it. So I just jammed around for a month or two, and picked bits out and started to loosely structure songs without any lyrics. I finished and sequenced an hour of music without any idea of what it was about lyrically! This is not the normal way I work, which is to write lyrics first or second but always in the same period of time as the music. This was different. So I would take an hour of music away with me on my walks around the woods in Tuscany, and try and allow characters or stories to emerge, rather like the way I imagine sculptors work - they find a piece of rock and see a bit of a nose here, and a bit of an arm or leg there and end up with a body. Some days nothing would emerge out of the mist, and other days whole characters would emerge. So the music was telling me the stories. I had no plan that the songs would be connected in any way, because the music was quite disparate, but I ended up with 12 songs that were really love stories in the very traditional sense - but with \"lover\" always as a metaphor for something larger, some larger philosophical thought or religious view of the world. They're all connected in that sense, and I think it's quite a romantic record.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Billboard, 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I play all the bass on my Fender P-bass, and then I play a Roland guitar synthesiser, and a classical guitar. I typically play the simple guitar bits, the centre of the songs. Dominic Miller plays the colours, which he's really good at. I don't play any piano or keyboards on this record; I was in love with this guitar synth. It gave me so many opportunities to have fun. There's two drummers, Vinnie Colaiuta and Manu Katche. Three percussionists, Dominic, myself, three or four keyboard players, and an Orchestra. James Taylor sang on a song called 'Fill Her Up', Stevie Wonder played on 'Brand New Day', Branford Marsalis played saxophone on 'Tomorrow We'll See' - a song about transvestites - and Cheb Mami sang on 'Desert Rose'.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Bassist, 10\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I didn't even want to think that I was composing songs for an album, I just simply started to make them.In the past, the music and the lyrics came out almost simultaneously, but this time I just started with the music. For a year I have been doing sequencies and arrangements. I wanted to do an experiment and see if the lyrics would turn up as stories from the music. I used to walk every day through the forests round my house in Tuscany and many times I came back with no ideas at all. But slowly a face or a story appeared, and the songs began to take shape.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, El Pais (Spain), 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I think there's an optimism in just about all the songs... That love actually transcends not only lifetimes, it also transcends break-ups. There is meaning in a relationship even if it doesn't last. It's been a profound and useful part of living. Even the song about the transexual. There's a pride in the way he\/she sings about his\/her life that I found very engaging. I like that it's a song about saying, 'don't judge me'.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, World Café interview, 12\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I wrote most of 'Brand New Day' on a Roland VG-8 [guitar-synth system] with synthesizer sounds. That gave me a shot in the arm about being creative on guitar. I created most songs by jamming with a drum machine and getting riffs - that sound is all over the album. The theme from 'A Thousand Years', for instance, comes from the VG-8. I do sometimes write on the bass, though.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Revolver, 3\/00\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I composed this music long before I ever had even a rhyming couplet or even an idea of what it would be about. I don't normally work that way. I normally write lyrics and music in the same period. This time, however, I'd written an hour of music, sequenced it, had it all in order, and then had to try and figure out what it was going to be about. I'd go for long walks with this music in my head and hope that characters, moods or stories would appear. It's a slower process. But they eventually did, and what I found was that virtually all the songs were love songs, which is not unusual. It's a variety of love songs, from sad to hopeful to optimistic - even some twisted, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone following my career.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Sky magazine, 12\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I feel the millennium is very much part of this record - and as my strategy in life is to be optimistic, in art I want to be the same. We need to look positively toward the future and not be sucked in by the lunacy that this is the end of the world, or that everything's going to fall apart - trouble, strife, plague, all that stuff. All that becomes self-fulfilling. So my strategy is to be optimistic, naïve maybe. But maybe that's my job.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Brand New Day' Official Press Release, 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I didn't set out to write lyrics just above love, yet almost all the songs have the theme of broken lives that can be mended by love. My challenge was to write a happy love song without being banal or smug. For example, 'Brand New Day', the last song, begins with a jaundiced view and then moves toward acceptance, to diving back into love. It's basically the thought that falling in love is an act of optimism - and I think if the album has that tone, for me... it's an optimistic one.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Brand New Day' Official Press Release, 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I composed, finessed and even sequenced the music before I'd even written a word. I had to trust that the music would tell me stories, begin to create characters. It's a much more mystical process. You have to be more patient. It's a little like sculpting a piece of wood - you begin to see faces in the wood.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Brand New Day' Official Press Release, 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Trying to write simple pop songs over compound time is my idea of a crossword puzzle - or three dimensional chess. That's my obsession, and I think people expect that of me - to throw a few loops here and there, and I think people would be disappointed if I didn't.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Brand New Day' Official Press Release, 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"For this album, I wanted to pretend that I wasn't making a record, but merely to make music and have fun with various musicians, that was the idea. Just to spend some time and have some fun. Only at the last minute would I allow it be called a record, I wouldn't have anyone saying, 'This is the new record'. Instead we were just playing, experimenting, or just using time in a good way. I've spent since last June getting this far - longer than I've ever spent on an album. I usually make albums in a much quicker and more professional way. It was recorded piecemeal, a little here and there, in a casual and relaxed manner, basically in my home in Italy.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Bassist, 10\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The album was recorded in beautiful surroundings and I tried to kid myself that I wasn't making a record. I just phoned up my musicians saying, 'come over for a few weeks, the sun is shining, have some good wine,' and I didn't really look on it as doing a record until I started mixing the tracks. Otherwise I'd be thinking I have to put a record out to satisfy the record company and pay everybody's mortgage who works for me which would stifle the creativity. Really the album is window cleaning music... People will be polishing the windows, start humming a tune then suddenly go: 'Oh, it's a Sting album'.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Newcastle Journal, 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I never make a record unless I have something to say. I feel very confident about this record. It has an optimism which reflects my mood. I just hope people respond to it that way. It's always been my strategy to be optimistic, sometimes in the face of painful reality. If you are optimistic you tend to be rewarded in life. I will tend to take a risk, take a punt and see what happens. If I'm over-cautious, it doesn't really work for me. These are all love songs. I must have reached that romantic time in my life. I'm an incurable romantic and I'm very happy about that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Daily Record, 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"My strategy always is to be optimistic - mainly because the alternative isn't very uplifting. And anyway, I'd rather be optimistic. That's always the way I've handled my life, and it's certainly done well for me up to this point, so I don't see why the millennium should change that now. Why be afraid of the future We have a lot of problems to sort out, but lets be optimistic that we can do it. Besides, the naysayers scare me. I don't uncertainty and just plain paranoia - which is why I try to avoid them.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Sky Magazine, 12\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Billboard Magazine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever one to rest on his considerable laurels, Sting rides a wave of cosmopolitan pop inspiration with this, his seventh solo album and most ambitious and affecting since 1991's 'The Soul Cages'. A song cycle on the sands of time and seeds of love, 'Brand New Day' brims with exoticisms from medieval chanson to Algerian rai to country, although the atmospheres are always at the service of a deeply communicative lyricism. The moody, moving 'A Thousand Years' takes the breath away immediately with its intimate grandeur, while 'Desert Rose' ups the ante like the royal flush it is. A boldly cinematic duet with French-Algerian vocal star Cheb Mami, 'Desert Rose' swirls and soars on a new-hued groove of electric arabesques. The arrangement's international vibe demonstrates Sting's ability to ever expand his vision, and the tune - every bit the equal of 'Every Breath You Take' or 'If Ever I Lose My Faith in You' - reinforces his stature as a matchless melodist. Hip, humane humor is also in evidence, as on 'Tomorrow We'll See' and 'Perfect Love...Gone Wrong' - the former blessed by cool-toned clarinet from Branford Marsalis, the latter a sexy French rap from Ste. Sting's compelling vocals and rock-steady bass drive the beguiling title track (and first single), as it seals the album with a kiss of adult pop. Far from going \"Hollywood,\" Sting remains a voice of sanity and sophistication.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Uncut Magazine by Nigel Williamson\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's seventh solo album has a millennial theme as he adopts an upbeat tone of new age optimism in defiance of the doomsayers. Musically it's an ambitious work, encompassing as many styles as there are songs. The hypnotic 'A Thousand Years' is based on a repetitive and simple Bach signature, 'Big Lie Small World' is an off-kilter bossa nova and 'Fill Her Up' is a slice of pure country swing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGuests include James Taylor and Stevie Wonder and critics will no doubt dismiss it as on over-polished coffee-table album for talking over at Notting Hill dinner parties. The reaction is understandable for 'Brand New Day' is not really a rock record at all. But burrow under it's glossy sophistication and there is a deep and satisfying soulfulness to which you will want to return.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Times by David Sinclair\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhy is it that no matter how passionate, heartfelt and meaningful Sting tries to be, he still ends up sounding like the soggy, liberal conscience of pop \"I don't need forgiving\/I'm just making a living\/Don't judge me\/You could be me in another life\", he sings in 'Tomorrow We'll See', a song in which he imagines himself to be one of the transsexual prostitutes touting for business on the Bois de Boulogne. Almost as plausible is his attempt to play the role of a lovesick dog in 'Perfect Love Gone Wrong', an unbelievably cumbersome attempt at humour that rejoices in the line: \"I howl all night and I sleep all day\/It'll take more than a biscuit to chase these blues away\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, 'Brand New Day' offers the usual humalong melodies stretched over excruciatingly complicated rhythmic structures smoothed out by musicianship of almost supernatural grace and coated in a sophisticated production gloss. Sting chases some exotic Middle Eastern harmonic intervals in 'Desert Rose', a duet with the Arab singer Cheb Mami, but for the most part he ends up sounding like the educated and regally detached observer he so obviously is.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Los Angeles Times by Robert Hilburn\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe millennium is a perilous topic for songwriters, because it's so easy to embarrass yourself with grandiose or overly sentimental statements. So it's clear that Sting is in top form when he opens his latest album with a millennium-minded love song that doesn't come close to making you wince.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom its graceful melody to its delicate arrangement, the devotional 'A Thousand Years' recalls the intimacy and individuality of the veteran singer-songwriter's most winning works. And things get even better with 'Desert Rose', a tale of almost mystical longing filled with exotic images and highlighted by Sting's hookup with Algerian singer Cheb Mami.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOver the next eight numbers, Sting explores various facets of romance in a wide range of musical styles that move between bossa nova (Big Lie, Small World), down-home country ('Fill Her Up') and his trademark mix of jazz, pop-rock and world music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Brand New Day' doesn't have the captivating focus of his best album 'The Soul Cages', his 1991 reflection on the death of his father. The wry 'Fill Her Up' and the moody 'Tomorrow We'll See' (another story of a prostitute's plight) should work well in concert, but their overtly dramatic structures undermine the innocence and introspection of the album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMostly, however, 'Brand New Day', featuring such guest artists as Stevie Wonder and James Taylor, overflows with the imagination and ambition that have characterised Sting's solo career.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Orange County Register by Ben Vener\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor all his rhythmic complexities and fluid skills at blending world musics and jazz into palatable pop, Sting is still at his best when he's at his simplest - just a great hook, a killer groove, maybe an anthemic chorus. It's a formula, sure, one he perfected by the time he left The Police, but it remains his forte.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWitness the strongest moments of his first four solo albums, all of which retain a winning sense of mainstream craft amid the smoky atmosphere and off-beat time signatures. Indeed, Sting has said his approach to songwriting is similar to an attack on a crossword puzzle; slowly but surely, the pieces fall into place until there's a completed form.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat doesn't happen on 'Brand New Day', perhaps because Sting is working with too many pieces. Convoluted, overwrought, at times even bombastic (something the artist has been on the verge of for some time), the album never coalesces with the same impact as, say, the noir sizzle of '...Nothing Like the Sun' (1987) or the intense intimacy of 'The Soul Cages' (1991).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's almost all there, which makes it maddening. In nearly every song, it's as if one element too many pushes things too far - the herky-jerky French rap in 'Perfect Love...Gone Wrong', for instance, or the plodding, Yanni-esque string swirl that concludes 'Desert Rose' or the odd gospel-tinged world beat finish to the Nashville country of 'Fill Her Up'. Most irritating in those last two instances, the extra bits tend to overshadow fine contributions from outsiders, including Cheb Mami's lovely chanting on 'Rose' and James Taylor's faux-burliness on 'Up'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn many ways, 'Brand New Day' feels like well-covered ground. Thematically, Sting tackles that trickiest topic, love, something he's already spoken eloquently of in both dark and light terms (compare 'Every Breath You Take' to 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'). And much of the most personal moments here don't hold a candle to the primal hunger of the earlier I Burn for You.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWorse, when he sings in character say, the prostitute of 'Tomorrow We'll See' he's terribly pedantic. That doesn't mean, however, that the album is worthless. At his weakest, Sting is still capable of tunes and arrangements that are light-years ahead of anyone else working in a similar vein, and a few cuts here (the burbling bossa nova of 'Big Lie Small World', the Princely 'After the Rain Has Fallen' and the suitably ethereal 'Ghost Story') rank among his best. It's just not as smart overall as it should be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Best Magazine (France)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA particular fad has been going on for several years. Some adhere to it, but some are left perplexed. The happy owners of cars, often customized, stick obscure words on their rear windshield: \"The GTI Touch\", \"The Touch\", or better: \"Touch The.\" It's all a campaign. After a while, these mysterious stickers have taken on a meaning synonymous of \"loved car\", polished, which despite not necessarily being fast, has the look and the flash. 'Brand New Day' confirms that we should stick such a sticker on the former leader of The Police's albums: \"The Sting Touch.\" Meaning: quality album, worked, researched and always well polished.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf it's immediately recognizable and contains the usual elements of a Sting album, 'Brand New Day' is nonetheless different on many levels. Faithful to his intellectual-gentleman-open-to-the-world image, Sting continues to mature and question himself, accumulating multiple influences with wit and cunning: to have friends is very useful. Point taken when his new friend Cheb Mami lays down his soaring rai and his darboukas on 'Desert Rose'. The result is a marvel that should create a buzz. James Taylor brings a country touch, Stevie Wonder his inimitable harmonica, and French rapper Sté raps on an interesting, if not totally convincing duo. Another notable orientation: Sting has been leaning towards electronics. He incorporates it abundantly but tastefully to create elaborate and profound ambiences (the wonderful 'A Thousand Years'.) With good surprises, innovations, and classic compositions, 'Brand New Day' is sometimes uneven, but faithful to all that Sting produces: Touched by \"class.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Q Magazine by Phil Sutcliffe\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting took his own advice when he wrote 'Fill Her Up'. It opens as a pedal steel Nashville pastiche, a yarn about a disgruntled country-road petrol pump attendant who runs off with the day's take and a plan to 'head west' with his girl. Until, that is, after six verses he runs into both a different, far moodier tune and the beauty of nature in the woods around the gas station. This activates his conscience and a Gospel choir who admonish: \"You gonna 'Fill Her Up' with sadness \/ ...You gotta 'Fill Her Up' with love'. After this, nothing more is said, but a spacious jazz piano and double bass outro - the fifth melodic theme - somehow suggests a lesson taken to heart. If that's not enough, while tired souls bowl 'pretentious!', fans of painter Edward Hopper may enjoy comparing details with Gas, the 1940 canvas which clearly inspired the song.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThroughout, 'Brand New Day''s goodie bag of class-rock, breakbeats, bossa nova, rap, chanson and whatever next gives more the more It's played. Sting's preoccupation this year is romantic love.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis stories' large embrace includes Arabesque exotica (The 'Desert Rose'), Sinatra-in-Paris urban tragedy ('Tomorrow We'll See', doomed hero a drag queen prostitute) and cod-smoochy anthropomorphic farce ('Perfect Love Gone Wrong', doomed hero a jealous dog). But even when he risks generalisation, Sting can still pull it off: the candidly millennium-referencing A Thousand Years is a quiet, aeon-spanning romance (sung beautifully, which helps).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProne, as ever, to the odd plunk down into mundanity when the wax wings of imagination melt - here, with one or two choruses de trop re the power of love - Sting can still rely on musical instinct for a little bit of what he fancies to do him good, be it Algerian Cheb Mami warbling on A 'Desert Rose', French rapper Ste upbraiding her pooch on 'Perfect Love Gone Wrong', or, marvellously, Stevie Wonder frolicking his harmonica - surely the sunniest sound of the century - through the title track.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt may be that nobody is going to like Sting who doesn't already, but 'Brand New Day' is full of vaulting ambition and cat-killing curiosity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from USA Today by Edna Gundersen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting, the undisputed king bee of adult-contemporary pop, delivers more of his exoticism, sophistication and melodic brilliance on this seventh solo album, a vibrant work free of the fatigue or rote maneuvers you might expect at this stage in a long and lucrative career. In addition to refining his familiar funk 'n' jazz on such tunes as 'After the Rain Has Fallen', Sting flits across the globe, gliding from Paris (a sensuous French rap with Ste on 'Perfect Love Gone Wrong') to Nashville (wry country yarn 'Fill Her Up'). He embraces bossa nova on 'Big Lie Small World' and Algerian rai on 'Desert Rose', a sumptuous duet with African star Cheb Mami. Sting explores the healing powers of romance in warm, beautifully crafted music bolstered by impeccable musicianship, rich vocals and such impressive guests as James Taylor, Stevie Wonder and Branford Marsalis (playing an elegant clarinet on 'Tomorrow We'll See'). Like its standout track, the gorgeous and touching 'A Thousand Years', Sting's 'Brand New Day' has timelessness on its side.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The New York Post\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn his first disc in more than three years, Sting turns in a nine-song album that explores the secret language of love. The style-defying disc taps jazz, African pop, country and just about everything else that has tickled Sting's ear lately. Rather than sounding like a musical raider pillaging his way across any culture that gets within his grasp, here Sting respects the music and always give it enough room to develop. Although the theme is love, Sting avoids getting soft and mushy. Instead, he looks at love as if it were a mental disability, working his way through various stages, from head-over-heels to can't-live-with-'em-can't-kill-'em. The disc has no obvious radio single but peaks with the songs 'Perfect Love Gone Wrong' and 'Fill Her Up'. On Perfect, he pushes the dark jazz bop into hip-hop with a twist (the rap is delivered in French by international artist St. The piece eventually transforms into a gospel rave. 'Fill Her Up' also concludes in a praise Jesus gospel, but that tune emerges from a country cocoon wrapped in pedal steel guitar. And listen for guest spots, like the clarinet turn by long-time Sting pal Branford Marsalis, as well a distinctive harmonica blow by Stevie Wonder and James Taylor's mellow vocals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Buffalo News by Anthony Violanti\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe former Police man, as usual, is in elegant and cerebral form on his first release in three years. These nine songs are mainly pop, but Sting flashes influences of jazz, R\u0026amp;B and country. The subject matter is love, and Sting offers a touch of French rap on 'Perfect Love Gone Wrong'. Country takes center stage on a tune called 'Fill Her Up' that ends with a gospel sound. Sting offers some exotic emotion - the powerful 'A Thousand Years' - and 'Desert Rose' is a soulful duet with African singer Cheb Mami. Just when you think he has overdone it, he comes back to his old roots with a deep funk groove on 'Perfect Love Gone Wrong'. He remains among contemporary music's most ambitious and daring songwriters and performers. This album proves it once again.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Mojo Magazine by Johnny Black\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBuying every second Sting album has always been a fairly safe bet, and this is no exception. After the lacklustre (but still multi-platinum) 'Mercury Falling' in 1996, 'Brand New Day' feels like 10 more 'Summoner's Tales', employing a similar range of styles from bossa nova to country to gospel with multi-ethnic touches. If that makes it sound a tad contrived, well, it is, but so was Beethoven's Fifth, and the point is that Sting employs his eclectic shadings masterfully and always in the right places.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Stevie Wonder's unmistakeably down home harmonica stabs into the dirty ambient opening of the title track, it's a perfect moment. Similarly, the luxurious North African ululations of Cheb Mami ideally counterpoint Sting's dusty vocal on the complex, soaring, 'Desert Rose', as does girly French rapper Stephanie Quinol, pepping up the ultra smooth witticisms of the shaggy dog tale, 'Perfect Love Gone Wrong'. 'Brand New Day' is big of tune and smart of lyric to the power of 10. Given time, it could be your favourite Sting album ever.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Tracy Collins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGordon Sumner has seen a lot of ups and downs in the 20 years since he debuted as the bass player for the Police. If there's any one trait that's been both his curse and his blessing, it's that Sting has never been satisfied with the trappings, or the methods, of his success. That has resulted in things as maddening as him quitting the Police at the height of its success 15 years ago, or as gratifying as yet another solid effort by one of his generation's most skilled songwriters. While not as moving as 'The Soul Cages' or as radio-friendly as 'Ten Summoners' Tales', 'Brand New Day' still ranks right up there with them as the best of his work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn his seventh solo studio album, Sting takes you around the world, with Ste's Eastern vocals on 'Desert Rose' reminiscent of the late, great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, followed by a salsa beat on 'Big Lie Small World'. Several songs later, he punctuates a jazzy 'Perfect Love...Gone Wrong' with guest raps from Cheb Mami - in French. It's a sort of Boyz N the Berets, but what makes it so smooth is Sting's impeccable aplomb in blending it all seemlessly together. He also takes us to Nashville, complete with pedal steel and twang on 'Fill Her Up', getting vocal help from James Taylor, who adds a little more authenticity to the song than the well-heeled Brit lead singer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting also takes on a number of personas to deliver some spiritual messages, from a prostitute who provides a street sermon on judging others, to a gas station robber who has a religious experience that sets him straight. There isn't a misstep among the 10 songs. Sting likes to say his strict lifestyle keeps him feeling eternally young. But it's his ability to turn out work like this that keeps his music feeling eternally fresh.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The LA Daily News\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNew album, same sonic stew of love songs with quirky time signatures. And that's not a bad thing. Because while you can always count on Sting to hopscotch between styles (bossa nova, country, world beat, jazz and gospel all receive workouts here), you never know what approach he's going to take. Here, on his seventh solo album, he has jettisoned longtime collaborator Hugh Padgham in favor of producer\/programmer Kipper, aiming for a sonic-collage feel on several songs. But boomers take comfort: James Taylor and Stevie Wonder are on hand, too, as well as trumpeter Chris Botti, who brings noirish Miles Davis shadings to a couple of tracks. While this may not be a completely brand-new day, it is another engaging step in the evolution of one of pop's most compelling personalities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Las Vegas City Life by Mike Prevatt\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting started out the '90s quite depressed - evidenced in his beautiful, grief-stricken 'Soul Cages' album. He ends the decade with a polychromatic, keenly optimistic 'Brand New Day' - a record that explores not only a huge variety of worldly influences, but also the various stages of his pop evolution. 'Brand New Day' hardly uses its instrumentation to reminisce about the old days, but it's gratifying to witness how true the man formerly known as Gordon Sumner has kept bits of the past in his unstylish, melodic vision of the future. With only nine full-length compositions, you wonder if Sting is getting lazy; on the contrary, these mini-epics point to his most ambitious stage yet. Songs like 'Big Lie Small World' hint at jazz, world and Latin music all in one sensual rhythm, without allowing the multitude of colorful elements to clash. And while each genre-synthesizing work evokes a story outside of Sting's poeticism, 'Brand New Day' also marks the artist at his narrative, romantic best (see the wonderfully, country-jangly 'Fill Her Up' and the Dave Matthews-meets-Peter Gabriel title track). Highlighting it all, though, is 'Desert Rose', a glowing, grand pop song - complete with Arabic chanting. A statement of hope and reflection, 'Brand New Day' is a fresh start that doesn't forget its past.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Virginian Pilot by Mike Zacher\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVeteran musician Sting will undoubtedly win back fans on his engaging new CD 'Brand New Day': The title of Sting's latest album may be a metaphor for the outlook he has on his career. After the commercial disappointment of 1996's 'Mercury Falling' the artist may be working on winning back his fan base. With a new collection of top-notch songs, he's liable to do just that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has always had great variety among his songs, and his ability to translate musical influences into his own unique songs shines on this new album. The opening track, 'A Thousand Years', has a Middle Eastern vibe, as does 'Desert Rose', with its Arabic-sounding background vocals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe singer claims that writing is hardest for him, but the lyrics are rich with different characters and themes. Whether it's the regret in the comical 'Big Lie Small World' or the lovelorn woman in 'After the Rain Has Fallen', each song has something that engages you.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the best tracks is 'Tomorrow We'll See' with its smooth strings and European feel. The thinly disguised theme and Branford Marsalis' clarinet add a good dose of sensuality to the song.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has written a few country-tinged songs in recent years, and 'Fill Her Up' is an amazing example of his musical range. The song starts off as country with James Taylor sharing vocals. It then turns into a gospel song and ends with a touch of jazz. The next track, the soothing 'Ghost Story', perfectly complements its predecessor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe title track completes the album and turns out to be the catchiest song of the bunch. Sting recruits Stevie Wonder to play harmonica and he plays it in his trademark, early-'70s style. The song will be in your head for hours because of Sting's hopeful lyrics on love and Wonder's harmonica evoking not just excellence, but nostalgia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith various musical styles and great lyrics, not to mention a few classy guests, Sting has made an album that gets better every time you listen to it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix by Dan Zakreski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAny doubts about Sting's ability to swing effortlessly between musical genres are gracefully dispelled by the ten songs on 'Brand New Day'. Sting covers the waterfront on this disc, from jazz to soul to pop to country. Yep, country. Song eight, 'Fill Her Up', churns along with pedal steel guitar and fiddle, you've got to hear it to believe it. What makes this such a compelling disc, however, is not the musical diversity. It's not his unerring ear for sweet melodies, it's not his instantly recognizable voice. No, the beauty is how Sting uses the lyrics to give the album its cohesion. Only after listening to the entire disc is it clear that the variety of musical styles are used as different voices to frame the same story. A love story, of course. Good love, bad love and love in vain. A story told with wit and elegance and economy. \"It could happen to you \/ Just like it happened to me \/ There is simply no immunity \/ There's no guarantee.\" That's from the soaring 'Brand New Day', the closest he comes to conventional pop on the disc, with Stevie Wonder on harmonica and Branford Marsalis on clarinet. It just doesn't get any better.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Indian Times by Tarun Khanna\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's latest and, to a large part, most original album should manage to surprise most, including his die hard fans like me who have gotten used to a new sound with every alternate venture of his. 'Brand New Day' is an album which alternates between taking you back in time and presenting a whole new sound. You are taken from the heights of sheer brilliance to the plains of the usual all at one go, the album oscillates so. It kicks of with 'A Thousand Years' which is a beautifully written love song and goes on to 'Desert Rose', a track where English lyrics are fused with Arabic, and the Algerian rai style of singing with pop, brilliantly. 'Big Lie Small World' is pretty regular and disappoints. After this comes along 'After The Rain Has Fallen' which is a pretty good track with a great beat and reminds you of the Sting of 'Soul Cages' \u0026amp; 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You'. It is followed by the Anglo-French 'Perfect Love...Gone Wrong', another relatively ordinary offering.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSide two starts with 'Tomorrow We'll See', a prostitute's tale of acceptance of her circumstances. The song is well written and performed with elan but lacks the punch of a classic written at the beginning of his career called 'Roxanne'. 'Fill Her Up' is a fabulous song that begins in country style and closes with a gospel touch, complete with choir and all. This is one of the best tracks on the album both in terms of lyrics \u0026amp; rhythm and sets the ball rolling for a grand finale. 'Ghost Story' starts slowly but picks up in tempo and the lyrics that make it up are sheer poetry. Save the best for last seems to have been his credo for the title track is placed at the very end of this vastly unique experience. 'Brand New Day' is one of the best tracks that have been graced the airwaves in a long time. It is Sting at his very best and for his millions of fans around the globe, this is a treat. The lyrics convey clearly what he is trying to say to everybody and the music merges like magic. If this is anything to go by, then expect the totally unexpected from him in his next album is my advice to lovers of his music. Don't wait for anything - buy this album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978391634,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_76dba0de-9a20-47eb-a8f3-041803d26eb6.jpg?v=1758314752"},{"product_id":"mercury-falling","title":"Mercury Falling","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This was the second album written and recorded in Lake House. I was enjoying these long periods at home with the family. I'd spend so much of my life in hotel rooms and concert halls. I felt that at last I was living a real life. The kids would come home from school in the afternoon and we'd all have dinner together like a normal family. I suppose the album title suggests, among other things, that my mercurial life was beginning to find some balance, like I'd finally put down roots. I'd always believed that \"settling down\" was anathema to creativity, but I wanted to give it a shot. I felt it was my right. The band loved being there too. Dominic Miller, David Sancious, and Vinnie Colaiuta were all delighted not to be stuck in some airless studio for weeks on end; I even caught Vinnie, our drummer (a certified studio animal if ever there was one), walking in the garden one morning. I'd never seen him up before noon, much less out taking the air. He of course claimed that he was but sleepwalking after the previous night's carousing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Lyrics, 10\/07\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There are so many references attached to mercury. I mean, it's a metal, it's a liquid, it's an element, it's a god, it's a planet. It's an idea - 'mercurial,' I think, is a valuable description. I use the phrase initially very literally. You know, it's getting cold, the thermometer's falling. And then I use it symbolically at the end. I love the phrase. It's very resonant, full of so many things.''\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Baltimore Sun, 3\/96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The title of the new album is 'Mercury Falling'. It was the first lyric I wrote, the first line of the first song called 'The Hounds Of Winter'. But the lyric has a lot of reverberations, it means other things - it has an astrological context, it has an astronomical context, it has a meteorological context, it has a symbolic context, and the whole idea of being mercurial is an image I've always responded to. I mean, there are so many styles on this record and it darts around from genre to genre and back again. It's a very mercurial record, and it seemed to be the right thing to call the record. And at the end of the record I return to this idea of mercury falling - only to rise again.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Mercury Falling' Promotional Interview Disc, '96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"When I was fifteen, sixteen which was the time of my rampant puberty and discovering sex and dancing and going out and drinking, it coincided with the boom in soul music - Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Booker T and the MGs, James Brown - so that music means a great deal for me. If I look back to a golden age in my musical life its probably then. If I pick my favourite ever songs, they're 'Dock Of The Bay', 'When A Man Loves A Woman' - all that sort of stuff. So having written these songs I decided to borrow the Memphis Horns who played on all of those records. They came over from Memphis, they're wonderful guys, they sound exactly like they did on the records - it's almost like seeing a masterpiece in your house, an old painting. I tortured them a little bit by asking them to play in strange time signatures they hadn't played in before, but they enjoyed the challenge and I think the sound on the record is very nostalgic. At the same time I'm not really producing a homage to Stax Soul Music. I'm using it and putting an ironic, objective view on it, I'm twisting it and perverting it in a way which makes it more me. I'm not interested in remaking records that were brilliant - what's the point You can't better Sam and Dave or Otis Redding but you can twist it a little bit to make it more me. So it's definitely a Sting record.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Mercury Falling' Promotional Interview Disc, '96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The personality of the house does invade the record somehow. The studio's in the dining room, so I can enjoy my kids coming home from school, or take a walk in the garden while trying to work out the lyrics. Living closer to nature here brings you much closer to the cycle of seasons, and I think that's really reflected in many of the songs. Seasonal ideas that can be broken then mended, that you can die in winter and live again in spring recur in the lyrics.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Mercury Falling' Tour Programme, '96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't like to make musicians feel too comfortable with what they are doing. Making the Memphis Horns play in 9\/8 or 7\/8 really threw them. But, in the end, they got it and it sounded great.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Music Week, 3\/96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The new songs are full of seasonal ideas: that you might die in winter yet be born again in spring. That you can be broken and then mended. Even the title, 'Mercury Falling', which was the first phrase that came to me when I started writing, keeps reverberating in new ways. I was very 'mercurial' in jumping around from genre to genre and mixing things on this album. And Mercury was the thief of the gods, so I stole from everywhere.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Guitar World, 7\/96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I have to reflect my moods, my memories, my hopes, my anxieties, my nostalgia and love for whatever's happening. That's my brief to myself when I make an album - it's a heartfelt expression of me. This is a hopeful record, and I'm proud of it. I've had enough loss and sadness in my life not to be autobiographical, even now. I know what it's like to be heartbroken. Also, I think the universe is reflected in relationships and that you can tell a love story that expresses the whole of existence. And I find difficult relationships more interesting to write about. In general though, my work is less confessional than it used to be.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Interview Magazine, 7\/96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I like 'Mercury Falling'. Sure, parts of it are blue. I think if I'm being honest in my work a record must map my emotions and my experiences.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Philadelphia Inquirer, 6\/00\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In the past I've written albums that were related to death - either the death of someone I loved or the death of a relationship or whatever. But now I've reached a stage in my life where I don't see death as the end to anything. I see death as merely another door to open, and I think the songs perhaps reflect that openness about death or the ending of things and that I'm much more comfortable with the idea. I suppose the songs are as much about rebirth as much as death and new beginnings as much as they are about endings.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Mercury Falling' Promotional Interview Disc, '96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There are songs on this record about accepting things you can't change. And there are songs about romantic situations that don't have a happy ending. It's not the standard fare of pop music at all. But if pop music is just about being in a gang or dancing or frivolous youth stuff, then I'm in the wrong business. If it's fuddy duddy music so be it. But this is what I am and I'm proud of it. I'm not afraid of being attacked or ridiculed. I've been there before. Views on me are very disparate: I'm either a decent man or a complete shit. The truth is I'm somewhere in the middle.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Independent, 2\/96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I do feel very relaxed these days. Not complacent, but relaxed. I think if there's a theme on this record, it's one of acceptance about things that can't be changed. Not one thing in particular. It's just that in the past, in my young life, I tended to fight against everything, struggle against the whole of life. I suppose I'm just getting older. In the past I used to worry a great deal - about writing songs, about whether I was writing enough. But now I just let it happen. I don't put myself under too much pressure, because that just kills the creativity.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, TOP Magazine, 3\/96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Maybe I'm not asking so many questions on this record, but I'm accepting the fact that there is a question - accepting that mystery as part of life. I've been studying philosophy for a long time. I read books about these eternal problems. As for not coming up with any answers, the greatest philosophers in history can be accused of that!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, TOP Magazine, 3\/96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This album was easier than some. It's always hard to write and always hard to better yourself and dig deep, but at the same time there's a great deal of therapy in writing. And my intention was not to make music that was angry or difficult, because I'm not angry. If there's a theme on the record that's consistent, it's one of acceptance of things that cannot be changed. I don't want to give the impression that I'm complacent, because there are certain things in life that do anger me and make me want to fight to change them. But I also am able to recognize the things that I simply should not bother fighting against. One is age - growing old and dying. It's one of those things to learn acceptance of. I think a lot of the new songs are about that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Boston Globe, 3\/96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, 'Mercury Falling' is certainly more straightforward than the last album. There are lapses into complex meters, but I've tried to disguise it a lot more this time, to not be so self-conscious about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Guitar, 4\/96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the New York Post by Dan Aquilante\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMany would say Sting's barb isn't as sharp as it was when he and his original band, the Police, first collared its audience. Yet on his latest solo album, 'Mercury Falling', the man continues his life-long musical experiment of weaving world beat rhythms and instrumentation with the basics of rock, jazz and pop.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis new 10-song disc is an extension of Sting's '93 turnaround album, 'Ten Summoner's Tales'. Unlike his very early solo work, which was as annoying as Amazon rain forest mosquitoes because of preachy politics, 'Summoner' and now 'Mercury Falling' wrestle with life one day, one joy, one problem at a time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Mercury Falling' has a lean, aggressive sound that shamelessly borrows from any style that stung Sting. There are elements of traditional Celtic arrangements, jazz, country and even R\u0026amp;B. It's just a guess, but since Sting is a gifted bassist, you'd assume he writes music from the rhythm tracks rather than usual chord patterns. That would explain how he gives power to many of the songs on 'Mercury' and how he is able to make the mood of the music so clear, so quickly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor instance, 'All Four Seasons', sets itself up with the syncopated heel-click strut. Even though Sting sings \"the girl is all four seasons to me,\" the song is breezy and pure spring. In sharp contrast is \"I Hung My Head\", which has a weird tempo that makes the intense, almost country song about an accidental death edgier.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically this album is pleasant and melody-oriented enough that it can be used as background for a gathering, but 'Mercury' is best when it can be listened to with focused attention. Then the literate lyrics, which are as simple and complex as a Robert Frost poem, are able to tell their story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs always, Sting's voice is terrific, the songs are sturdy and the musicianship superb.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Mercury Falling; makes a convincing argument that 'Summoner' wasn't a fluke. As Sting gets older he's become more ambitious and more fluent in his attempt to make music a universal language.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Q magazine by John Aizlewood\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs if to show that some people can't have all the luck, looks, brains and talent all the time, Sting has been cocking it up of late. First came the frankly criminal activities of his accountant, where the pop star appeared to be too rich and too stupid to notice he'd been ripped off for millions. More recently came his comments about ecstasy. All fairly reasonable and just about medically supportable in the cold light of day but mixed with a dose of tabloid hysteria (how it got into those tabloids might make interesting reading: presumably it wasn't a deliberate ploy to raise awareness of 'Mercury Falling' and the unfortunate Sting was, indeed, truly stitched up by scummy journalists) and distraught calls to his record company from the father of dead drug-taker Leah Betts, it took on the air of a statement by someone who'd taken his eye off the ball. After making records for 19 years, most of them as one of the most famous men on the planet, it's easy to understand, if not sympathise, with things going slightly awry and Sting slipping slowly out of touch with reality.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Police made some awful records. Generally these were the ones where Stewart Copeland or Andy Summers were given more input than their songwriting skills deserved, but 'Tea In The Sahara', 'One World (Not Three)' and 'Walking On The Moon' show that Sting too was not immune. No wonder Elvis Costello wanted to give him a clip around the ear for singing in a ridiculous Jamaican accent. Initially he adapted uneasily to a solo career, which has now lasted longer than The Police. 'The Dream Of Blue Turtles' was bloody hard work in the sense that an eight-hour shift down a pit is still less arduous in comparison and it looked as if he was in danger of losing his mass audience and ending up a jazzman, perhaps the musical direction he'd always coveted deep down.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSimilarly, 'The Soul Cages' suggested that the death of a loved father is a heart-wrenching tragedy, but however dignified Sting's response may have been, an album mostly about the event made for rather dull listening. In between the sprawling '...Nothing Like The Sun' showed he could do it when the mind took him and, in 'They Dance Alone', could write an affecting and explicitly political song too.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1993's 'Ten Summoner's Tales' confirmed everything was right in Sting's musical world. He was selling records world-wide like a bastard anyway, so it wasn't a surprise that it hovered around most charts for over a year. What was eyebrow-raising was that the album was the career-defining work he'd never truly looked like delivering. Gone was the angsty smugness, replaced by 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You', 'It's Probably Me', 'Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven)' and, obviously his best song to date, 'Fields Of Gold'. This, historians may very well say is classic pop music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat, then, having conquered the world, to do next In a sense it doesn't matter any more than it did with 'Ten Summoner's Tales'. The hottest of hot cakes will be slack and mediocre sellers compared with those of 'Mercury Falling' as it zings from shelves the world over. Sting could have taken the easy way out - the covers album often used to prop up ailing careers (see Robert Palmer, Bryan Ferry); that jazz album he seems to think is in him somewhere (see Van Morrison) or the slipshod, can't be arsed, affair of those who've lost the will to care or the need to protect their dignity (see Rod Stewart). Sting, bless him, has knuckled down to the task in hand and 'Mercury Falling' is just about all it might have been , Overall, it lacks the pop joy of 'Ten Summoner's Tales' but, from the bleak 'The Hounds Of Winter' (offset, quietly but wittily by the sounds of baying hounds - hopefully Afghan, more likely Sting himself - buried way down in the mix) to the sombre but Byron-esque 'Lithium Sunset', 'Mercury Falling' is a deeper, more rewarding work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are clever touches, no Sting album would be complete without them. There's no title track, but \"mercury falling\" is the first line of the first song and the last line of the last song. It's a wise move, for never has an album sounded quite so rounded. Less pleasing and not entirely unpredictably 'La Belle Dame Sans Regrets' is sung entirely in French. The tune is nothing to write home about - in any language - and Sting sounds like a pillock, forgetting for once that being sophisticated means never having to try too hard. Elvis Costello may well need to get his slapping gear out again. Elsewhere, though, it's hosannas, bouquets and Faberge eggs all round.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnusually and unfashionably for a pop star in 1996, Sting is a story teller, a trend he began on '...Nothing Like The Sun's' 'Rock Steady' and one which he has refined here. 'I Hung My Head' - desperate at many points to become Into 'The Great Wide Open' by Tom Petty \u0026amp; The Heartbreakers - is the sorry tale of a young man who shoots a man \"to practice my aim\" and, full of remorse, is hanged at dawn, without a silly last verse twist or any suggestion of a miscarriage of justice (something the younger Sting wouldn't have been able to resist). As well as being brilliantly constructed, it's genuinely moving, as is 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying', the diary of an abandoned husband and \"Sunday father\" putting a brave face on everything. More slapstick is the jaunty 'Twenty Five To Midnight', where a would-be pop star (\"We called ourselves The Latino Lovers\/Hawaiian shirts and Top 40 covers\/I didn't think I could sink this low\") speeds home to stop his smalltown girl marrying his best (so-called) friend.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are no love songs here, except, at a push, 'All Four Seasons', a more cynical but still virtually incestuous lyrical cousin of Crowded House's 'Four Seasons In One Day'. Many of 'Mercury Falling's' characters seem to be remorseful Lotharios. 'The Hounds Of Winter', a song with its coat collar turned up if ever there were one, 'I Was Brought To My Senses', 'You Still Touch Me' (echoes of Sam \u0026amp; Dave's 'Soul Man') and the gorgeous 'Valparaiso' recall past loves, with a resignation close to Paul Young's version of 'Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe near seven minutes of 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot' is the album's centrepiece. Lyrically, it's an update of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', a message of hope to a tortured soul, but musically it oozes quality, using Branford Marsalis, The Memphis Horns and The East London Gospel Choir to sound both powerful and restrained. Like the rest of 'Mercury Falling', there are no great conceits here, just Sting playing to his strengths.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUltimately, despite those non-musical recent hiccups, Sting is still the wise and cunning man of pop, one whom it's still somehow difficult to love, but impossible not to admire. He's out there on his own, working hard, making intelligent pop, writing intriguing songs, sounding more unlike anyone else (that voice is without impersonators save Spitting Image and without acolytes full stop) than ever and selling literally millions of records in the process. He must wonder why Michael Stipe gets all the kudos.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Time magazine by John Farley\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting, unlike Boy George and David Lee Roth, will never be an answer to such trivia questions as, \"Name a lead singer from an '80s megaband who went on to have a disappointing solo career.\" Sting has managed to stay relevant - and popular - by continuing to create gently innovative music that borrows from other sources so wisely and so well that the resulting sound is truly his own. \"I'm interested in impure music,\" says Sting. \"Pure rock, pure jazz or pure anything just doesn't interest me. This is the game I play.\" In that spirit, his new CD, 'Mercury Falling', draws on country, gospel and even Celtic music to create smooth, genre-blending, articulate pop. It's another bright entry in what has proved to be Sting's brilliant career as a solo artist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven his more than 20 years in the music business, there is little on vinyl or CD that Sting has not already had a chance to be inspired by. \"I have teenage children, and I hear their music in the house, by accident - I'm intrigued,\" says Sting, comfortably domesticated at age 44 (a wall in his huge getaway apartment in New York City is covered with pictures of his six children and his second wife, actress and film producer Trudie Styler). \"But with new pop music, it's very rare that I hear music that I can't recognise its source. Oasis are the Beatles, basically. Blur are the Kinks.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting, however, is Sting. In 1985, after almost a decade fronting the reggae-tinged rock band the Police, Sting launched a solo career with the release of 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles', a slickly adventurous album that featured saxophonist Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland. All Sting's six solo albums have been distinctive: 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles', with its anti-cold war rant 'Russians', was the most pointed; the 1991 release 'The Soul Cages', much of which concerns the death of Sting's father, was the most personal. 'Mercury Falling' stands out as his most consistently entertaining effort. The lyrics are smart but not ostentatiously cerebral. The instrumental work of Kirkland, who performs on all the new tracks, and Marsalis, who plays on two, adds shading and sophistication. These are songs that hit a little harder than the typical Top 40 tune: the clever 'I Hung My Head', with its commanding horns, and elevating keyboard work, tells the story of an accidental shooting, and could also be read as a plea for gun control; 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying' is a countryish tune that clomps along with a steady beat but is also a well-observed look at a divorced man dealing with the fact that he has lost custody of his kids. Indeed, most of 'Mercury Falling' deals with loss, longing and epiphany. On its best cut, 'I Was Brought to My Senses', Sting sings, \"...And inside every turning leaf\/Is the pattern of an older tree... Every signpost in nature\/Said you belong to me.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting claims he is still sorting out the meanings of the songs on 'Mercury Falling'. \"I write unconsciously,\" he says. \"It's only after I've finished the songs that I'm able to tell you what they're about. It's a form of therapy really - 'What am I talking about here Why am I worried about this' It's a cheap form of psychiatry.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat uncertainty beneath the cool is the key to Sting's appeal. Absolute certainty is boring; once you're cocksure of your meanings and your sound, you may as well go on tour with Kiss - or David Lee Roth for that matter. Appropriately enough, given the the title of the new album, Sting remains mercurial.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from USA Today by Edna Gundersen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs its title unintentionally suggests, Sting's sixth solo outing isn't the high point of his career. The 10 smartly crafted pop songs roam the map from bossa nova ('La Belle Dame Sans Regrets') to country ('I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying'), yet seldom stray beyond the former Police chief's safe realm of radio-friendly pop-rock. Even ambling ballad 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot', with its 70-voice choir, is gospel lite. As usual, Sting flatters his material in complex but unshowy arrangements - a fiddle gently massages the sweet 'I Was Brought to My Senses', and the Memphis Horns complement the singer's upbeat mood on 'All Four Seasons', inspired by his daughter Coco's caprice. Sting fancies himself a wordsmith, but his metaphor-laden lyrics can be ambiguous. Still, he broods brilliantly as the abandoned lover on 'The Hounds of Winter' and ably displays sunnier sentiments in 'Lithium Sunset' and the soul-kissed 'You Still Touch Me'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone magazine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith 1993's 'Ten Summoner's Tales', Sting wilfully soiled his hard-earned reputation as pop music's poster boy for existential depression. Tales was his most light-hearted effort since his early days with the Police, and it seduced many who had otherwise found his solo work too solemn or ponderous. But for all its breezy wit and craftsmanship, Tales didn't quite pack the emotional punch of Sting's other albums particularly 1991's hauntingly lyrical (and oft-maligned) 'Soul Cages'. Sting's moody thoughtfulness has always been part of what gives his work character; asking him not to brood is like asking Lou Reed not to rant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn 'Mercury Falling', Sting manages to stay true to his pensive nature while injecting healthy doses of levity into the mix. Rather than deflecting his doubts and concerns as he seemed to do on 'Tales', he confronts them with equal parts irony, hope and wistful resignation. As its title suggests, changing weather is a prominent motif, a symbolic caprice in relationships. On 'The Hounds of Winter', Sting wails over a mournful synth backdrop about a lover who has deserted him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'All Four Seasons' is a more playful account of an unpredictable woman, with sax and trumpet fills by the Memphis Horns. The subtly intricate arrangements reflect the ambiguous emotions that characterise all the songs here, from the beautifully tender and fiddle-laced 'I Was Brought to My Senses' to the country-flavoured 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying', which sneaks plaintive minor chords into blithely twangy guitar riffs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGranted, it's seldom clear what drives Sting's ambivalence. Even in an introspective mode he's a pretty elusive guy, often constructing elaborate metaphors to fake us out. Who knows what guilt lies behind the accidental murder on the deftly syncopated 'I Hung My Head' or what loss inspired the gently funky 'You Still Touch Me' By the end of 'Mercury Falling', all were really sure of is that Sting has survived these experiences without growing bitter or cynical. For a literate British songwriter who once called himself the 'King of Pain', that's no small accomplishment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Post by Nicole Arthur\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt isn't easy for rock-and-rollers to age gracefully. Sting has fared better than most: Now approaching 50, the once swaggering singer is regarded as one of the music's pre-eminent elder statesmen. It has been nearly 20 years since the Police's first album, and Sting is now a father of six who lives on a 16th-century country estate. Not surprisingly, he is eager to assert that middle-age and domesticity are no less generous muses than youth and rebelliousness. \"In the past, I thought that to be creative, you had to suffer somehow,\" he declared in a recent profile.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuffering has always been Sting's speciality. Prone to joyless philosophising, he is known for his gloomily introspective lyrics. Yet despite its title, 'Mercury Falling', Sting's sixth solo album isn't nearly as chilly as much of his other work. Like 1993's 'Ten Summoner's Tales', the disc finds him in an uncharacteristically optimistic frame of mind. (As well he might be - his record company bio describes him as an almost shamanistic figure, \"a global traveller and pathfinder in realms of the soul.\")\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe 10-song disc, Sting's first in three years, is marked by stylistic variation. Guitarist Dominic Miller, keyboardist Kenny Kirkland and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta are joined by guests as disparate as the Memphis Horns and the East London Gospel Choir. Indeed, Sting's pastiche of musical genres seems nearly all-inclusive: 'Valparaiso' boasts Celtic flourishes; 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot' is a gospel anthem; there's a country flavour to 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying'; 'All Four Seasons' is a horn-driven romp; and 'La Belle Dame Sans Regret' is set to a modified bossa nova.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn keeping with its title, seasonal metaphors are spread throughout 'Mercury Falling'. In 'The Hounds of Winter', for instance, the time of year parallels the narrator's mood. \"I'm as dark as December,\" the abandoned lover intones. But this is the kinder, gentler Sting, and the cyclical aspect of the seasons also holds the promise of change: \"There's a season for joy\/ A season for sorrow,\" he sings. In 'All Four Seasons', Sting describes his volatile daughter, marvelling that \"she can be all four seasons in one day.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Mercury' is a sort of testimonial for the benefits of being in harmony with nature. In 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying', a song about a newly divorced dad relegated to weekend visits with his kids, the singer finds solace in recognising \"something about the universe and how it's all connected.\" Like a horticultural Dr. Doolittle, Sting even makes conversation with the natural world: In 'I Was Brought to My Senses', he sings, \"Every blade of singing grass was calling out your name,\" and in 'You Still Touch Me', he claims that \"I seem to hear the raindrops saying you won't come back.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe disc contains nods to many genres, but Sting doesn't seem at home in any of them; though Mercury is distinguished by technical excellence, much of its material has an affected air. And the experimentation is not without its missteps: 'I Hung My Head', a sort of Sting-style 'I Shot the Sheriff' in which a man denounces himself for having killed someone, is notable for its unconvincing employment of Old West imagery (gallows on a hill, \"my brother Jed\"), while 'La Belle Dame Sans Regret', sung in imperfect French and backed by cocktail lounge piano, sounds like the background music at the Limited Express. Superficially and seamlessly eclectic, 'Mercury Falling' is respectable without being compelling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Guitar Techniques magazine by David Mead\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has long since established his genius for writing excellent pop\/rock songs with a homing instinct for the top of the charts. His last studio album 'Ten Summoner's Tales' was bursting with hits and this, its worthy successor, continues that trend. 'Mercury Falling' is probably Sting's most mature album to date. There isn't a hint of a filler track on the CD, each has single potential and an almost narcotic effect on the ear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGenre juggling has always given Sting's music fresh twists and that is much in evidence here, too. The country style 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying', complete with weepy steel guitar provided by BJ Cole is a bit of a shock to the system, but it's done so well (and is so damn catchy!) that you can't help but applaud. There's another cowboy song in 'I Hung My Head' and a couple of soul-inspired workouts (with the Memphis Horns) as well as the gospel overtoned single 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot', each standing up as near perfect examples of well-crafted songwriting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDominic Miller's guitar is always in evidence as he deftly switches between nylon string, acoustic and electric to provide an object lesson in inventive, on-the-nail guitar work which underlays Sting's masterful melodies with consummate ease. A classic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Music Wire magazine by Ed Hewitt\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting almost demands that his albums be treated like metaphysical poems, so cloaked and tangled are their conceits. Beginning with the choice of title, a phrase that serves as the first and last words on the album, 'Mercury Falling' requires the full treatment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever straying too far from the title metaphor, Sting depicts the rise and fall of human fortunes and emotions, the cycles of despair and hope as reliable as day after night, spring after winter, warm after cold. You get the idea. Songs occur at dawn or heading into dusk, or under the dim light of guiding stars. Each song chronicles a transition from some deep chill to, in some cases, an almost blinding sense of hope and possibility. That the album ends with 'Lithium Sunset', a song based on the notion that sunset light emits depression-soothing lithium, is no accident - heading into yet another night, Sting finds healing in the very light that is fading away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd Sting has taken a curiously mercurial stance on the styles of music he employs to help him make his points. From new-agey harp music to snorting R\u0026amp;B, Sting mixes and matches styles almost capriciously. The effect is like that of mythical beings with the body of a horse and the head of a fish, and vice versa; or, less charitably, one of those panelled kids' books that let you mix and match heads, torsos and legs to make strange, hybrid creatures.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA bossa-nova, 'La Belle Dame Sans Regret', complete with a one-handed piano solo a la Jobim himself, is inexplicably sung in French. 'Lithium Sunset', inspired by a visit from a Brazilian shaman, features a Ringo-esque tambourine backbeat. The blue-eyed soul of 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot' coasts out on a static gospel choir (if everyone else on the planet were not doing the same thing, it would be interesting - did you see the Grammies). But then, in the very next song ( the 7\/8 'I Was Brought To My Senses', which owes a vague debt to Whitman), Sting sings \"I was blind\/Now that I can see,\" from 'Amazing Grace' as Branford Marsalis' soprano sax soars behind him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'You Still Touch Me' kicks off with the unmistakable opening riff from the Blues Brothers' 'Soul Man'; two songs later, a genuine soul groove surfaces in 'All Four Seasons'. The Marty Robbins -style, Wild West murder tale of 'I Hung My Head' is in 9\/8, while 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying' features a more standard country beat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese tactics sometimes suggest a jumbled unity that might be easily mistaken for disjuncture, confusion or just plain messiness. All the pieces are there, just not where you would expect them. But it is in the unlikely 'I'm So Happy...', a bracingly straightforward song about the aftermath of a divorce, with a country lilt and steel guitar licks, that Sting tips his hand with the key to the puzzle: \"I looked up at the stars\/To try and find an answer in my life\/I chose a star for me, I chose a star for him\/I chose two stars for my kids and one star for my wife\/Something made me smile\/Something seemed to ease the pain\/Something 'bout the universe\/And how it's all connected.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Laurie Anderson once said, \"you connect the dots, you pick up the pieces.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Billboard magazine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs if anyone needed reassurance that Sting is one of the most gifted songwriters around, the British star has delivered an album that stands up to anything he has produced in his two-decade career. With the dark, shifty 'I Hung My Head', the uplifting single 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot', the pastoral 'All Four Seasons', and the modern-day lost-love yarn 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying', 'Mercury Falling' displays an astonishing diversity of songcraft and a consistent level of inspiration. Although much of the material here is left of center, it should appeal to a variety of formats, including pop, rock, triple-A, AC, and college. Whatever its fate in the marketplace, 'Mercury Falling' deserves a prominent place in the Sting canon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Entertainment Weekly magazine by Tony Scherman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn his alternatively heartsick and hopeful new album 'Mercury Falling', the rock god Sting delivers a healthy dose of hooks and - yes - humility.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe title of his new album, 'Mercury Falling', is a typical Sting gesture - it has the warmth of intelligence and the chill of self-regard. A tightly packed metaphor indeed, it is freighted with all the baggage we've come to expect from its author: puns, high cultural allusions, megalomania. Let's see.we have the onset of winter (read: depression, dashed hopes). We have - surprise! - Sting identifying with a god, the quicksilver Roman deity of messengers and thieves (commerce, too, fittingly). What's more, Mercury's not zipping along like he does on the FTD logo - he's falling. The message of Sting's sixth solo album of new material is that life on Olympus, while undoubtedly finer than it is for you or me, can be hell. Rock gods take headers too.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting may fancy himself a mercurial trickster; in fact, he's a paragon of consistency who turns out album after high-grade album, their proportions constant: two-thirds inspired pop rock, one-third naked ego. 'Mercury Falling' is as first-rate a piece of craftsmanship as its predecessors. If anything, it's tauter, more shipshape, and richer in hooks - the closest thing yet to Sting's pure pop album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf Sting is more in command of his art than ever, life isn't so cooperative. Coursing through these songs is a control freak's struggle to accept his lack of control. Lovers leave, moods swing, innocents die violently. \"I'm as dark as December \/ I'm as cold as the Man in the Moon,\" sings the abandoned lover on the album's stately, ominous opener, 'The Hounds of Winter'. Somberness turns to horror on 'I Hung My Head', with its nightmarish scenario that unfolds implacably over a staggered, unsettling rhythm. From the first lines - \"Early one morning \/ With time to kill \/ I borrowed Jeb's rifle \/ And sat on the hill\" - we know someone's going to die. The casually shaggy 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying', about a guy whose marriage has unraveled, may be the album's most appealing track. The lyric has the tang of felt life - either Sting has been through some rough patches lately or he's a better supplier of fictional detail than one thought: \"She says the kids are fine\/And that they miss me\/Maybe I could come and babysit sometime.\" The incongruous bounciness, courtesy of a pedal steel guitar and a country lope, is a stroke of brilliance. Without it, the song would be bathetic; with it, Sting nails the precise mood he's after - heartbreak without self-pity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs if to shake his foul spirits, Sting, with the help of the Memphis Horns and longtime collaborators guitarist Dominic Miller, keyboardist Kenny Kirkland, and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, takes a three-song flier at Memphis R\u0026amp;B. As a British blue-eyed soul man, he won't cause Steve Winwood any sleepless nights, but he gives the best of these tunes, 'You Still Touch Me', a genuine workout. The singer's in nautical mode on 'Valparaiso', a beautifully evocative sequel to 'The Soul Cages' cathartic sea tales.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSoul music and sea fantasies are two ways to stave off despair, but 'Mercury Falling' offers another, deeper vision of redemption: accepting defeat and moving on. Starting as a mournful English ballad, 'I Was Brought to My Senses' kicks into a sort of north-country samba, a moving, quietly exultant paean to nature: \"I walked out this morning \/ It was like a veil had been removed from before my eyes.\" The album closes with the prayerlike 'Lithium Sunset' (\"Fill my eyes \/ ...And take this lonesome burden \/ Of worry from my mind\"), whose pretty melody and jogging beat - it's another nominally country tune - give the song a guarded optimism, the careworn narrator heading for tomorrow, nursing his wounds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhether we loathe, admire, or profess indifference to him, few pop musicians engage our emotions as fully as Sting. He knows it, too. If his self-knowledge has increased, so has his awareness of his public persona - and his ability to play on our conflicting emotions. The album's last three words - \"See Mercury falling\" - are as loaded as the title they echo. Is Sting tauntingly inviting us to enjoy watching him take a spill Or is he mocking his own hubris, and with the most candid admission of vulnerability he has ever made: \"I'm falling\" Maybe what Sting is telling us is that he has learned something new (though he'd probably never quote anything as humble as a proverb): Pride goeth before a fall.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Buffalo News by Anthony Violanti\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDespite his rock star status, Sting is a workingman's musician, totally dedicated to his craft. \"I like being a journeyman and a craftsman,\" he said recently. \"I think there's a real danger of being painted into your ivory tower. To be asked to do different kinds of work is good for your creative process.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting is a master at blending musical styles and intelligent lyrics. He also has a sweeping sense of music history and showcases all those attributes on his new CD, due out Tuesday. It's all here, from folk to rock to jazz to country to soul.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"'Mercurial' is probably a good description of this record, in that it's everywhere, and you can't quite pin it down in terms of its references and its musical styles,\" he said.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting retains the energy and emotion he had when he was lead singer of the Police. Now in his 40s, Sting is aging gracefully and has lost none of his passion or creativity. That's evident on 'I Was Brought to My Senses', a track that begins with a folk sound but evolves into a jazz-laced journey of self-discovery and relationships.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was brought to my senses,\" Sting sings. \"I was blind but now I can see\/Every signpost in nature\/Said you belong to me.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting moves into an R \u0026amp; B mode on 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot'. Once again, it's about introspection and growth that surfaces through Sting's music and lyrics: \"Let your pain be my sorrow\/Let your tears be tears too\/Let your courage be my model...\/Let your soul be your pilot\/Let your soul guide you... upon your way.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere's more soulful sounds on 'You Still Touch Me', with a Police flavour, and 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying' has a country kick to it. Sting shows more versatility with a gorgeous soft number, 'All Four Seasons', when he sings: \"She blows hot and cold just like stormy weather\/She's my gift from the Lord or a friend from hell\/That's my baby\/She can be all four seasons in one day.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA few years ago Sting reached the apex of his solo career with the album 'Ten Summoner's Tales'. That CD was a sign of his artistic maturity. 'Mercury Falling', by an artist who refuses to be confined by his past, belongs in the same category. Sting's new record more than meets expectations. Rating:****\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The San Jose Mercury News by Mark Brown\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe bad news: Almost any song on 'Mercury Falling' would make a fine duet between Sting and Bryan Adams. For the fans who have lamented the mellowing of the Artist Formerly Known As Gordon Sumner, 'Mercury Falling' might just be the end - the album where he loses that '70s Police audience and his '80s jazz credibility.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe good news: Though a bit tame on the first couple of plays, 'Mercury Falling' is really a work full of beautiful moments and tender heart, even if it doesn't have the hooks, edge - or the hits - of Sting's previous albums.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDon't be fooled by the bland, happy-talk lyrics of the leadoff single, 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot'. It's easily the slightest cut on 'Mercury Falling'. But again, those unhappy with his mellow bent of late will find this lifeless throughout. 'Ten Summoner's Tales' at least had rollicking mood-changers, such as 'Love is Stronger Than Justice' and 'Heavy Cloud, No Rain'. And when he went into a smooth ballad there, it was the pristine beauty of 'Fields of Gold' or mournful confession of 'It's Probably Me'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill, more than half of 'Mercury Falling' holds up to Sting's best of the '90s. 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying' is an ambiguous and sad look at broken families, set against a deceptively upbeat backing. Sting gives us a vivid aural vista, where he stands under the stars and lets his thoughts wander; the images of loss and separation are so strong, one has to wonder what's happening in real life with Sting's family. A subtle steel guitar accents the tune to perfection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Wichita Eagle by Michele Chan Santos\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMercury Falling shows Sting has plenty of moves - Gospel, rock, country and jazz influence his sharp, wry new album: British rock star Sting once called pop music \"a hybrid, a mongrel thing... It doesn't stay in just one place.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe demonstrates again how effective this \"mongrel thing\" can be with his newest album, 'Mercury Falling'. As with his previous solo albums, Sting \"doesn't stay in just one place.\" He experiments with a wide range of styles, from gospel to country-and-Western to jazz to regular old rock'n'roll. He croons seductively in French in 'La Belle Dame Sans Regrets', howls in 'The Hounds of Winter' and tries his best to twang in the divorce-survival song 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter Sting's wildly successful career with the Police, five solo albums and a solo greatest-hits album, some fans might fear that he is all tapped out. But he's not. And the good news is that he seems to have regained some of the snappy sense of humor that made his songs with the Police so great. Some of his solo albums have been pretty somber - 'The Soul Cages', with its reflections on the death of his father, was particularly serious. That background makes this return to humor all the more refreshing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTake these verses from the sharp and sarcastic 'All Four Seasons', the complaints of a man with a PMS-plagued girlfriend: \"She can change her mind like she changes her sweaters\/From one minute to the next it's hard to tell\/She blows hot and cold just like stormy weather\/ She's my gift from the Lord or a fiend from hell.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe haven't heard that funny and wry tone for a long time. Backing him up on 'Mercury Falling' is Dominic Miller on guitar, Kenny Kirkland on keyboards and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. Old friend Branford Marsalis lends his saxophone to 'I Was Brought to My Senses' and 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot', which also features the East London Gospel Choir. Memphis Horns members Andrew Love and Wayne Jackson (who also contributed to U2's hit 'Angels of Harlem') appear for four songs, including the powerful 'I Hung My Head'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith this song, Sting turns pure storyteller, spinning a tale of a young man who murders on a whim. It's like a musical version of Clint Eastwood's film 'Unforgiven', resonating with the cold, dark, regrettable nature of violence. There's no romance in this song of the Old West, only sadness: \"I felt the power of death over life\/I orphaned his children\/I widowed his wife\/I beg their forgiveness\/I wish I was dead.\" This is one of the best tracks on the album, and Sting would be wise to release it as a single.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Police broke up in 1984. There are people who think that nothing Sting has done since then is as good as what the Police did. And they are probably right. But with 'Mercury Falling', Sting proves he's still got a few tricks - and a lot of talent - up his sleeve. He's one of the most literary rock stars around, and we'd do well to appreciate that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Philadelphia Inquirer by Tom Moon\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eArtists hate to admit it, but sooner or later, the muse takes a breather. The songs stop sounding effortless. The hits don't keep on coming. Some artists respond by changing the atmosphere of their music: Paul Simon went to Africa for a jump start. Bruce Springsteen walked away from his band to rediscover, in a stark solo setting, his political conscience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting, the former schoolteacher whose seventh solo album, 'Mercury Falling', arrives in stores Tuesday, has followed a more subversive course. Some form of experimentation - with moods, musical styles, the architecture of his songs - has been part of virtually every project. Tucked between the anthems and funk workouts that sell Sting's albums are songs that strive for the elegance of Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, songs set in odd meters, songs that keep his musicians on their toes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis balance has served him well: Sting's 1993 effort, 'Ten Summoner's Tales', sold more than 3 million copies in the United States. Every record he's made since disbanding the Police in 1984 has gone past the 1 million mark. Even critics who find him smug and sanctimonious have had to concede that, in his own calculated way, Sting is gnawing at the borders.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere's every indication that 'Mercury Falling' - which seems, on the surface anyway, as adventurous as previous outings - will meet the same commercial fate. It has a feel-good pop-gospel single ('Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot') set in the same tempo as the massive Police hit 'Every Breath You Take', and a few songs that approach the carefree funk of Sting's early solo hits.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut something is different: Before, it was the message of Sting's songs, not the mechanics, that you remembered hours later. Now the reverse is true. Once, his songs were driven by a pure emotional focus, a fine reduction - the bitter rue of 'Every Breath You Take', the devotion that rules 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You'. Now Sting appears primarily concerned with technique.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike 'Fields of Gold', the pastel VH1 ballad from 'Ten Summoner's Tales', his latest music glides along on a pillowy, adult-contemporary cushion, the perfect balm for the harried people in those International Coffee ads. You have to search for the rough spots. You have to go deep, past layers of undifferentiated sensitivity, to find a moment of tension. For the first time in his career, Sting, 44, is proving an axiom well-known to some of his less creative peers: In the imitative and highly stylized realm of pop, it is possible to coast on craft alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eConsider 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot'. Built around a vaporous, new-agey slogan, it's a medium-tempo pop-gospel extravaganza that offers plenty of inspirational platitudes, but little of the existential musing that once made the philosopher Sting worth hearing. There's a choir, of course, and a horn section; the chord sequence touches every gospel nerve. But by the end, you're left wondering how such a slight idea could be pumped up into this hailstorm of emotion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat's craft at work. Sting loaded the arrangement with signifying organ, and deployed the choir at just the right moment. With such artillery, it hardly even matters what he's saying. Pilot is almost generic - polished, professional, emotionally wrought, ultimately inconsequential. The same problem runs throughout 'Mercury Falling': The music is chock-full of musical devices that Sting believes elevate him from the low-brow world of pop, yet it's virtually devoid of insight and energy. Even when he's on one of his arty excursions, there's the sense he's being deliberately obtuse as he sings about faraway places such as 'Valparaiso'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eContrast that to his oft-criticized 1991 project, 'The Soul Cages', which found Sting wrestling with the demons that visited him when his father died. At least on that rambling, muddled collection, he was working with something that was important to him. His emotional investment was obvious. Now he's aging cagily, not giving much away, stringing together predictable sentiments. Keeping his eye on that VH1 demographic, he appropriates large chunks of Stax-Volt soul ('All Four Seasons') and tries his hand at formula country (the pedal-steel-kissed 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying' and oddly truncated 'Lithium Sunset').\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album's one absolute masterpiece, 'I Was Brought to My Senses', illustrates the difference between craft and inspiration perfectly. It begins with a Celtic vocal line, then slides into a vaguely Latin 9\/8 pulse. But where odd meters are used as a gimmick elsewhere on Mercury (see the hokey 'I Hung My Head'), the rhythm here is silky smooth, a restrained churn. The song - about seeing the world anew after a period of darkness - is full of awe and self-discovery, the chorus' broad melody line recalling the melodic clarity of Innervisions-era Stevie Wonder.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere, at last, is something that churned up from inside him. It's not another songwriting exercise. It's not another example of Sting hiding behind the devices at his disposal, counting on the sophistication of the tracks to compensate for the shallowness of his message. No, this time everything's working toward the same goal. It's a triumph of blood-and-guts writing, and it should be cherished - because moments like Senses are rare, even for a consummate craftsman.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Raleigh News \u0026amp; Observer by David Manconi\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting is the Jeremy Irons of the rock aristocracy. Intelligent, dignified, British and terribly, terribly self-conscious, he's the consummate man of wealth and taste - the model of the Conscientious Pop Star. That he never insults your intelligence is both the best and worst thing you can say about the man. Just once, it would be nice if he could lighten up enough to do something truly tasteless. Consider the following quote from Billboard magazine, in which Sting explains the meaning of his new album title, 'Mercury Falling': \"It's an astrological symbol, an astronomical thing. You know, Mercury is the god of theft and commerce. He's the messenger, too. He's quite a complex character, this Mercury. As am I.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes, Sting always attaches ponderous significance to his album titles. 'Mercury Falling' adds Greek mythology to a stable that includes titles cribbed from Chaucer (1993's 'Ten Summoner's Tales'), Shakespeare (1987's 'Nothing Like the Sun') and Jung (his old band the Police's 1983 swan song, 'Synchronicity'). Despite his typically pompous titular baggage, however, Mercury Falling ranks as the least pretentious of Sting's five solo albums. Not that it's a laugh riot. The most memorable track is 'I Hung My Head', which has one of Sting's trademark indelible hooks in a 9\/8 time signature meant to mimic the lilting gait of a galloping horse. It's so catchy that it almost obscures the song's horrifying story line - a first-person account of an accidental shooting, for which the narrator is hanged. Where the new album displays a lighter touch is in its music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe title 'Mercury Falling' (a phrase that pops up in both the first and last song on the album) can also be interpreted as changing weather. This record is a transitional work that seems to consciously move away from the thematic unity of past Sting albums, with their fussy jazz stylings or Stravinsky-esque flourishes. 'Mercury Falling' goes the dilettante route, embellishing the pop tunes Sting can't help writing with bossa nova beats and touches of Irish folk. He sings one song ('La Belle Dame Sans Regrets') in French and gives credit for another ('Lithium Sunset') to the influence of a Brazilian shaman. Studiedly eclectic and immaculately produced, 'Mercury Falling' sounds like the best darn Steely Dan album we're likely to get before the millennium. Two styles emerge as surprises: classic soul and country. The former at least has some context, in that other gigantic English pop stars have dabbled in soul. 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot' (the album's first single) sounds like some of U2's late-'80s experiments with soul, while 'All Four Seasons' and 'You Still Touch Me' evoke the Temptations and Al Green. It's hard to go too wrong when you've got the Memphis Horns providing punchy background. Country is the real shocker. 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying' sounds like the sort of title you'd do as a joke, and it's drenched with over-the-top pedal steel guitar. But even though this comes straight out of left field, Sting makes it work. He's an amazingly evocative singer with a voice so pliable it can seemingly do anything. Not that he should, of course. Sting is still most effective singing pop songs, and 'Mercury Falling' lacks a pure ear-candy single like 'All This Time' or 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You'. Rest assured, however - someday in the not-too-distant future when Sting makes his opera move, the results will be worth listening to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Collegiate by David Schonfeld\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Mercury Falling' brings Sting to a new high: Mercury, or quicksilver, has been found throughout history. It is the name of the Roman god who served as the flight-footed messenger for Jupiter. It is the name of the smallest planet in our solar system.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTraces of mercury have been found in the brims of derby hats, causing men to go insane. Mercury is found in a thermometer, measuring the intensity of heat or demonstrating the degree of coldness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike a thermometer, emotions rise and fall on Sting's new album 'Mercury Falling'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album kicks off with 'The Hounds of Winter', a brooding tune about lost love that conjures up the image of snow and wind. With this first song it seems that this album may be another depressing venture by Sting, who juggles self-deprecation and pretension on a tenuous gossamer. \"I'm dark as December\/ I'm cold as the Man in the Moon,\" laments Sting. This song hearkens back to 'The Soul Cages' (1991), a somber, reflective album Sting wrote after the death of his father.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the album jumps erratically to an upbeat tempo with 'I Hung My Head', and from here on, 'Mercury' is actually Sting's most uplifting album to date, experimenting with a variety of sounds from jazz to country.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first single is 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot', an odd choice because it runs over six minutes in length. This gospel-tinged tune is somewhat of a formula song and not too exciting. But Sting's voice is in good form, and he carries the weight of a long song excellently.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'I Was Brought to My Senses', which is the gem of the album, begins with a mournful vocal solo but when the song kicks into a Latin beat, the lyrics cheer up and Sting shows us his lighter side. Former bandmate Branford Marsalis lends a hand with saxophone on this tune and 'Pilot'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe twang of the pedal steel guitar introduces a country sound into 'I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying', a somewhat confusing title of a somewhat confusing song about a man who is overjoyed that his wife has left him. Sting also incorporates country sound into the last track 'Lithium Sunset', which ends with the same to words that the album began with - \"mercury falling.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn a whole, the album is not that original, but Sting continues to produce consistent music that is at times deep and at other times sprightly, like a feather-footed figure of mythology.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978424402,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_2d620d7d-3263-4669-8559-d13f4d299df0.jpg?v=1758314752"},{"product_id":"all-this-time-2","title":"...All This Time","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Trudie and I lost a friend in the Twin Towers (investment banker Herman Sandler), and singing was the last thing I wanted to do, to be honest with you. I just wanted to crawl into a corner and cry. I put it to the band. I said, 'What do you want to do' And they all said, 'We wanna play.' It was a much more sombre show than what we had planned. But as the concert progressed, the mood changed. We felt we had every right to be there, listening to music, making music, singing; because really it's the opposite of what terrorism wants. Terrorism wants us to be afraid, to be frightened and to be controlled. So even though, at the time, I didn't want to do it, I've had no second thoughts about whether or not it was right to carry on with the show.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Daily Express, Oct 2003\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"My first instinct was to stop, to cancel it, to just say, 'Look, I'm too devastated to even think about wanting to sing tonight'. I was convinced by the other members of the band - a lot of them from New York, who couldn't even reach their families at that point - that we should play, because we had a duty to play; that's what musicians do. And I was told I had a responsibility to the audience, which had travelled thousands of miles and turned up to see us.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Denver Post, 12\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Although we began very tentatively, as the evening progressed, it became therapy, if you like, for everybody - me, the band, the audience. It ended up with a joyful, healing celebration. I wish the context hadn't been this at all. It's not the concert or the mood we'd prepared. But it was us basically thinking on our feet. We cancelled some shows immediately after that - I was paralysed. But I thought it was right, on that day, that we were compelled to just go forward and do it with the deepest respect for the people who died or are suffering as a result of that tragedy. It wasn't something I would have relished. But now that it's there, I think it's a fitting memorial to that day. I hope people appreciate that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Denver Post, 12\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It was strange - throughout the evening, the songs kept surprising me with how appropriate they were, or how close they were to the situation we were in. In the second song I sang, 'A Thousand Years', there's an image of 'towers of souls' rising into space. That was a little too close, and I apologized to the audience that this was happening. But each of the songs recalibrated itself in the moment.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Denver Post, 12\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The genesis of the project was from the record company. They said, 'Look, you've played to 2.7 million people, a successful tour by anyone's standards. Commercially, a live album is what you should do.' Well, normally, you just stick the tapes on for a particular show and just put it out; it's very easy. I wasn't terribly keen on that, because I think it's lazy. So I wanted to give the fans some sort of value added - take that band that had played together for so long, and rearrange every song with the knowledge we'd acquired about them on tour, and give them an extra level of fun. And also add a few new people that hadn't played with me before, like Christian McBride on the acoustic bass or Jacques Morelenbaum on the cello. 'Just a few elements that would make everybody play 'up'.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Denver Post, 12\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I haven't seen the special, but what people have said about it is that it was so human to see us having to react under the circumstances. I suppose they see themselves on that day, because all of us in the world went through an alteration, completely. We'd been attacked. For me, it threw up interesting questions about what is music, what is entertainment, what purpose does it serve in this context It reminds me of the first time I was the comedy host on 'Saturday Night Live' - that was the day that we bombed Baghdad with cruise missiles. My timing is not what it should be!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Denver Post, 12\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We'd spent a week rehearsing, we were going to have a wonderful, joyous celebration that evening, a concert, a live Webcast, 200 friends. We'd just had lunch. Someone said, 'You'd better come in and watch the TV,' and we saw the horror of what happened on that morning. I went outside and sat down and decided that I couldn't sing. Why would I want to sing on that night And so I called the band to have a meeting, have a kind of democratic meeting. I said, 'Guys, I don't think I can sing tonight. What do you think \"Well, we - well, we have to.' Unanimously, everyone said they had - they had to play, because that's what musicians do. Some of them from New York, some of them couldn't get through to their families, obviously very, very stressed, they still wanted to play. They said, 'Besides, you have 250 people coming to your house, and you're responsible for them. So they'll need something.' So I said, 'Look, as a compromise I will sing one song. I'll do 'Fragile', because I think it's an appropriate sentiment.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Today, 11\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I didn't want to put out a tape of a show in some big, rah-rah stadium, which is what most live albums are. I wanted to create something much more personal and intimate - more like a love letter than a noisy concert. And I knew I could invite 200 strangers from all over the world to my home, because I know how respectful my fans are.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, USA Today, 11\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I decided to ask for a minute's silence, and then it would be up to the audience as to what happened next - a democratic decision. And I was perfectly willing to lay down the guitar and go to bed. Well, the minute's silence was very heartfelt and devotional. And I could hear some people in the audience weeping, even some people in the band weeping.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Denver Post, 12\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We were all having lunch when the news came in that this appalling massacre had happened. Everybody's mood changed completely. Did I feel like singing No way. I wanted to sit down somewhere and cry. But we had a band meeting, because we're a democratic outfit, and they all said, 'We have to play. This is what we do - we're musicians. And you have all these people coming from all over. You have to deal with it. I heard at least two members of my band weeping, and more weeping in the audience. I said, 'OK, the Webcast is done; it's just us here in this beautiful courtyard on this terrible day. What should we do' And I heard this groundswell of people going, 'Give us some music.' It was my job to provide that sort of instant therapy. I began tentatively, but as the night progressed, the mood changed to one of healing, then defiance, then genuine joy. We realized we had the right to express ourselves, which is something terrorism tries to destroy.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, USA Today, 11\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Certainly, I didn't want to sing 'Englishman in New York' - it seemed too happy and frivolous. 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' also didn't seem correct. And the way we played was changed. I'm normally pretty detached emotionally from what I'm singing, because I feel that if you've written the melody and lyrics, they already transmit emotion. But here, I was really overcome a lot of the time, and you can hear it in my voice. And the band played out of their skins. We all felt confused and frightened and angry, in varying proportions.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, USA Today, 11\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It certainly wasn't the concert we'd prepared. And there were songs I didn't want to do. I didn't want to sing Englishman in New York. It's too happy. I didn't want to sing 'Every Little Thing She Does is Magic'. I had to choose songs that were suitable for the context.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Today, 11\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It was always meant to be a personal record, but the context of this day made it even more personal. You know, you see musicians basically thinking on their feet. Nothing was planned, everything was as it was. It's a memorial of that day. I wish it wasn't in that context, I really sincerely do, but it is what it is. I dedicate it, respectfully, to the people who lost their lives, one particular friend of my wife and myself.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Today, 11\/01\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Music Week magazine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded on September 11 this year, this greatest hits live set is respectfully dedicated to all those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center that day - among them a good friend of Sting's.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor, while the rest of the world watched the horrors unfold on CNN, a 200 strong audience of competition winners and record company executives saw Sting perform in the garden of his Tuscan villa, accompanied by an impressive band - featuring pianist Jason Rebello, guitarist Dominic Miller, drummer Manu Katche and pedal steel man BJ Cole.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA poignant, tear-inducing rendition of the brilliant 'Fragile' kicks off this balmy evening among the olive trees and bougainvillea, the opener of a set which offers calm, considered, elegant, jazz-pop reworkings of some of the 50-year-old ex-Police man's finest moments.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor where Sting's previous live outing (1986's 'Bring On The Night') was an exciting, electrifying exhibition of jazz-rock energy and muscular musical prowess, '...All This Time' takes the mellow, intimate, unhurried, slick and polished option.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBest of the largely impressive seventeen tracks here are the gentle love songs 'Mad About You', 'Fields Of Gold' and 'Shape Of My Heart', the sparse, cello-tinged Police tune 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' and the jazz piano crooning of the album's only new song 'Dienda'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are however, moments when the pudding is well and truly over egged - 'Roxanne' starts stunningly before losing it in a classical cello interlude and sleazy jazz club lope, while the otherwise perfect '(If You Love Someone) Set Them Free' disintegrates into a brassy, Blues Brothers style knees-up.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven set closer 'Every Breath You Take' is ruined by a smaltzy 'let me introduce you to the band' routine. But that's probably being a bit picky over what is largely an accomplished, enjoyable, in-the-flesh reminder of Sting's not inconsiderable talent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Q magazine by Peter Kane\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSay what you like about Sting - and many do - he's a consummate pro. Planned as a celebration at the end of a two-year world tour promoting 'Brand New Day', '...All This Time' was recorded on 11 September 2001, a day when few were in the mood to party. Not surprisingly, in contrast to the preening self-adulation that made 1986's 'Bring On The Night' so unpalatable, the performances here bend towards restraint, irrespective of the radical makeovers meted out to 'Roxanne' and her companions. And while these versions are unlikely to supplant the studio versions in most fans' affections, this does at least serve as a reminder of the quality of songs such as 'Fields Of Gold' and 'Fragile'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by James Hunter\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting was in Tuscany when he gave this concert in a courtyard there, beginning at nine in the evening, Italian time, September 11th. The show was scheduled as a two-hour Webcast; however, Sting chose to transmit only one song - his hymn like classic 'Fragile' - after he and his multinational crew learned of the events in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. The rest of this vividly played, authoritatively sung show was committed to tape, and it pulses inescapably with the aura of its real-time date. The music thrives from 'Fragile' on, through a sly, funky 'Hounds of Winter' and a 'When We Dance' that delivers soulful freedom within a classical structure. This is music filled with mood and memory, refined yet raw with emotion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Buffalo News by Tom Moon\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's well-documented 'All This Time', complete with a TV special and DVD, was recorded Sept. 11 in a private concert in Italy. It's eloquent and haunting with strings and brass and heavenly backup vocals - all characteristics expected on the lovely 'Fragile' or 'When We Dance' but startling on 'Don't Stand So Close to Me' and 'Roxanne', a number that unexpectedly morphs into a delightfully sexy jazz tune. It's a relaxing and often romantic recording - a Sting record for non-Sting fans.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from CDNow by Patrick Berkery\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe healing power of music couldn't even begin to soothe the ravaged souls and heavy hearts around the world on September 11, but you have to respect Sting for trying. With 200 fans and friends en route to see him and his augmented band, preparing to record a live album and webcast the proceedings from Italy on that fateful day, Sting and company did what they thought in their hearts was right. The show went on (though the webcast ended early), resulting in the reworked solo and Police compositions that comprise 'All This Time', which is dedicated to the victims of the Sept. 11 tragedy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere's no pall cast over the music, though: the musicians play with unbridled passion and amazing focus, immersing themselves in the challenges presented by the radical re-arrangements. The buoyant 'All This Time' is given new life as an R\u0026amp;B testimonial, while 'Roxanne' is re-spun as a sparse ode to unrequited love. Elsewhere, they sink their teeth into the spirited, full-blown versions of 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You' and 'Every Breath You Take'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor obvious reasons, this is not just another live album. Regardless of what you might think of Sting as an artist, his passion towards the music in the shadow of such tragedy is both moving and impressive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the Lexington Herald Leader by Walter Tunis\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt began as a quest for reinvention. After touring for nearly two years behind his 'Brand New Day' album, Sting and band convened in Italy this fall to perform a selection of his best-known songs with entirely new arrangements. A documentary crew would film the performance, a concert album would be recorded, and a live Webcast would broadcast the undertaking live. The date all this was to take place Sept. 11.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven the day's catastrophic events, the performance was reorganized but not canceled. Filming and recording went on, but the Webcast was canned except for one song, 'Fragile'. The tune served as a subtle eulogy to what had just transpired. Newly injected with a dose of Brazilian electronica, 'Fragile' also introduces '...All This Time', the album chronicle of the Italian concert.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThose married to the originals that '...All This Time' presents (which covers Police and solo Sting material) might be in for a bumpy ride. 'Roxanne' is transformed from a New Wave reggae blowout to a studied slice of swing, while 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free' is served up as revivalistic salsa with Sting delegating bass duties to famed new generation jazzman Christian McBride.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe face lifts don't stop with the hits. Two of 'Brand New Day's' best tunes - the hymnlike 'A Thousand Hours' and the funkfest 'Perfect Love.. Gone Wrong' are melded into a single jazzy suite. Later, 'The Hounds of Winter' rings in with an urgent but lush orchestration, making the tune far more arresting than on 1996's 'Mercury Falling'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat we wind up with is an album unavoidably solemn at times and unexpectedly soulful and serene at others.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The London Free Press by Darryl Sterdan\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt might seem Sept. 11 was the worst possible evening Sting could have picked to record a live album. But judging by 'All This Time', it may have been the best possible evening. After debating whether to cancel, Sting and his band decided to play one song - the anti-violence number 'Fragile' - and continue if things felt right. Things obviously did. And they sound very right on this superior 15-song set of old Police faves ('Don't Stand So Close to Me', 'Roxanne', 'If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free' and a punched-up 'Every Breath You Take') and solo material ('Brand New Day', 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You', 'A Thousand Years').\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePresumably spurred by the tragic events of the day and the emotions they stirred, Sting delivers these songs with an urgency and passion he hasn't shown for years. Frankly, we didn't think he had it in him, and we're sorry it took tragedy to bring it out. But we'd be lying if we didn't say we're glad we got to hear it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Miami Herald\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded live for invited fans in Tuscany on the evening of Sept. 11, Sting offers dramatically reworked versions of familiar material like 'Fragile' (particularly poignant in this context). As performed in this small jazz club-like way with a jazz band, Sting's music gains intimacy. One of the most satisfying recordings of Sting's career.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from New York Newsday by Martin Johnson\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis 15-track, hour-long live recording documents a Sept. 11 performance by Sting with a superb band playing at his villa in Tuscany. When Sting learned of the attacks in New York, he considered canceling the concert, but instead, he and the band played on. The emotion of the moment is evident on 'Fragile', as he sings of \"fleshing and steel as one.\" His band includes ace players such as bassist Christian McBride, pianist Jason Rebello, trumpeter Chris Botti and trombonist Clark Gayton, and they rework many of Sting's best-known tunes. 'Roxanne' becomes a lilting shuffle. They get funky on 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free'. And 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You' seems cathartic for both the audience and the musicians.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the The Oklahoman by Sandi Davis\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's music has been getting jazzier over the years, and this live album, recorded at Sting's Italian home, is pure jazz. The 15-cut disc has songs he's been singing in concert for the past two years, but all are done with a twist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOriginally this entire performance was set to be webcast live Sept. 11. After the terrorist attacks, Sting and his band decided to simply do 'Fragile' on the webcast, then shut it down. A\u0026amp;E recently aired a three-hour show that featured performances from this disc plus interviews and observations from the artist, but the highlight of that special was the music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Fragile' opens '...All This Time' but I especially liked finally getting to hear a live version of 'Moon Over Bourbon Street' from 'Dream of the Blue Turtles'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe easygoing 'A Thousand Years' shows Sting's lounge lizard side and conjures up a smoky room and a craggy-faced barkeep swabbing a scarred bar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe addition of a cello is especially appreciated in 'Don't Stand So Close to Me', and I really liked the 'Roxanne' tango, perhaps an echo of the musical number featured in \"Moulin Rouge.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis whole recording is as relaxing as a summer evening, and the tunes flow over you effortlessly. This time of year, '...All This Time' may be a welcome stress reliever.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Oregonion by Scott Lewis\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe enigmatic Sting releases his second live album - a collection of Police hits, solo songs and one new track - which was recorded before about 200 friends and fans at his villa in Tuscany just hours after the attacks of Sept. 11. Career capsule: Before he became a member of the select group of musicians to operate under a single, assumed name, Sting was Gordon Sumner, a British high school teacher and ditch digger.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBleaching his hair and adopting his singular name, Sting joined up with guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland in 1977 to form and front the Police. The trio's nervy rock-reggae hybrid pop was technically well above the group's new wave counterparts, and the band released five acclaimed and popular albums between 1978 and 1983. The band broke up in 1994 after the release of the chart-topping 'Synchronicity', a masterpiece propelled by the smash single 'Every Breath You Take', a creepy, stalking song largely mistaken for a loving and longing ballad.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEventually, each member pursued solo projects, but neither Summers nor Copeland achieved the success that Sting has enjoyed. Sting showed his more mature, jazz-infused approach to pop on his solo debut of 1985, 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough some critics belittled Sting's solo direction as watery and weepy \"adult contemporary,\" listeners reveled in his softer sonic side. Since then, Sting has released six more studio albums; his most recent, 'Brand New Day', received Grammys for best pop album and best pop male vocal performance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has also continued to dabble in acting since his role as \"The Face\" in the Who's film version of 'Quadrophenia'. This CD: This live CD and corresponding Webcast were nearly derailed by the attacks of Sept. 11. Though Sting wanted to cancel the performance, he was encouraged to proceed by his band, some of whom were from New York and unable to contact their families.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInitially, Sting agreed to perform only 'Fragile' (which has become a de facto anthem in response to the attacks) and let the crowd decide the fate of the evening. After a minute of silence following the song, he was urged to continue, and the performance provided a type of emotional catharsis for all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFifteen of the 19 songs played that moving night are present on '...All This Time', and the song selection reflects the mood of the moment. The intimacy of the evening is also felt; the performance is almost free of rock-star ego and posturing, and the crowd response sounds appreciative without becoming distracting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's longtime band is joined by several guests, and the assembled unit definitely has its chops down. Sting holds up his end for the most part, though his voice falters at times and his vocal re-arrangements on a couple of tracks sound somewhat forced and awkward. A complementary DVD, including rehearsal periods and candid moments, has also been released. Must hear\/tracks to skip: The flow and feel of this performance were intentional, and the evening's subtly changing flavor is best savored with a complete listening. Opener 'Fragile' is so delicate and mournful, it's as though it were written around the events, and Sting's tender and touching delivery tugs at the saddened heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA strong jazz element informs the next three tracks, though Sting keeps his voice subdued and avoids high notes almost altogether. The disc's new song, 'Dienda', is another jazz tune, heavy on the smoky-lounge factor and through which Sting severely limits his vocal range and inflection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Police classic 'Don't Stand So Close to Me' benefits from the addition of cello, getting slowed down and subdued, which heightens the tale's tension. Another Police staple and sordid tale, 'Roxanne', sounds close to the original version, filled with a buoyant beat and Sting's chirpy voice, but gets toyed with and dressed up with some storming horn playing. 'When We Dance' doesn't warrant much notice, and Sting hurries and garbles the lyrics to one verse. This occurs again to the point of annoyance during the jumping rendition of 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe standout of the 15 tracks is decidedly 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You'. Sting's voice is filled with passion and resolve, and the band pumps tons of swinging spirit into the thoughtful declaration. Though not essential by any means and suffering from a feeling of hurriedness and spots of vocal shakiness, '...All This Time' proves that Sting's band is frightfully talented and he still delivers the goods with confidence, poise and flair.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Richmond Times-Dispatch by Eric Mink\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the day America changed, Sting was a couple of thousand miles away in Tuscany, Italy, setting up for an intimate concert - planned months earlier - that would be taped for a live album release.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter he received word of the World Trade Center attacks (in which he and wife Trudie Styler lost a longtime family friend), he pondered cancelling the gig, then decided it would be better to revel in music than grieve in solitude.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a tribute to those lost that day, Sting opened the show with a hushed rendition of 'Fragile'. The appropriateness of the song wasn't lost on the small crowd gathered at the villa, and it isn't any less affecting hearing it in recorded form. Though there are no direct references to Sept. 11 on the album - in fact, there is scarcely any talking at all - the mood of the evening has been bottled well. Sting and his fabulous band have toured for nearly two years behind his commercial comeback, 'Brand New Day', and the group's precise playing breathes deeply. In typical Sting fashion, however, none of these 15 songs - many of them ubiquitous hits - is performed in rote studio form.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Don't Stand So Close to Me' slowly weeps with lust, while a spirited version of 'Every Breath You Take' turns that claustrophobic prowl into a commemoration of independence - and both are accomplished with a few tempo tweaks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElsewhere, Sting and Co. are loose and jazzy on 'The Hounds of Winter' and the almost unrecognizable 'All This Time' and 'Brand New Day', and trumpeter Chris Botti receives extensive spotlight time for his sultry wails on 'Fields of Gold' and 'Moon Over Bourbon Street'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting fans will relish the opportunity to revisit his engrossing live arrangements, while casual listeners should be sucked in by the fine display of musicianship.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The St Louis Post-Despatch\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis live recording - taped on that ill-fated day, Sept. 11 - captures the evolving music of Sting, but given the context of the tragic events that will forever mark that date, it's also a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's been 15 years since Sting's last live recording, thus 'All This Time' naturally includes many of Sting's greatest hits. 'Roxanne', 'If You Love Somebody' and 'Every Breath You Take' are all here, reinvented to suit jazzier inclinations and the talents of Sting's fine band.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut it's the lesser-known tracks that define Sting's music outside the paint-by-numbers world of pop. 'All This Time' deals with his father's death, taking a jaunty jab at simplistic religious practice, while on 'Moon Over Bourbon Street' the New Orleans swing allows the singer to dig into a Louis Armstrong-influenced delivery in celebration of vampires in love. Sting's choice to play and record with a small club-size audience adds to the sense of intimacy and immediacy that comes through these performances. From sad events and dark emotions, beautiful art, moving music can come.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The University Wire by Jenn Young\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNumerous artists have released songs in response to the Sept. 11 tragedy, but none have been as poignant and moving as Sting's 'Fragile'. The song, which was written as a tribute to John Lennon, was heard by the world that very night, at a live concert Sting had been planning for months as a massive international performance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe idea was to play to a small audience in Tuscany, Italy, and simultaneously broadcast the show all across the world via a Web broadcast. The concert would then be recorded and released as a live album. When news of the tragedy reached Sting, though, he decided that the full Webcast would be disrespectful and inappropriate. Thus, he and his band played only the one song, 'Fragile', before shutting down the connection. They continued the show at the request of the audience, and the tapes were still recorded and are now being released as '...All This Time', his first live album in 15 years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe record is, above all else, an intimate experience. The emotion in Sting's voice transcends anything achievable in a studio, and even hearing it secondhand is an exciting musical experience. Much of his music is intensely personal, and the live, small-venue recording complements this perfectly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaking this disc all the more enjoyable and exceptional is the musical style that so many of the tracks are in. While Sting has often been accused of creating mellow, New Age music, this album frequently leans toward the world of jazz, which is made complete with the addition of a trumpet and a trombone to the band. Several traditionals like 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free' and 'Roxanne' are suddenly reinterpreted with a jazz flair, all the more suitable considering the 200-seat performance hall. Sting's voice easily sails across the jazzy riffs and staccato breaks, making the transition from his unique brand of mystical, spiritual rock all the more fluid.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe best selling point of the album is still 'Fragile', though, as his vocals are concurrently calming and insightful. The lyrics masterfully capture the intangible sense of pain that arises from tragedy. They are also ironically applicable to the events of Sept. 11, with carefully crafted images taking on double meanings in the modern world. The lyrics, \"If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one\/drying in the color of the evening sun, tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away\/but something in our minds will always stay\" are indicative of the mood of the piece, which emerges as a cathartic wonder, a song that cleanses the soul from a mere listen. This song alone is worth the price of purchase.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHowever, the rest of the tracks represent the best of the matured Sting, a joyous remembrance of his early career complete with a catalogue of his later hits, all packaged in a way that both new and old Sting listeners will appreciate. Like all of the great singer\/songwriters of his generation, Sting has found a way to continually reinvent his sound to suit new audiences without alienating his die-hard fans, and thanks to this, he has enjoyed boundless success.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe music recorded in the simple Italian theater is some of the most beautiful work released in the world of rock in recent memory, a perfect match for Sting's unmistakable sound. '...All This Time' is a musical experience that must be felt and appreciated for its subtle, emotional simplicity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Times by Scott Silverstein\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlthough Sting never gives any clue about the recording date during this live performance, the answer lies in his voice. There's an emotional depth to '...All This Time' beyond any of his studio albums, a bareness inherently sad and incredibly longing. 'Fragile' begins the show, and it's clear that's exactly how Sting felt on that day - September 11.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter days of rehearsal for his first live album of 15 years and a live Webcast, Sting and his band decided to go on with the show in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Sting limited the Webcast of the show to that one song, but the remainder of the fan club performance in Tuscany, Italy, appears here and on a DVD version. The result A show before a crowd of 200 that feels as intimate as it was, almost as if Sting were an unknown playing at a piano bar. It's an unusual move for a major star - most live albums feature a roaring crowd of thousands in the background - but it works in a beautiful way. The setting allows him to strip down many of his big hits from through the years, to reinvent them the way he would sing them in 2001.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Roxanne' becomes a slow jazz tune, losing most of its reggae roots. 'All This Time', one of the few songs here that increases in tempo, becomes a Dave Matthews-like jam. 'Every Breath You Take' loses much of its wonderful creepiness but adds a little bounce to close the show.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe highlight here, however, remains 'Fragile', which has become somewhat of an anthem since September 11, partly because of this performance. (Sting also did the song for 'America: A Tribute to Heroes'.) It's amazing how a 14-year-old song can capture the moment best, even as depressing as it was.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978457170,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_03623eec-f58b-40a7-9c3a-5102bbc2ecf8.jpg?v=1758314752"},{"product_id":"ten-summoner-s-tales-2","title":"Ten Summoner's Tales","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In 1992 we moved the family out to the country, to a run down manor house built in the sixteenth century that needed some care and attention. The gardens were beautiful, and walking in them was like walking into a dream. It was called Lake House. I felt inspired to write, and, for the first time in years, with a genuine spirit of happiness. There were no grand concepts, no plan, except to have fun telling stories in as many diverse styles and moods as I could think of. It is this carefree spirit that pervades the album and helped it to become one of my most popular records. The title was a mischievous conceit linking my surname, Sumner, with the scurrilous character in Geofffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. There was nothing more to it than that, and subtitling the first and last songs 'Prologue' and 'Epilogue' was just further mischief. The album artwork does include the first picture of me with a lute, something that would become significant to me in the years to follow.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Lyrics', 10\/07\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The title is a mild literary joke because my name, Sumner, comes from the medieval name Summoner and a Summoner was someone who summoned you to court or to see the king. The Canterbury Tales which was written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the fifteenth century is a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims - there's a nun, a miller, a knight, a summoner, a pardoner and they each tell a story. They each tell a story and their all kinds of stories - romantic stories, funny stories, rude stories and they are all told in different styles. It's a kind of ragbag. So I thought there was a connection, because the album is essentially a ragbag of styles - it comes from everywhere and the only thing that connects it is me. So I thought of my connection with this name Summoner and with the album being an eclectic ragbag of tunes I'll call it 'Ten Summoner's Tales'.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Ten Summoner's Tales' Promotional Interview Disc, '93\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"By the time I made 'Ten Summoner's Tales', that was about having a steady band that I loved and trusted, and having a nice family life. I'd moved here (to Lake House). I fell in love with the cliché of moving into a country mansion, which I'd avoided for years. It was all of those factors, and just having a ball.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Mojo, 2\/95\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I didn't want any more confessional songs, and I wanted to put myself in other scenarios. I can do that, I'm a craftsman. I don't have to just do one thing. It was a good release for me. But now I don't know what to do next that's the problem. I don't know whether to go back to the doom and gloom. I'll have to sit and wait and see what happens. I've no plans.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Mojo, 2\/95\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"On this album, I've looked around at the most normal things in my life: the cowboy movie on my TV, the golden fields of barley beyond my house, and tried to see the subtle stories within them. Yet on the record's final song, 'Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me)', I say you can search all and still not know anything about me, the storyteller. But maybe that's not true, because being whimsical is an essential part of my personality and my own searching. I want to be a good pilgrim on the road to Canterbury, but I want to ignore all the signposts along the way. As I quote him on the album, St.Augustine had a prayer for all the rascal summoners of the world: 'God, make me pure, but not yet!'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Billboard, 2\/93\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I really don't like studios much, I find them prison like environments where you don't breathe the air or see the sunlight for months on end so I decided I'd make a record at home. So I moved everybody out of the dining room and moved the equipment in, and the band and the instruments, my producer and engineers and we made a record at home in the dining room. The kitchen is right next door so we had the nice smell of food going for most of the day, and we could walk out in the garden and open the windows and just live a real life instead of the fake environment that the studio gives you. It just made us happier basically.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Ten Summoner's Tales' Promotional Interview Disc, '93\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I just like ten as a number, but I think we get round the problem by having the last number as an epilogue, a sort of afterthought. You really need to put your amateur analyst's hat to one side - maybe I'm kidding myself - but I think you can listen to these songs and they are not about me. But, then maybe they are, and you'll find out more from these songs rather than you would from deliberately autobiographical songs or confessional songs.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Ten Summoner's Tales' Promotional Interview Disc, '93\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I wanted to make a record that let me get back to writing songs just for fun. That's why I began the whole thing all those years ago - writing songs for fun, and I have to say that's exactly what happened. I was in a very good mood, I was with my band and I was writing songs to amuse them, to amuse myself, to amuse my family and it kind of makes me smile when I listen to the record.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Ten Summoner's Tales' Promotional Interview Disc, '93\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Do I have to fucking slash my wrists every time I want to write a song Having done it on 'Soul Cages' and exorcised a lot of ghosts, I didn't want to excavate another trauma, I just wanted to write songs for fun.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 3\/93\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone magazine by Anthony DeCurtis\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's new album 'Ten Summoner's Tales', strikes the tricky balance of being both uncompromised and relaxed. Less serious overall than his previous solo outings (despite its title, Tales contains eleven tracks, which should tell you something), it neither chases trends, attempts to break new ground nor strains for Major Statements. Its ambitions are modest - to entertain you, of all things - and for that reason, its successes are all the more pleasing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course, with Sting, humility is a relative thing. The album's title, for example, alludes to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, one of the great monuments of the English literary tradition. There is a twist, however. The prototypical bearers of bad news, summoners were uniformly hated because their job was to \"summon\" people to court for ecclesiastical or civil crimes, including moral violations like adultery or fornication.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSummoners were greatly feared and highly susceptible to bribes - greasing the summoner was a most effective way to avoid trouble. Sumner, Sting's surname, derives from the word. Identifying with the summoner is a deft way for Sting to get some distance from his do-gooder image while sustaining the resonance of his larger social concerns.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe summoner is one of the more grotesque portraits in 'The Canterbury Tales', so ugly that \"children were afraid when he appeared.\" Still he's just one among many rascals in Chaucer's human comedy, another pilgrim travelling to Canterbury on a spiritual quest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike Chaucer's, Gordon Sumner's eleven tales are populated by a too live and all too human crew. The anarchic tendency of sex to rear its lovely head and confound more high-minded or rational motivations is one of Tales' recurring motifs. Seven brothers battle for a single bride in 'Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven)', a loopy narrative spun out over an arrangement that might be best described as country jazz. In 'Seven Days' a hesitant David prepares to battle the Goliath his girlfriend identifies as his rival; so worshipfully love addled is this \"mighty flea\" that Sting croons a verse from 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' as the song fades out. Erotic torment (or is it bliss) grips a man who falls in lust with his best friend's girl in 'Saint Augustine In Hell' - a hell that in a perfect Sting touch proudly numbers music critics among its inhabitants.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Sting and Hugh Padgham, 'Tales' is loose and swinging; the joy in the playing is palpable. Backing Sting, who plays bass is the lean, versatile outfit - Dominic Miller on guitar, David Sancious on keyboards, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums - that he took on the road after 'The Soul Cages' came out in 1991. Strings, horns, Northumbrian pipes, harmonicas and other instruments turn up on an as needed basis, and the band ranges gracefully over musical styles. And however light-hearted much of the material may be Sting's compositional flair is much in evidence. Choruses, bridges, instrumental breaks and codas routinely take songs in unexpected directions. Smoky and shaded even in its most direct expressions, Sting's singing is, as always, superb, a virtual study in intelligent rock-vocal technique.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically varied as 'Tales' is, a number of tracks draw on Sting's established strengths. One of the album's more heartfelt songs, 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You' rises to a gorgeous, ringing chorus over a delicate probing guitar figure 'Shape of My Heart' uses a gambling conceit to explore \"the sacred geometry of chance\" and the elusiveness of emotional self knowledge. And 'It's Probably Me' is a classic Sting ballad: moody brooding, vaguely sinister, troubled and seductive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever one to miss an opportunity to stick in the shiv, Sting ends 'Ten Summoners Tales' with a taunt. 'Epilogue (Nothing'Bout Me)' chides his critics for trying to freeze him in their notions about his life: \"Run my name through your computer\/Mention me in passing to your college tutor\/Check my records, check my facts\/Check if I paid my income tax\/Pore over everything in my CV\/But you'll still know nothin' 'bout me.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Ten Summoner's Tales' doesn't really tell us nothing about Sting, though. Throughout the album he slips into and out of the various identities - pop pinup, jazzbo, seriouso activist - that he has previously assumed or had thrust upon him, without committing finally to any of them. It's a masterful dance that leaves the crowd dazzled and distracted as the dancing master sneaks away, the artistic slate swept clean, all options open for the future.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Q magazine by Paul Du Noyer\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe word has been, you may have heard, that Sting has \"lightened up\" here. Given the downcast, drifting meditations of its predecessor 'The Soul Cages' - a record awash with melancholic images of surrealistic seas and bleak bereavement - he could hardly have proceeded in any other direction. And say what you like about him - he can still astonish. The fact, incredible as it sounds, is that Sting has written 12 new songs without quoting a single line from Shakespeare. Four solo albums since he left The Police, this alone marks a turning point.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe title, admittedly, carries a learned allusion to Chaucer (by way of a play on his old name, Gordon Sumner) and one must still imagine him, at home, as a man with a book-stand attached to his Nautilus weights machine (with, perhaps, a mirror or three around it). But it's not a sin to be literate, even in rock'n'roll. And let it be said that it's not stopped him making a truly cracking album. 'Ten Summoner's Tales' assails you with sheer enthusiasm at every turn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMathematicians might carp that 12 tracks don't equal 'Ten Summoner's Tales', but once again Sting's mighty brain has out-foxed them he calls the first and last tracks Prologue and Epilogue, leaving just 10 in between. Of these there is one, 'Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven)', with the funniest lyric he's ever written. 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You' is memorably sweet, while the one called 'Fields Of Gold' is warmly, poetically romantic. His soul still has its long, dark nights, presumably, but only two cuts ('Shape Of My Heart' and 'Something The Boy Said') are especially brooding. More typical is the semi-comic 'Seven Days', about a timorous lover in agonies of indecision \"Ask if I am mouse or man\/The mirror squeaked, away I ran\" only 18 months ago he'd probably have cast himself as Hamlet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Saint Augustine In Hell' re-acquaints us with our old friend the lust-tormented lapsed Catholic, while 'Heavy Cloud No Rain' sustains its central metaphor very cleverly, and 'It's Probably Me' is a love song with a note of reticence that's particularly well judged.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe musicians travel along this record's eccentric trajectory - lots of quirky time signatures, the cheerful anarchy of cross-genre witticisms and what the sleevenote-writers used to call \"jazz stylings\" - with energy and verve, and it all makes for some very sophisticated pop indeed. Nothing but fine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Daily Telegraph by Chris Heath\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter disbanding the Police in the mid-Eighties, Sting pushed further and further away from the simple, clear pop music which made him famous. The ambition was impressive, but the results weren't always too beguiling. His obsessive self-analysis and his experiments with jazz and latin music threw up the occasional object of beauty, but also a lot of meandering nonsense.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf the frequent critical roastings he has received for these excesses had no effect, he has perhaps taken more notice of dwindling record sales. Whatever his reasons, with 'Ten Summoner's Tales' he has shifted back towards his true talent: writing short, traditional pop songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill, Sting wouldn't be Sting if there weren't a few moments that rankled. A couple of songs offer an almost condescendingly throwaway version of good-time pop - the pub rock of 'Nothing 'Bout Me' sounds like an out-take from fellow Geordie Jimmy Nail - and there are a few overblown touches. His spoof western 'Love Is Stronger than Justice' is, no doubt, intended as a ,joke but there will be as much wincing as chuckling over couplets like, \"We'd only stopped for a few burritos \/ But they told us of the trouble with los banditos\", or indeed, over the song's pretentious sub-title, 'The Munificent Seven'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStudents of his pretensions will know that in the past Sting has taken album titles from Koestler, Jung and Shakespeare; for this one he manages to make a pun on his real surname, Sumner, and borrow from Chaucer. With Sting, it's the suspicion that we are expected to swoon over such aimless erudition that grates, but on this album he doesn't try it on too much. If 'Ten Summoner's Tales' is the product of scaled-down ambitions, it's all the better for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Entertainment Weekly magazine by Tom Moon\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet's see what's left Since the last Police album, in 1983, Sting has been through an esoteric jazz phase (1985's 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles'), done time as an artist-activist (the 1988 Amnesty International tour), and suffered through a period of mourning ('The Soul Cages') that had all the exuberance of a root canal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCould it be time for him to try pop again The 11 terse, vividly imagined gems on 'Ten Summoner's Tales' prove that the joys of a simple song are not yet out of his reach. Unlike, say, Paul McCartney, Sting still understands the rare alchemy of the radio hit, still crafts choruses designed to lodge in the mass consciousness. And the new album has plenty of catchy, unburdened moments-the strutting 'Heavy Cloud, No Rain', the fierce roadhouse shuffle 'She's Too Good for Me', and even the medium-tempo first single, 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You', which is illuminated by a surprisingly resolute lead vocal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting being Sting, he returns on his own terms to the punchy, accessible music he has avoided of late. The effortless refrains of the love-at-first-sight ode 'Saint Augustine in Hell' and the courtship drama 'Seven Days' affirm what's really good about pop, while sudden tempo changes and other composerly touches dispense with (or at least circumvent) its constricting formulas.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Detroit Free Press by John Guinn\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm intrigued by a 41-year-old British musician named Gordon Sumner. Most everyone in the universe knows Sumner as Sting, a nickname he picked up from jazzman Gordon Soloman in 1972 when he played bass with the Newcastle Big Band and wore a sweater covered with bee-like stripes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm intrigued with Sting for much the same reason I'm intrigued with classical musicians like mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli and composer John Corigliano. Like Bartoli, Sting has an impressive voice - although I should quickly add he's not exactly in her league. And like Corigliano, he knows how to compose good tunes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoth those attributes are evident in Sting's latest compact disc and video, 'Ten Summoner's Tales'. The 55-minute collection comprises 10 \"tales\" and an epilogue. Sting composed and arranged eight of the pieces. He also coproduced the album with Hugh Padgham, the mixer and engineer. The album was recorded at Lake House, a grand English manor set in the Wiltshire countryside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting supplies vocals and plays bass, harmonica and saxophone, along with a group of musicians playing instruments I didn't think most rock groups would recognize - trumpet, cello, viola, trombone, violin, flute and Northumbrian pipes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThose who think all rock music is meant to puncture eardrums will be surprised at the gentility and tenderness of some of these selections. 'Fields of Gold', for instance, never rises above a mezzo-forte and has a melodic and harmonic simplicity with which Mozart could identify.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'It's Probably Me', the selection that impressed me most, is an admirably understated tribute to friendship. 'Love is Stronger than Justice' has a refrain (\"Love is a big fat river in flood\") with a ring of truth similar to that found in Schubert's songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome selections (such as 'Heavy Cloud No Rain') seem bland, but others get as intense as late Beethoven. Saint Augustine in Hell, the most complex piece, takes some loud-mouthed shots at St. Francis of Assisi, the whore of Babylon, Roman Catholic cardinals and, saints preserve us, music critics. 'She's Too Good for Me', at 2 1\/2 minutes the shortest song, alternates between bitter anger (\"She don't like the tales I tell\/She don't like the way I smell\") and whimsical reflection (\"Would she prefer it if I took her to an opera or two\").\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe video version of the album impressed me more than the CD, even though its sonics were inferior. Filmed at the Lake House recording session with additional shots of Sting cavorting about the surrounding fields with placid British farm animals, it conveys the same sort of joy in music-making found in the best classical music chamber groups.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThose qualities also carry over into the performances, which are precisioned, buoyant and committed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You'll still know nothing 'bout me,\" Sting sings confidently as he looks directly at the camera in the epilogue to this ultimately fascinating collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe's wrong. And Saturday night at Pine Knob, when I hear him for the first time in live performance, I hope to know even more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Philadelphia Inquirer by Tom Moon\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn 'Nothing 'Bout Me', the 11th song on his new 'Ten Summoner's Tales', Sting declares: Pick my brain, pick my pockets\/Steal my eyeballs and come back for the sockets\/Run every kind of test, from A to Z\/And you'll still know nothing 'bout me.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs painful as it is to agree with the sanctimonious rock star, this time he's right. We don't know much about him. And our presumptions often sell him short. Those lines, for example, are wide open. Sting could be reacting to the invasion of privacy that has become a fact of life in the digital age. He could be bemoaning the culture of celebrity, and tabloid journalists who miss the essence of the man as they pick through his trash. He might be bristling about critical treatment of his post-Police output: the sound-bite reviews that have greeted each project, the amateur psychoanalysis he endured from critics and others in the wake of his 1992 'The Soul Cages'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Nothing 'Bout Me', a carefree walking-tempo groove that wouldn't be out of place on an Al Jarreau record, takes in all those meanings, and more. And given that the former schoolteacher is still something of a lecturer, the song's cautionary note about snap judgments may also be advice to anyone giving a first listen to 'Ten Summoner's Tales', which arrives in stores on Tuesday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album's sticky hooks and gallant, sometimes elegiac choruses appear to be just more pleasant music from Sting, inconsequential variations on everyday pop treacle from the author of some of the enduring hits of the last decade. But investigate further: These songs have a switchblade edge. They're the product of a restless and uncompromising spirit - pop music as interpreted by a covert-operations specialist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho else would write an affectionate send-up of country music with verses in jerky 7\/4 time Who else would offer an account of love at first sight and interrupt it with a visit from the Hell's shop steward Who else would portray the contest for a woman's love as a stark tale of brains vs. brawn (\"I.Q. is no problem here,\" Sting sings of his rival on the coy 'Seven Days'. \"We won't be playing Scrabble for her hand, I fear.\")\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike, say, Peter Gabriel - whose current album calculatedly reworks some of his past successes - Sting is doing his best to broaden, to change his perspective, to do whatever it takes to keep himself interested in the pop- song form. On previous solo works - the jazz-influenced 'Dream of the Blue Turtles', the stricken 'Soul Cages' - Sting was determined to proclaim his songs' significance, and he heralded their innovations proudly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow it seems as if he could care less. Unburdened of the responsibility of Big Thoughts, he's creating songs that have the outward characteristics of dependable pop, but the internal workings of far more sophisticated music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Ten Summoner's Tales' - the title refers to Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' and the corrupt summoner who brought people to court to stand trial for alleged misdeeds - finds Sting determined to loosen up, but on his own terms. The funky 'St. Augustine in Hell' captures his gilded voice straining to express love for his best friend's girl, and it hardly matters that the song is set in a choppy meter sure to wreak havoc on dance floors: Sting and his band execute it as if it were as natural as a waltz. They're having fun with the groove - note David Sancious' explosive Hammond organ solo, which pays tribute to Booker T.'s soul-kitchen heat - and that relaxed attitude comes through the tracks. It's as if Sting knows he can be terminally pompous, and has set out to change his image with songs that are, on one level anyway, buoyant and breezy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven the stuff that could be filed in the \"Songwriting Exercises\" category sounds inspired. Sting has dabbled in blues before, but he's never written a shuffle with the ferocious intensity of 'She's Too Good for Me'. He's tried jazz balladry before, too, but with 'It's Probably Me' has arrived at a moody, harmonically hip masterpiece. And while the minor-key story-song 'Something the Boy Said' recalls the atmospheric sweep of the Police's 'Tea in the Sahara', the new song's chord sequence gives it a dramatic momentum, a slowly gathering tension that builds to an inevitable conclusion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs he does throughout the work, Sting sings Something the Boy Said with poise and understatement. He's not afraid to expose the rough edges of his voice - see the bridge to the somber, resolute first single 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You' - and he's not above slipping a scowl or two into otherwise- heartfelt lyrics, as if to remind his detractors that they know nothing 'bout him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's ability to have fun with the material sets an example some of his peers would do well to follow. Right now, many veterans of pop and rock are obsessed with the Big Risk and the Creative Leap - Elvis Costello's erratic collaboration with a string quartet comes to mind. But while they try to distance themselves from the three-minute form, Sting, of all people, is showing there's plenty of room for insight within the small, subversive gesture.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Baltimore Sun by J D Considine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs far as most of the rock press is concerned, the trouble with Sting is that he's too clever by half. Indeed, he just about beats listeners over the head with his erudition, quoting Shakespeare and cribbing from Prokofiev in his songs. And since these are purportedly just pop tunes, more than a few critics have accused him of pretentiousness in the first degree.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting, though, is more than clever - he's also devilishly sly. So with his fifth solo album, 'Ten Summoner's Tales', he manages to show off his smarts without drawing a lot of attention to them. It's almost a kind of compositional sleight-of-hand, as Sting uses catchy melodies and pop-savvy arrangements to distract our attention away from just how crafty these songs are.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt helps, of course, that the writing here ranks among his most tuneful to date - no mean feat, given his past success as a solo artist and with the Police. Most singers would give anything for a song as insinuating and dramatic as 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You', yet Sting more than equals it with the likes of 'Fields of Gold' or 'It's Probably Me'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven so, there's more afoot in 'Ten Summoner's Tales' than mere popcraft. After all, anybody can do catchy; what Sting is interested in is seeing how many jokes, lyrical and musical, he can slip into each song without diminishing its melodic allure.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven)' is a perfect example. Probably the album's most elaborate musical prank, it burlesques spaghetti westerns, snickers at pop sentimentality and teases the trend toward country - all in just over five minutes. It sounds almost dizzying, described like that, but as diverse as the comic elements might be, the song as a whole is seamlessly melodic. Indeed, unless you're looking, you may not even notice touches like the Ennio Morricone-ish guitar hook, or the way the beat slips easily from a jazzy 7\/4 on the verse to a countrified straight-four on the chorus.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNor are all the jokes here musical. 'Seven Days', for instance, pokes fun at Sting's brainy reputation by having him fret over romantic competition from a muscular rival \"over six feet ten.'' Sings Sting, \"Ask if I am mouse or man\/The mirror squeaked, away I ran.'' Even the protagonist's procrastination becomes grist for the joke mill, as Sting ends the song with a snatch of 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' - another number about a man too love-smitten to act on his desire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat sort of self-referential humor is a constant here, from the album's title - a joke alluding both to Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' and Sting's real name, Gordon Sumner - to a none-too-subtle gag in 'Saint Augustine in Hell' that finds the Devil introducing its denizens: \"barristers, certified accountants, music critics, they're all here.''\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill, the album's most telling moment is probably its last, the 'Epilogue (Nothing About Me)'. In it, Sting suggests that no matter what he might expose in the course of a pop song or personality profile, he ultimately reveals nothing of himself. In fact, he says, the more minutiae we absorb, the less we really know, until we're left, in the end, with nothing more than the chorus: \"You still know nothing 'bout me.''\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd in a way, that's the best joke of all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Buffalo News by Anthony Violanti\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting was drowning in angst on his last album, 'Soul Cages'. It was a musical form of psychotherapy, and about as much fun to listen to as the Oprah Winfrey-Michael Jackson TV interview.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut now Sting is back with a fresh, invigorating record filled with a smorgasbord of sounds and rhythms, and bursting with creativity. It reflects his new attitude.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm feeling good about myself and my work,\" he said recently. \"This is the happiest I've been in a long time.\" That joyful spirit shows on the new record, which is reminiscent of Sting's work with the Police. In some ways, it is even better.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's a pop record in the truest sense,\" Sting said in a press statement for the 'Ten Summoner's Tales' album. \"I felt it was important that it not be confessional, autobiographical or therapeutic.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe opening cut, 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You', resonates with the eccentric funkiness of the Police. The beat builds as Sting sings: \"You could say that I lost my faith in science and progress\/You could say that I lost my belief in the holy church...\/If I ever lose my faith in you\/There'd be nothing left for me to do.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe second song, 'Love Is Stronger Than Justice', is one of the best of Sting's career. The music starts to an R \u0026amp; B groove as he offers a silky rap, and then he unexpectedly goes into a country twang: \"Love is stronger than justice\/Love is thicker than blood\/Love is stronger than justice\/Love is a big fat river in blood.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting tops that effort with a mournful, stirring love song called 'Fields of Gold'. An organ and a slow drumbeat add to the power of the song and Sting exposes a wounded heart as he sings: \"You'll remember me when the west wind moves\/Upon the fields of barley\/You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky\/As we walk in fields of gold.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Ten Summoner's Tales' is filled with remarkable work. The title is based on a character from Geoffrey Chaucer's \"The Canterbury Tales.\" Sting said he was attracted to that Chaucer tale because \"it was a very rude story about priests.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Summoner\" is also close to Sting's real last name, Sumner. Sting is backed by a band that includes former Pretender Dominic Miller on guitar, David Sancious on keyboards (played with Peter Gabriel) and Vinnie Colaiuta (played with Frank Zappa) on drums. They seem comfortable in whatever musical direction Sting takes them. 'Seven Days' is a song with a reggae beat that unexpectedly turns into a Broadway show tune; the melancholy 'It's Probably Me', deals with friendship and solitude.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Heavy Cloud No Rain' is laced with funk, in contrast to the folky 'Something the Boy Said'. 'She's Too Good for Me' ranges from a rock 'n' roll rage to a soft ballad, with Sting's hyperkinetic vocals kicking the song into high gear. Sting takes a turn at dark humour in 'St. Augustine in Hell'. \"It's about the tension of wanting to be good and yet being tempted - and just enjoying the temptation,\" he has explained.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt one point, a voice that supposedly is the devil explains that hell is filled \"with ...judges, accountants... music critics... they're all here, you're not alone.\" Sting gets a kick out of such lines, and humor is one of the elements that makes this album so enjoyable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There are lots of musical jokes on this record,\" Sting said. \"I'm learning to relax in my life, but I hope I never lose the tension in my work. Without tension there's no spring.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is plenty of spring - and provocative music - in Sting's new album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Orange County Register by Mark Brown\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTen Summoner's Tales, was recorded with a luxury few artists could afford. Sting brought the musicians to his new English estate, moved the furniture out of its massive dining room and turned it into a recording studio on the spot. The musicians all lived in the huge house while recording, which added plenty to the cohesive, relaxed feel of the album, belying the speed with which it was recorded.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot as jazzy as earlier works but every bit as smooth, 'Ten Summoner's Tales' (actually 11 songs) leaves behind the dark visions of 'The Soul Cages' for a more upbeat outlook. That's largely because Sting himself is more upbeat these days. 'Soul Cages' dealt with the death of his parents, and even the deceptively cheery All This Time was about his father's death and last rites.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis time, the opening cut, 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You' provides the most worrisome moment, but even it is an affirmation of hope. But things quickly pick up with 'Love Is Stronger Than Justice', a hook-filled song that's strong despite its stupid title.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou get the wistful Sting in a revamped version of 'It's Probably Me', more intimate than the version that appeared on the 'Lethal Weapon III' soundtrack. 'She's Too Good for Me' is that rarest of Sting songs, one that pokes fun at himself. He is in a good mood these days, isn't he?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFans wanting a closer look at how the album was recorded can buy the accompanying videotape, which shows Sting and the band running through the album live in the room where they recorded it. And watch for a tour, despite Sting's recent bout with the flu that caused some rehearsal cancellations. Band members have been rehearsing a batch of Police songs, including 'Synchronicity II' and 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The San Jose Mercury News by J D Considine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost of the rock press considers Sting too clever by half. Indeed, he just about beats listeners over the head with his erudition, quoting Shakespeare and cribbing from Prokofiev. On his fifth solo album, he manages to show off his smarts without drawing a lot of attention to them. It helps that the writing here ranks among his most tuneful to date. Sting is interested in seeing how many jokes - lyrical and musical - he can slip into each song without diminishing its melodic allure. 'Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven)' burlesques spaghetti Westerns, snickers at pop sentimentality and teases the trend toward country. Unless you're really listening, you may not notice touches like the Ennio Morricone-ish guitar hook or the way the beat slips easily from a jazzy 7\/4 on the verse to a countrified straight-four on the chorus.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 'Seven Days', Sting pokes fun at himself fretting over romantic competition from a muscular rival \"over 6 feet 10.\" Sings Sting, \"Ask if I am mouse or man\/The mirror squeaked, away I ran.\" Self-referential humor is a constant, from the album's title - a joke alluding both to Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales' and Sting's real name, Gordon Sumner - to a none-too-subtle gag in 'Saint Augustine in Hell', which finds the Devil introducing his tenants: \"barristers, certified accountants, music critics, they're all here.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill, the album's most telling moment is probably 'Epilogue (Nothing About Me)', where Sting suggests that, no matter what he might say in his music, he ultimately reveals nothing of himself. In a way, that's the best joke of all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Capital Times by Eric Rasmussen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUp until about a week ago, I would have figured that the chances of me liking a Sting album were somewhere down there with the chances of me really digging a collection of the unreleased recordings of Joseph Goebbels.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter all, back in 1988 my comments to the effect of \"I hate Sting'' brought an onslaught of letters and phone calls to local radio stations and my home. Sure, my roommates thought it was a gas, but I can now safely say that Sting is the man responsible for my unlisted phone number.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA few years cooling off made me admit the awful truth, though. Sting bugged the crap out of me because he was everything I hated, not about great musicians, but about rock critics: a pretentious, name-dropping, self-referential, thin-skinned egotist. Of course, he was a lot better looking than most rock critics, which is where the similarities ended. In short, it was easy to set up Sting as a straw man, with all his faux jazz, pseudo-classical, literary aspirations. When all was said and done, Sting remained just a little too serious and precious for his own good.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn his latest album, Sting foregoes almost all the characteristics most closely identified with him. The music is light - even playful - and the \"big issues'' that weighed him down (saving the rain forest, bringing peace to the world, obsessing over death) are refreshingly avoided in favour of that thing that all rock critics and really serious musicians fear most: entertainment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs such, 'Ten Summoner's Tales' is Sting's most consistently rewarding solo effort. It's not really that he's gotten less pretentious. It's just that he's chosen his references with a less heavy hand. Whereas his second solo album, 'Nothing Like the Sun', took its title from a Shakespeare sonnet, 'Ten Summoner's Tales' is a play on Chaucer and a reference to a more folk-based, oral tradition of ribald storytelling. And with this album Sting emerges as more human, something his previous solo outings have always contained, but buried beneath too much musical and lyrical baggage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Seven Days' is just one example of a song that is quintessentially Sting but yet a departure from anything he's done before. The cut's central musical motif comes from a string section, and it ends with a quote from the Police's 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'. But the lyrics are about fighting with some \"neanderthal'' for a woman's attention. In a verse that wouldn't be cause for much attention from another artist, Sting sounds refreshingly humble: Perhaps I need a drink\/IQ is no problem here\/We won't be playing Scrabble for her hand I fear\/I need that beer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLikewise, the album's first single, 'If I Ever Lose My Faith', is the kind of pop classic Sting manages to write once per album, but here it shimmers even brighter than 'If You Love Someone' or 'All This Time'. Amazingly, the band Sting has assembled here (the same outfit with which he toured for 'The Soul Cages') sounds even more like an organic, living unit than the Branford Marsalis-Kenny Kirkland-Omar Hakim supergroup he put together for his first two records. Drummer Vinnie Colaiuta is really the musical centerpiece. The former Frank Zappa sideman plays in and off the beat with a drive that is propulsive but never overbearing. He practically owns the album's faster songs, 'St. Augustine in Hell' (which includes Sting's most pointed jab at music critics), 'Love is Stronger than Justice' and 'She's Too Good for Me'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs usual, though, Sting's voice gives the music a paradoxical attraction. At once icy and passionate, Sting brings more real warmth to this album in spite of himself than on any of his projects since the Police's 'Ghost in the Machine'. Even It's Probably Me, which was hopelessly, coldly detached in its original incarnation on the 'Lethal Weapon III' soundtrack, comes across here as rich and heartfelt. Ironically, it's closer to a jazz piece than anything Sting did when he was supposedly playing with a jazz band.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the end, 'Epilogue' is a fitting and effective closer to the album. Sting answers his critics without bitterness or spite with a playful challenge to \"set up your microscope and tell me what you see \/ you'll still know nothing 'bout me.''\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt least this time around, Sting has figured out that maybe we don't really want to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Record by Barbara Jaeger\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has been saddled with the image of stuffy, serious, socially conscious pop singer for so long, it's hard to imagine a smile ever crossing his face. He certainly didn't have any fun on 1991's 'The Soul Cages', a brilliant, but sombre, collection of tunes that grew out of Sting's grief over the death of his father. But fun is what Sting's having on his delightful and playful - two adjectives not usually associated with the British singer - new album, 'Ten Summoner's Tales'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(OK, so the erudite Sting still is fond of literary references. But the medieval summoner referred to in the album title is one of the more roguish characters in Geoffrey Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales'. And summoner also happens to be the genesis of Sting's surname, Sumner.) Sting's talent for crafting tuneful pop songs - first showcased with the Police - is well-displayed on this masterful collection that includes such lovely and lovingly crafted songs as 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You' and 'Fields of Gold'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs is true of Sting's best work, many of the songs tap into his jazz leanings. But he constantly surprises with the musical twists and turns many of his breezy tunes take. The best example is 'Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven)' - which begins with some Ennio Morricone-style spaghetti Western sounds, then shifts into a smooth country-western chorus, before ending with some jazzy be-bop piano play from David Sancious (a former member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut not all the surprises are restricted to the music. 'Seven Days' finds Sting poking fun at his intellectual image when faced by a brawny muscleman \"over six feet ten\" for his affections. \"Ask if I am mouse or man\/the mirror squeaked, away I ran,\" sings Sting in his reedy voice over a tense instrumental arrangement. Sting doesn't limit the humour to personal jabs, though. In 'Saint Augustine in Hell', he has the Devil, over some spare piano play, introduce some of the inhabitants of Hell: \"We've got... barristers, certified accountants, music critics, they're all here.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeedless to say which group Sting takes particular delight placing in Hades. But given the criticism he's endured through the years - often based on personal, not artistic, assessments - Sting is entitled to take his best shot. And if the content of this album is any indication, it's all in the name of fun, anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The San Antonio Express by Robert Johnson\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has never been one for smiley-faced music, but at least the gloom has abated on 'Ten Summoner's Tales', his fourth studio album since The Police split up 10 years ago. Everything is relative, of course. Though Sting reportedly was in a much better frame of mind for this album than its predecessor, 'The Soul Cages' (1991), his new album isn't filled with warm, cheerful tunes. But at least there's nothing as bleak as 'Island of Souls', which opened 'Soul Cages' on such a down note, it could have been dangerous to clinically depressed listeners.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOften accused of pomposity and sermonizing, Sting is guilty of neither here. Backed by his 'Soul Cages' touring band of Dominic Miller (guitar), Vinnie Colaiuta (drums) and David Sancious (keyboards) and by a host of guests, Sting starts his 'Tales' on a brighter note. 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You' seems cynical on paper, but the music gives it a hopeful slant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe second tune, 'Love Is Stronger Than Justice', is a funky tall tale that actually has a sunny, country-flavoured chorus. 'Fields of Gold' is a warm ballad. Things get denser as the album progresses Sting, a jazz bassist before he joined The Police, loves intricate, layered arrangements with complicated rhythms. The results are usually impressive, though 'It's Probably Me' sinks under its own weight. And the swinging, thick rocker 'She's Too Good for Me' has its momentum disrupted by a pit stop for an interlude with strings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever one to take criticism lightly, Sting shoots back at his detractors. In the oddball 'St. Augustine in Hell', the devil ticks off a list of damned souls \"We've got cardinals, archbishops, barristers, certified accountants, music critics; they're all here.\" The album-closing 'Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me)' is equally pointed \"Pick my brain, pick my pockets\/Steal my eyeballs and come back for the sockets\/Run every kind of test from A to Z\/And you'll still know nothing about me.\" Amazingly, the track is more light-hearted than it sounds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo one will ever accuse Sting of making party rock, but 'Ten Summoner's Tales' a reference to a story in 'The Canterbury Tales' and to Sting's real name, Gordon Sumner is a sturdy, detailed piece of work. It's heavy, but so what The pop-music scene already has enough fluff.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978555474,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_19f0bc14-384c-4646-b6ea-2e0dfcd2e361.jpg?v=1758314759"},{"product_id":"the-soul-cages","title":"The Soul Cages","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"My father died in 1989. We'd had a difficult relationship, and his death hit me harder than I'd imagined possible. I felt emotionally and creatively paralysed, isolated, and unable to mourn. I just felt numb and empty, as if the joy had been leached out of my life. Eventually I talked myself into going back to work, and this sombre collection of songs was the result. I became obsessed with my hometown and its history, images of boats and the sea, and my childhood in the shadow of the shipyards.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Lyrics', 10\/07\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The theme of the album is essentially about dealing with death. For me, at my age, it's an important subject. I don't kid myself that my experience is unique but I have a way of expressing things through songs that may be useful to someone else some sort of therapy. They're still rather overwhelming for me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Advertiser (Australia), 2\/91\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'd reached the age of thirty-eight, and I wanted to assess my life; figure out what had gone wrong, what had gone right. I started at the beginning; I started with my first memory. As soon as I remembered the first memory of my life, everything started to flow. The first memory was of a ship, because I lived next to a shipyard when I was young, It was a very powerful image of this huge ship towering above the house. Tapping into that was a godsend. I began with that, and the album just flowed. It was written in about three or four weeks. Having written all these words in a big burst, I then fitted them in with the musical fragments I had and put it together. I'm fairly pleased with the record. I think it achieved what I wanted it to achieve in that I feel somehow, I don't know, like I've done the right thing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Rolling Stone, 2\/91\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"That's what the 'Soul Cages' is about in a way; working through things yourself rather than trusting in mass ideologies. We come into the world alone and we leave alone. I mean, I'm not anti-religious, but if you believe anything wholesale, you open yourself up to a lot of perversions of the initial content. That's unhealthy. The core ideas behind ideologies are great, but invariably they get twisted. I'm not an expert, I'm just working on myself. That's the path to choose\".\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Creem, 2\/91\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This latest album has got the best reviews I've ever had - and the worst. There's a polarity about them which is quite extraordinary and, I suppose, in a way, confirming. Some of the reviews you can classify as revenge of the nerds - hate mail. A lot of it, you're touching deep areas of resistance and prejudice and, actually, hatred, which I don't know how much is to do with the music or to do with my projected image, or what.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Independent, 2\/91\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Most people who listened to the new album said they didn't like it the first time, but it grew on them. It's much more layered than my stuff used to be. I think my intention is to implicate the listener, rather than impress him immediately. You'd be surprised that the basis of 'All This Time' the most recent single is actually a piece of Bach - really pretentious, but it's true. The way the chorus comes in is lifted from the first cello suite. And the lyrics I wrote in Normandy. I went to Normandy one weekend when I'd just started the album and I stayed in the hotel that Proust used to stay in. So I got his room: OK, I'm in Proust's room, Remembrance of Things Past and all that, right, sat down and looked at the sea. Wrote a few images down, a bit of free association, and then after a while you get some idea of a structure. Songwriting has always been a miraculous process which is incredibly satisfying, and I don't necessarily understand how it's done. And, for me, it happens with less and less frequency, actually. Which is scary, I suppose.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Independent, 2\/91\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's still difficult for me to sit down and listen to the album properly, because I start to break down. When a song really works it can be very emotional when you sing it. You don't know whether to sing or to cry - it's an odd feeling. My music is the only way I have of really getting in touch with my deep feelings, because I suppress them. There was nothing else I could have written about on this record. So to me, it's not a brave record. I know there would be this record or there would be no record. But I do feel better about my father, and much looser in general than I've ever been.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Bass Player, 4\/92\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Actually I think of it as my best work. All my albums sell about five or six million copies, so 'The Soul Cages' wasn't exactly a flop. But it was attacked most in England for being pretentious. The buzzword was gloomy, I think, or depressing. Maybe I'm defensive about it, but it's very heartfelt, very earnest. I couldn't get away from these ideas about my background, my father, death. I had to get them out of the way, almost as part of the mourning process, so I could then get on with writing songs for fun. Which is what I did on 'Ten Summoner's Tales', which people seemed to like much better. But that's fine. A whole body of work should reflect lots of different moods, and that was a very dark period of my life. If I was to be honest, I would have to make a very dark record.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Mojo, 2\/95\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There's a polarity of feeling about that record. It was roundly panned by the critics, but some people got it: The recently bereaved write to me about it. There's always a market. Small, but steady. People say, My brother died, or, My parents died, and the record helped me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Q, 5\/96\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I grew up in Newcastle, a shipbuilding center, and as a boy I read \"Treasure Island.\" The title song is based on a fable about souls trapped under the sea in Davy Jones' locker and how a sailor wagers the king of the sea to free them. 'The Soul Cages' was an album of mourning. When you lose both your parents, your realise you're an orphan. Sadness is a good thing, too, to feel a loss so deeply. You mustn't let people insist on cheering you up. I'm very proud of that album.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Billboard, 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was 38, halfway house if you like. What I turned to was my earliest memory. The shipyard. There was always a huge ship towering above the houses at the end of Gerald Street in Wallsend where I grew up. As soon as I got that down the thing was written in two or three weeks. It poured out. Although it was painful, it wrote itself almost, free-associating. I only realised what it was about as I went along. The journey back to where I came from. The idea of death. Lines about this father thing kept coming up. Something was saying I had to deal with it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Q, '91\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm not sure I want to go through singing this album night after night on tour. But I have to of course, and it serves a purpose. Even though death isn't much of a party subject it's valuable to me to think about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Q, 2\/91\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Having lived and spent a lot of time with these so-called primitive people (The Indians) I realised that death is something that is obviously important to them, because they mourn. I figured that I'd have to go through some sort of process where I would get this stuff out. Once I'd worked that out, I realised that I was going to have to write a record about death. I didn't really want to.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Rolling Stone, 2\/91\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't really think that people know what to expect from me now. I don't think the 'Soul Cages' is going to conform to any of their expectations - I think they're expecting a record about ecology or something. If they're surprised, then I'm pleased. And the next record will hopefully surprise them again.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Rolling Stone, 2\/91\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was trying to suggest where I came from, so I took out any Afro-Caribbean or other world influences on the record. I enjoy that music, and I like making it, but it didn't seem to apply. So the bulk of the record is based on Celtic folk melodies.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, St Paul Pioneer Press, 8\/91\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"For almost three years, I hadn't written even one rhyming couplet. I'd written a lot of little fragments of music, but there were no real ideas coming out. I was genuinely frightened. At one point I thought, \"This is it, I've just dried up !\" Then I started to wonder why my creativity would suddenly dry up. Perhaps I was afraid of what might come out if I wrote something. I think there was an awful lot of denial and blockage going on in my subconscious - there were things I wasn't ready to face. This went on until after I'd gotten a band together and had two months before the whole process [of rehearsing and recording] was supposed to begin. I still didn't have a damn word. I spoke to Bruce Springsteen about it. He was just starting his own album, and I said, \"Bruce, I don't know what to do. Have you got any bad songs you don't want\" He offered me a couple. Then one day I just sat at the piano and started to free associate, mumbling to myself there was nobody in the house - and the mumbling got louder and gradually I started to sing lines. Words started to flow out 'Island of Souls' was one of the first. So I wrote down what I thought were just disconnected images and lines. Quite a few were about the sea, and all were linked somehow to my father and his death. Suddenly, I realised I was mourning my father, and then the whole thing poured out of me like a river - which became the central image on 'All This Time'.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Bass Player, 4\/92\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I think a lot of ghosts were exorcised 'The Soul Cages', which was dedicated to the memory of his late father. That album was very personal, confessional, and therapeutic in terms of facing death and loss. But I guess you could say the therapy worked, because now I have a new sense of freedom, a desire to move on and make songs solely intended as entertainments, designed to amuse.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Billboard, 2\/93\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Still my best work.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Arena, 1\/94\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Q magazine by Peter Kane\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome words of warning to all would-be millionaire rock stars: the job isn't always what it's cracked up to be. Whether you're the man of the people Phil Collins type, a hermetically sealed George Michael or another ageing juvenile Rod Stewart in the making, there comes a time when you have to stop trying to make it in films, put an end to scouring the globe in search of painless diversion or using your name to sway public opinion and get back to making records. Being handsome and\/or famous is little help in the creative process and sometimes, despite the perks, the pressure of expectation begins to bite. Sometimes it even hurts; especially if you used to be called Gordon Sumner, came from sound blue collar stock and have trouble reconciling your natural, decent, liberal instincts with the excessive rewards of your chosen career.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's been a good three years since '...Nothing Like The Sun' and 'The Soul Cages' accompanying press release, penned tellingly by the man himself, ranks much of the writer's block suffered during that fallow period when he still managed to take on the guise of Great White Protector Of The Rain Forests. His muse must have been merely puffing her feet up, though, for he's gouged out of himself another most Sting-like affair: a panoramic sweep of the soul that is fastidiously mounted, overtly literate and, against the odds even occasionally quite moving, not least on the fragile closing ballad 'When The Angels Fall' or 'Why Should I Cry For You's' elegantly simple melody set against a looping Third World beat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Island Of Souls' with its droning piped intro, swoosh of strings and fluttering acoustic guitar establishes the mood of the piece with a misty-eyed dream of escape to a better place far from the banks of the Tyne. Water is everywhere, whether looking out across the river and beyond on the deceptively bouncy 'All This Time' or going under for good in 'The Wild Wild Sea' which as a tune, manages to exhibit distinct latter-day sea shanty possibilities. Even the title track, which comes complete with nagging rock guitar motif seems to warn of an eternal watery damnation a full five fathoms below the surface, so much so that it's hard not to put all this down to his \"going native\" in the Amazon and a greening belief that salvation lies only in the return to a more natural order. Few would argue with that or even the grim Biblical forebodings of 'Jeremiah Blues (Part 1)', one of those jazzy funk items with a bit of disembodied piano-tinkling thrown in that he often favours. In the face of such gushing humanity, the slender Latinate instrumental, 'St Agnes And The Burning Train', comes as a welcome breather.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs one who has built himself virtually from scratch, Sting has proved a master of artifice as well as one of rock's more articulate practitioners. He's not unaware of the ambiguous reaction that his caring, sharing, all-purpose, adult-branded music tends to provoke, nor is he likely to be oblivious to the fact that, in the true spirit of the times, sensitivity sells, especially when it's as carefully packaged as this. Still, let's face it, there are worse things to be accused of.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone magazine by Paul Evans\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomething of a pop culture superman, Sting can seem like a daunting - and perhaps overly self conscious - model of higher evolution. A hitmaker erudite enough to quote Prokofiev, a studiously literate lyricist equally fond of venturing into the mists of Jungian psychology and citing such sly ironists as Nabokov, and a millionaire who's fastidiously politically correct, Sting is a rock star of a complexity that never could have been imagined by such raw geniuses as Little Richard. A tireless media crusader for the Brazilian rain forest and a more credible actor than most rockers-as-actors, he's also a proud father and the lurky possessor of looks sharp enough to qualify him as a fashion-mag cover boy. The Renaissance man on hyperdrive, he gulps challenge with every breath he takes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHighly serious and sonically gorgeous, 'The Soul Cages' is Sting's most ambitious record yet - and maybe his best. Like 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles', from 1985, and '...Nothing Like the Sun', from 1987, it forgoes Police-style catchiness and the safety of conventional song structure for vast swirls of sound that build to either musical or emotional crescendo; the nine pieces are minidramas of intensity and will. What elevates Sting's new music is its freer, deeper and more unified mood. If Sting's deliberate smarts open him up to charges of being an artist who too obviously thinks while he dances, 'The Soul Cages' may trash that perception. It's his most moving performance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's also a difficult one. Dense with images of dead fathers and trapped sons, of bitter weather, of moonlight and oceans that threaten oblivion or tempt with release, the songs seldom waver from a deep fatalism that, no matter how romantic its guise, is almost unbearably tense. \"Sometimes they tie a thief to the tree\/Sometimes I stare\/Sometimes it's me\" Sting wails on 'Jeremiah Blues (Part 1)', an image that summarises the record's air of struggle, of an aching for deliverance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe long-standing sidemen of Sting's solo career, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland, undergird a crew of players who seem to relish the test of the intricate, longish material. They flood the sombre 'Why Should I Cry for You' with an elegant yearning, rock steadily on the deceptively jaunty 'All This Time' and turn jazzy and fierce on 'Jeremiah Blues'. Drummer Manu Katche provides complicated, sometimes free, sometimes tight propulsion, and Marsalis remains Sting's ace ally, insinuating graceful, nearly Arabic melodies. Sting's bass playing is supple throughout, and his voice - startling, ever since the Police's 'Roxanne' - has gained subtlety. It's now a truly expressive instrument, whether slurring in a sort of artful Scottish burr or clear-throatedly declaiming. At times recalling the highly textured moodiness of such hip classical movie composers as Angelo Badalamenti ('Twin Peaks') and Ennio Morricone ('The Mission' and any number of spaghetti-western masterpieces), the music has a cinematic breadth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt helps that the sounds are so enticing. They pull the listener into verbal landscapes that, for all their lush description, are psychic wastelands - cages, snares, dead ends. In Island of Souls, a shipbuilder's son prays to escape the bleakness of his working-class fate: He sees rescue only in flight (\"That night, he dreamed of the ship in the world\/It would carry his father and he\/To a place they could never be found\"). In 'All This Time', Christian hope is undercut: \"Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth... And as these words were spoken I swear I hear\/The old man laughing\/What good is a used-up world, and how could it be\/Worth having' The nearly eight minutes of 'When The Angels Fall' form one long, inverse hymn of disillusionment, and 'The Wild Wild Sea' also brandishes a kind of heroic despair: \"When the bridge to heaven is broken\/And you're lost on the wild wild sea\/Lost on the wild wild sea.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSet inside the aural sweep and richness of 'The Soul Cages', Sting's poetic language makes for a sort of sensory theatre - darkly lit, almost Gothic. The effect at times is a bit overwhelming, but it's gripping, too - the tossing and turning of an anxious superman.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Entertainment Weekly magazine by David Browne\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the 'Soul Cages', Sting takes us into his personal heart of darkness. The timing couldn't have been better. Pro-rain forest activist and generally concerned rock star Sting has released his third solo album, The Soul Cages. For maximum environmental protection, the CD is packaged in a \"digipack,\" a fold-over cardboard case designed as an alternative to the wasteful, tree-killing longbox. By an odd quirk of fate, producer Ruth Happel has recently unveiled A Month in the Brazilian Rainforest (Rykodisc; CD, T), four volumes of intensive all-natural sound effects recorded in Brazil. The records not only supplement each other perfectly; they also help answer one of the most vital questions ever considered by man. Which is more irritating-mosquitoes or pompous rock stars\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Soul Cages has little to do with rain forests or any subject as overtly global as Brazilian Rainforest. Like everything Sting has done since the Police established themselves as the most commercially successful of all power-pop bands, the album is intended as a serious artistic statement. Early word of mouth had it that the record would be a return to Sting's rock- oriented roots (especially since he is playing bass, not guitar, for the first time since the Police's 'Synchronicity' in 1983). No such luck, though: The music is more of the same lounge-jazz\/pop he's been making since he went solo. There are elements of rock \u0026amp; roll in guitarist Dominic Miller's power chords and solos, but with the rare exception of a mild rave-up on the title song, the guitar is safely tucked away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBlaring guitars probably wouldn't be appropriate anyway, since the songs are mostly a sullen bunch that explore personal and romantic loss and relationships gone astray, with the recent death of Sting's father casting a shadow over the proceedings. In 'Island of Souls', a shipbuilder's son mourns the death of his dad from a work accident, while Sting's own loss is more directly expressed in 'All This Time' and the mournful 'Why Should I Cry for You' In comparison, the inevitable tract about world destruction, 'Jeremiah Blues (Part 1)', sounds like good news.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomber themes, even those of an intimate bent, are nothing new for a Sting record. But rarely have songs about feeling awful sounded so stillborn and unmoving. The man was never as much of a sucker for a hook as Elton John was, but throughout 'The Soul Cages', Sting defiantly resists hummability as if a mere catchy pop chorus were too frivolous for such weighty content. Likewise, his latest band-a mix of jazz and rock veterans-seems to be taking its cue from its leader, a man incapable of leaving a simple thought alone. Just when the group settles into a cozy groove on 'Jeremiah Blues (Part 1)' for instance, the mood is broken with a noodling piano break. At other times, the arrangements don't make sense: 'All This Time', which should be one of the record's most touching moments, is upbeat for no discernible reason.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Baltimore Sun by J D Considine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf making a successful rock and roll album was simply a matter of following a formula, Sting's new album, 'The Soul Cages', which was released yesterday, would be a recipe for disaster.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt isn't that the music is bad. Even though few of the nine songs collected here boast the sort of insinuating immediacy that made his work with the Police so radio-ready, Sting's swirling blend of styles - everything from rock to jazz to R\u0026amp;B to Caribbean pop - is nothing if not listenable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eListen closely, though, and what Sting sings about is anything but typical hit-parade material. Whether he's forecasting the demise of civilization, as he does in the biting 'Jeremiah Blues (Part 1)', or being haunted by the death of his father, as he is in 'Why Should I Cry for You' and the title tune, Sting's lyrical focus could hardly be called upbeat, much less light-hearted.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's bad enough that the album's only love song, 'Mad About You', describes romantic passion in terms of desperate insanity. But even the single - the cheerily melodic 'All This Time' - can't stay awayfrom the big issues, wrestling as it does with death and religion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCan't this guy just write a simple pop song?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, sure he can. But what makes 'The Soul Cages' so captivating is that Sting manages to convey most of the pleasures of a simple pop song - the engaging rhythm, the hummable tune - without making the album seem overly simplistic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf anything, the songs collected here practically beg to be debated and dissected, argued over and analyzed. Part of that stems from the lyrics, which convey all the intelligence of his earlier albums but none of the name-dropping ostentation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRather than try to impress us with allusions to Shakespeare and Jung, Sting lets his language speak for itself - and as a result, his lyrics almost sing. 'All This Time' seems a particularly apt example, being filled almost to bursting with vivid imagery and wonderfully poetic language, yet Sting never makes a show of its verbal virtuosity. Instead, he keeps our attention focused on the sound of the song, not in hopes of distracting us from its meaning, but so the music's whimsy is what colors our understanding of the words.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's not an obvious way to make pop music, but then, 'The Soul Cages' is not an obvious pop album. Certainly, it has enough pop appeal to reward the casual listener, but considering how much more these songs have to offer, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to give them only half an ear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Boston Globe by Steve Morse\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting, the English teacher turned rock star, has forged his own path since leaving the supergroup the Police in the mid-'80s. He's delved adventurously, if somewhat sleepily, into mellow jazz, didactic protest music and much soft, poetic pop that's a long way from the tougher reggae-rock and funk that the Police often embodied.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Sting's new album, 'The Soul Cages', which comes out Tuesday, finally balances his experimental tastes with some lift-off rock 'n' roll reminiscent of his Police days - notably the band's No. 1 album of 1983, 'Synchronicity'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Soul Cages' takes on a deeper meaning at each listening, and its focus is intensely personal. It is Sting's way of coming to grips with the death two years ago of his father - a milkman in Newcastle, England - and of probing the lives of other working-class heroes who lead equally unsung existences. The album thus has a more immediate, emotional impact than either of his previous solo efforts, 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' (1985) and 'Nothing Like the Sun' (1987).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRather than expand upon world problems, which has been a constant preoccupation of the post-Police Sting, he looks inwardly at his relationship with his father and their home life in the rough 'n' tumble city of Newcastle. The lead track, the stately 'Island of Souls', which opens with Northumbrian pipes, is about their living next to a shipyard, where a ship would grow before their eyes and \"her great hull would blot out the light of the sun.\" Sting imagines his father as a shipyard worker, and dreams that they would escape on one of the ships \"to a place they could never be found, to a place far away from this town... they would sail to the island of souls.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis escape motif - and this same last verse - shows up again in the title track, a Police-like rocker that talks about \"The souls of the broken factories... the souls of the broken town; these are the soul cages.\" It's a wrenching, Joe Hill-like anthem for the '90s and comes with visceral soprano sax fills from longtime accompanist Branford Marsalis, and gospel-nodding organ lines from David Sancious, an early member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's father reappears in the ballad 'The Wild Wild Sea', a bracing goodbye suffused with more elegiac pipe sounds. Sings Sting in his most beseeching tone, and in couplets befitting his English-teacher past: \"For the ship had turned into the wind\/Against the storm to brace\/ And underneath the sailor's hat\/I saw my father's face\/If a prayer today is spoken\/Please offer it for me\/ When the bridge to heaven is broken\/And you're lost on the wild wild sea.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album builds powerfully. 'Jeremiah's Blues (Part 1)' is another rocker reminiscent of the Police, and deals with trying to turn away from pain. 'Why Should I Cry for You' is a multitracked, Peter Gabriel influenced ballad that furthers the catharsis. And the concluding ballad, 'When the Angels Fall', with a panoramic, soundtrack-like synth fadeout, is Sting's last word on his dad: \"Take your father's cross\/Gently from the wall\/A shadow still remaining.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is no album for the squeamish, even though some of the musical colors are soothing (as in the classical-guitar instrumental 'St. Agnes and the Burning Train'). Overall, Sting has fashioned a well-balanced, highly insightful record that functions as a musical diary of the heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arizona Republic by Jim Rosenberg\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's third solo album, 'The Soul Cages,' maintains much of the vitality and energy of his other solo work, yet it has a sound that is uniquely its own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sound has something to do with the album's theme - the death of Sting's father.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The Soul Cages' begins with a somber, haunting melody that deals with ''Billy'' and his father, the shipbuilder. Sting employs Northumbrian pipes, exclusive to northern England, to give the track a cold, pallid feeling of loneliness and alienation. It's not the uplifting, buoyant sound Sting has been associated with in the past. He has a message to convey, a story to tell, and he does just that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen comes the first single, 'All This Time'. The track seems like a departure for Sting because most of his solo work is typified by jazzy wind instrument solos and clear-cut, easily-understood lyrics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'All This Time' seems like it could have been done by the Police considering it's tight percussion and well-woven harmonies, proving that an artist doesn't have to choose between good lyrics and good instrumentation. 'All This Time' combines the best of both worlds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Jeremiah Blues (Part 1)' also is notable for its tight percussion and precisely-crafted melodies. Like most of the other tracks on 'The Soul Cages', 'Jeremiah Blues' gives the listener a feeling of awe, a sense of musical travel to another place and time that can only be experienced by listening to the album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's style has evolved from one of edgy and rough rock to a more smooth and defined ''jazz'' sound. He's probably the only artist that can be heard on album rock, Top 40, alternative and new age radio.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's newer style is an evolution. It's different from the Police. When compared, it should be kept in mind that the style of Sting's earlier work is just as valid and just as powerful and unique as his later work. The only difference is that the style has changed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhether for better or worse is left to personal tastes. I like both.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Dallas Morning News by Tom Maurstad\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEntering the fourth year since his last release - '...Nothing Like the Sun' - Sting was in danger of falling prey to that final stage in the celebrity process: People lose track of what made you famous in the first place. Songwriters write songs, after all, and maybe Sting the Spokesman had so much to say because Sting the Songwriter had nothing left to say. And then along comes 'The Soul Cages'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is Sting's fourth solo album, and as is quickly made clear, he has been doing - of all things - a lot of thinking since last he spoke through song. Already the cycle of expository interviews has begun, initiated in Rolling Stone. Among the salient items to keep in mind while responding to this album are that Sting's parents died, that his denial of grief threw him into a protracted bout of writer's block and that he had reached that ominous middle age (38) where he found himself wanting to look back and \"assess' his life - oh dear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo Sting has done what one would expect Sting to do. He has written a satchelful of moodily introspective, metaphor-laden lyrics, applied them to pop melodies laced with plenty of Third World rhythms and the odd jazz\/classical figure. And to present them, Sting has gathered an ensemble of superlative session players, including his 'Blue Turtles' associates Branford Marsalis and Kenny Kirkland. His arrangements create a lush, vaguely exotic sound with their complex blend of strings and horns and keyboards and always the chatter of percussion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMeanwhile, his lyrics wend their way through a collection of sometimes somber, sometimes animated, but always serious reflections. The themes of life and death, renewal, denial and abandonment are so overtly drawn that the experience of listening to these songs is akin to reading English Lit exercises in which you must find the metaphors, allegories and what have you.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShips sailing out to sea, rivers flowing into seas, kingdoms turned to dust, a son haunted by a dead father - Sting is a heavy guy, and this album is a work of obvious intelligence. But that blade cuts both ways; Sting's intelligence is both clear and predictable. This results in some striking images and couplets, but self-consciousness hangs heavily about, and one always is aware that this means something; intention is always explict, the lessons never inadvertent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a result, this album never stretches beyond technical virtuousity and intellectual panache. For all the soul-searching and summing up, the music is suffused with a sense of detachment, of posture and emptiness. Sting has given this music style and refinement aplenty, but his is a spiritless solitude, and his music is, to use one of Sting's favorite adjectives, bloodless.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVillage Voice music critic Robert Christgau once observed that in almost every instance, rock didn't work if it wasn't fun. 'The Soul Cages' is simply no fun. Not just in the strictly entertaining sense of fun, but in the larger sense of involving passion, abandon, spontaneity and release. The only song to generate any life beyond its meticulously orchestrated form is the first single 'All This Time', which is blessed with an irresistible hook and some refreshingly homespun mandolin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting is able to work up some intensity when he returns to his favorite theme, the relentless pursuit of one's obsession. 'Mad About You' is the latest entry in his 'Every Breath You Take' canon, going so far as to rework that song into the line \"But every step I thought of you\/Every footstep only you.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut too often this is an album about thinking rather than simply feeling. There is lots to admire. But when Sting draws his circle to a close, reintroducing the theme from the opener, 'Island of Souls', as the chorus of 'The Soul Cages' near the album's end and alters the pivotal line \"He dreamed of the ship in the world' to become \"He dreamed of the ship on the sea,' you just know that it's supposed to mean something, that it's significant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Baltimore Sun by Nestor Aparicio\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith the release of his latest album, 'The Soul Cages', Sting has distinguished himself as one of the world's biggest touring rock star who hasn't written a rock song in eight years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere its two predecessors, 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' and '...Nothing Like the Sun', were basically jazz fusion works laden with pop influences, 'Cages' portrays a distant, almost new-age sound.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnly two songs on this departure album bare any pop sounds at all; the bouncy 'All This Time', wisely chosen as the first single, and the title track, which is led by the big drum sound of Manu Katche and the light guitar riffs of Dominic Miller.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe entire album seems to center on the grief endured by Sting after the death of his father three years ago. Sting has revealed in several interviews that he incurred a terrible \"writer's block'' during the process of putting the album together and that he attributes it to the fact that he never completely dealt with his father's death.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, here, in 49 minutes of lush, beautiful sounds, Sting truly wears his heart on his sleeve.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turns out that musical and instrumental pieces came very early and easily in the recording process, but the words were extremely difficult to muster.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has said he tried to recall the first images of his childhood to incite words, and once he thought about the shipyards of his hometown of Newcastle the words of the water and the images of the \"rivers flowing endlessly to the sea'' all came in less than one month.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeemingly impossible to pigeonhole, Sting, now 39, enters yet another era in his stately catalog of music and achievements.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExcept for the raspy vocals, 'The Soul Cages' certainly bears no resemblance to any of the work of The Police. The brassy arrangements of his first two solo works are nowhere to be found, despite the return of Katche (drums), Kenny Kirkland (keyboards) and Branford Marsalis (saxophone) to the project.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt wouldn't be a major surprise to see the album sell far below any of his previous works - it obviously wasn't written with a pop audience in mind. But, remember, the critics said the same thing about 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' in 1985.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Los Angeles Times by Chris Willman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot since Roger Waters spent one-and-a-half concept albums mourning his father has a pop star dealt so blatantly with familial loss - though Sting's muted grief is expressed, as you might expect, less howlingly and more elegiacally.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePeaceful as he sounds in these relaxed grooves, lyrically Sting seems far from reconciled to his father's death. Taking his cues from Job and Solomon, the singer takes on God more than once - berating the priests who've come to bless his dying father in 'All This Time' (the first single!), angrily demanding that the angels be cast away from his sight at the climax. In their stead, he offers river and sea imagery - lots of ships and watery continuums - as his alternate spiritualism. On an anti-religious bent, he's as provocative as poor Madonna wishes she could be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo it's not exactly the feel-good hit of the winter. Only one song, 'Jeremiah Blues', on this lovely downer of an album has the studied jazz funkiness that made prior Sting efforts percolate. 'The Soul Cages' is a quieter and less immediately satisfying outing than '...Nothing Like the Sun', which had Sting painting on a much broader canvas.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen it comes to the dying of the light, he doesn't rage very hard, and delivers much of the tough stuff in an even, dispassionate clip that will fuel the standard line of his detractors - that he's \"cold.\" But whether you find his themes brave, touching, pretentious or all of the above, taking on dad, deity and death as a melancholy trinity is ample evidence of his encouraging disregard for the marketplace cages.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The San Jose Mercury News by Harry Sumrall\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat is there left for Sting to do With the Police far behind him, a creative and commercially successful solo career established with such records as 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' and '...Nothing Like The Sun', and with his dabblings in movies and his 1990 Broadway debut in \"The Threepenny Opera,\" it would seem that there is little left for Sting to attempt or accomplish.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerhaps that is why 'The Soul Cages', his first studio record in four years - released today - seems somewhat tentative. There is about it a sense that Sting is marking time, waiting for a new creative direction, just playing on until it comes. If only the rest of rock could play on in such a manner.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIts tentativeness notwithstanding, 'The Soul Cages' is a ravishing record. With little to prove, Sting has simply allowed himself to sing and play with an exuberance and a dexterity that are astonishingly pleasurable. It begins with moaning Northumbrian pipes that give way to the brooding 'Island of Souls', a song whose instrumental complexity is tempered by a basic story imbued with a quasi-autobiographical intensity. Sting is back among the shipbuilding docks of his youth, decrying the lot of the workers and their lives. Although other personal references make their way into the record (it is dedicated to his late father), it is the theme of frustration and desperation - and the questions that come with both - that prevail. Again, it seems, Sting is taking stock.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut 'Island' gives way to 'All This Time', one of those clicking pop ditties that Sting dispensed with the Police. Only now, the lyrics have become somber and reflective. Old sounds, new thoughts and questions and doubts. The rest of the record goes off on various tangents. There is the Brazilian feel of the instrumental 'Saint Agnes and the Burning Train', with none of the pedantic fervor of Paul Simon's 'The Rhythm of the Saints', only the beauty. And there is the energy of the title cut - oddly, the only rocker of the set. And there is the grandeur of 'The Wild, Wild Sea', in which Sting blurs the barriers between rock and jazz and pop with an almost effortless ease, much as he did with 'Sun'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA few of the songs are less convincing. 'Jeremiah Blues (Part 1)' is a trifle too facile and flaccid for its own good. And 'Why Should I Cry For You' and 'When The Angels Fall' are ambiguous, as if Sting had nothing to say, but two empty tracks left on the record.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut on the good songs and bad, Sting is still Sting. His voice is incomparable, with its stinging highs and ebullient sleekness and its unerring sense of when to err, to crack and break only to resume its steady, smooth course. He is also playing bass again, after yielding to other and technically better bassists on 'Turtles' and 'Sun'. But playing his bass seems to endow his songwriting and vocals with an added urgency, makes him more involved in the music-making process.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll of which is to say that even in his ambivalent state, Sting is still a class act. 'The Soul Cages' doesn't have the innovative excitement of 'Turtles' or the creative elan of 'Sun'. But it does have Sting in all his performing and songwriting finery. And that is good enough for now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Sunday Herald Sun (Australia) by P Speelman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has come a long way since escaping the clutches of the Police. Since going solo with 1985's 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles', he has moved away from relying on repetition and using that vibrato-free voice of his to startle. Just how far he has come is shown on 'The Soul Cages', his first album since 1988's 'Nothing Like The Sun'. (He claims the three-year hiatus was caused by writer's block, not having written \"as much as a rhyming couplet\" by early last year when he was expected to start work on an album.) Reunited with saxophonist Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland, his two main collaborators from the previous solo albums, and underpinned by Manu Katche sympathetic drumwork and his own bass, Sting's voice is now more subtle, more like a musical instrument.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut what sets him apart from the boys here is his writing, and his arrangements. Imagery is to the fore (And all this time the river flowed, endlessly like a silent tear, from 'All This Time') and the arrangements - from the dramatic ('The Wild Wild Sea') to the majestic ('Why Should I Cry For You') to the fiercely jazzy ('Jeremiah Blues') - fill in the musical pictures being painted.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith swirling but intelligently used keyboards and strings - and sax, oboe, mandolin and Northumbrian pipes supplying the counterpoints - Sting draws into his aural web the listeners who might otherwise resist the fatalism that confronts them: lost souls, bleakness, dead fathers, trapped sons. 'All This Time', which at least sounds jaunty, has been released as a single but I can't see too many other candidates for a follow-up; which is not to say that there aren't fine moments among the nine tracks. I particularly like the mid-European gipsy sounds of 'Mad About You'; the quirky, uptempo jazz beat of 'Jeremiah Blues'; Sting's singing over Katche's threatening drums and the poetic images of 'The Wild Wild Sea'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis may not be the accessible Sting of the Police days but it's every bit as arresting - and much more challenging.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Playboy magazine by Vic Garbarini\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWelcome to rock's mid-life crisis. Artists such as Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen and Sting are being nudged by their muses to explore how rock can remain vital and relevant to their increasingly adult audiences. Sting's latest, 'The Soul Cages', falls stylistically and musically midway between Simon's exotic dreamscapes and Springsteen's earthy epiphanies. 'Soul Cages' is a return to the singer's roots - a slow-motion, volcanic expulsion of many of the toxins and torments that he instinctively traces back through his childhood among the factories and shipyards of England's northeast coast to his relationship with his recently deceased parents, particularly his father. The sea imagery is highlighted in the spry single 'All This Time', which recalls mid-period Police, courtesy of guitarist Dominic Miller's deft fills and voicings. Sting's use of archaic Coleridge\/Melville imagery knits the song cycle together thematically. It can be cumbersome and awkward, but when he jettisons the metaphors and speaks directly from the heart, the results are deeply compelling. 'Why Should I Cry for You' is 'Every Breath You Take' turned inside out, a raw and moving reconciliation with the ghost of his father. This is rock for adults who want to heal those inner wounds, not just howl about them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978588242,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_5a523f4b-cfdc-43ea-9d5d-cb18ce3a16f8.jpg?v=1758314759"},{"product_id":"nothing-like-the-sun","title":"...Nothing Like The Sun","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"A man needs to accept that part of his psychological make-up is feminine. You mustn't suppress those qualities of creativity, kindness, openness and intuition. Masculine traits are strength, single-mindedness and logic. Without the balance, you end up as Ryan of Hungerford, totally lost. In the past few years, I've had more friends who are women than ever before. I used to see women as sexual conquests, for having your children or massaging your ego. I'm not saying I'm a saint, but I hope I'm moving towards maturity.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Sky Magazine, 11\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's not a lively record.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Q, 12\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Nothing in life is isolated. Everything's connected. And the timing of my mother's death was linked to a lot of other events. It coincided with a time when this album became free of the machinery. Only now are we pulling it out; it's been hidden in the machinery so long. Which is why people were getting uptight and worrying that there wasn't anything there. I don't have any doubts about this record. Although recording digitally was difficult and kind of alienating, it allowed me more flexibility in terms of arrangement... and that drove me crazy. I could change the key, add whole sections to the song when it was already finished, change the tempo, everything. But basically I knew there was a core in each song that worked that you couldn't destroy.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Spin, 12\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I suppose it's about femininity, the ying instead of the yang, which is a factor in all music. I mean, playing music and singing, writing songs, are definitely activities that are right-brained. It's female it's intuitive, it's gentle, it's not aggressive. Even the most violent punk band can't help but be creative. There's a benign element in all music that you can't hide or you can't disguise very long. Look at an artist like Billy Idol. His whole thing is to be this kind of aggressive, grimacing warrior, if you like. But he has to work very hard now to maintain that because the music is mellowing him. Which is why heavy metal is not very long-lasting for most groups, because when you play music for awhile it matures you in a way that's not aggressive. I'm not saying that music always ends up wimpy. l just think it can make you grow as a person to maturity. And I think that maturity, as Jung says, means accepting the feminine principle, accepting sensitivity into your life as part of you and not as something that's alienating and frightening.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Spin, 12\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Having made some of the simplest and most direct pop music, I don't know whether I want to do it again. But this music, taken to a logical conclusion, can only get more complicated and, maybe, indigestible. In the Seventies, they called it art rock. When this record was first completed and handed to the record company, they threw up their hands. It wasn't simple enough or directed toward the charts. And I said, \"Why underestimate the record-buying public Why do you imagine that they have to be spoon-fed all the time Does it have to be so utterly simple I don't think so. Now the record is doing well on the radio and in the shops; the concerts are selling well. It confirms my belief that sophistication, or intended sophistication, is not the kiss of death. As long as you're grounded somewhere in common sense.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Rolling Stone, 2\/88\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"'...Nothing Like The Sun' is probably the child of the Synclavier and the ability to slow down the composing instrument so that I can control it. Because of the way the machine worked, I managed to be able to compose things that were far more sophisticated than I would normally have access to. In other words, if you can slow something down you can work it out. So the chords and arrangements were much more complex, and I wouldn't have arrived at that level of ability without the instrument. I also saw it as my job to inspire and challenge the musicians I was working with, because they were musicians of such a caliber that they would not be happy just playing I-IV-V in a harmonic scale. They had to be able to play slightly beyond their abilities, even, so it was my job to interest and energize them. '...Nothing Like The Sun' was about stretching boundaries.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Billboard, 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I look back on this album and I realise that the record is about my mother although I didn't see it at the time. It's about mothers and daughters, mistresses and wives, sisters... Every song has one of these themes. It surprised me. I didn't realise it was there. It's all about women.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Timeout, 10\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't know what the critics will think of this album. It's rather cold and technical, not very 'up'. Working with digital is weird, all the flaws are exposed, there's no warmth. It's like building a brick wall with no mortar.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Spin, 12\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I know all this is connected with my mother's situation. Until she's...out of pain. Until she dies... I can't really open up and be creative.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Spin, 12\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One night I was walking on Highgate Hill when a drunk accosted me and kept asking, 'How beautiful is the moon' I replied, 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun...' He said that was a good answer, and lurched off. Shakespeare works quite well with drunks, I've found.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Spin, 12\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"People might listen to it and wonder, What's he doing I knew I was on the right track when I confused everybody in the studio - they didn't have a clue about what I was trying to get at, which was a real pop record. I wanted a record that is funny, emotional, sad, sexy, danceable and serious. That, to me, is what pop music should be - not this homogeneous record that has one guitar sound and one snare drum sound from start to finish.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Spin, 12\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If we agree that the album is about mourning, then I needed to start it off in this special, joyful way. It's about rebirth, hopefully. I didn't want to just cry in my beer, do this moaning record about how awful life and death are. I wanted to say that, yes, we have to face death and there is a way to do it that isn't just moaning. We have to rejoice, in a way. It's a victory song. That's the way my mother was. That's what she gave to me when I said goodbye to her. It was her incredible sense of humour and her sense that all was not lost. She was joking and she was loving. She gave me such an example of courage that I had no choice but to rejoice. That's why the record is happy. It's not a mournful record; it's an up record.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRolling Stone, 2\/88\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"'...Nothing Like The Sun' didn't start out to be an album about anything. I came up with these 10 or 12 songs and it was only later that I realised a lot of the songs were about women, but not just women as romantic objects, but women as advisers, women as companions, as mothers. sisters. It was a very therapeutic record for me to make. I mean my mother had just died, and I suppose I was obsessed by the idea of females and how was I going to replace her.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, All This Time CDRom, '95\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There was a variety of styles and feelings on '...Nothing Like The Sun', but it was an album essentially about women, or the women in my life, whether they were lovers or wives or mothers.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Billboard, 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone magazine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA powerful, often hypnotic album that blends jazz and rock styles into a thoughtful suite of twelve songs about love, politics and the meaning of the individual life - avoids the self-conscious stiffness that marred Sting's first solo LP, 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles'. Whereas that album often seemed to be merely the sterile enactment of its fusion-jazz ambitions, '...Nothing Like the Sun' flows naturally.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album's title comes from a sonnet by Shakespeare that begins with the line \"My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun.\" Against the extravagant imagery of much Elizabethan love poetry, that sonnet articulates a human-scale vision of love for a flesh-and-blood woman, who far from standing on a pedestal, \"treads on the ground.\" Similarly, on '...Nothing Like The Sun', Sting resists, for the most part, his tendency to drift into the mystic. Instead he locates the LP's songs in an uneasy three-dimensional world of unruly emotions ('Be Still My Beating Heart', 'Sister Moon'), nightmarish social systems ('History Will Teach Us Nothing', 'They Dance Alone') and personal commitment ('The Secret Marriage').\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting dedicates '...Nothing Like The Sun' to his mother, who died recently at fifty-three, and the songs about women on the record seem informed by the mother-son bond and the double-edged impact of its breaking at birth, marriage and death. 'The Lazarus Heart', the album's shimmering opening track, weds Freud and 'The Golden Bough' in its mythic dream of an artist whose creativity derives from a wound inflicted by his mother. The Chilean women in the stately 'They Dance Alone' dance in mournful celebration of their husbands, sons and fathers, who were jailed or killed by the Pinochet regime.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor his band on '...Nothing Like The Sun', Sting has carried over saxophonist Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland from the jazz outfit that backed him on 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles'. He plays bass himself and has recruited drummer Manu Katche, percussionist Mino Cinelu and a host of guest stars (including Andy Summers, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler). The arrangements are airily layered, with instruments and rhythms constantly doubling and counterpointing each other but never becoming so dense as to be stifling. Lively percussive currents keep songs like 'Straight to My Heart' and 'Rock Steady' moving along briskly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe instrumental textures and introspective tone of the album preclude any explosive soloing or improvisation; that is something of a shame given the presence of players of the calibre of Marsalis and Kirkland. One of the more appealing surprises on the record, however, is guitarist Hiram Bullock's lyrical soar during a startling cover of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing. Gil Evans and his orchestra provide the perfect atmospheric setting for Sting's eerie meditation on Hendrix's surreally poetic love song.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'...Nothing Like The Sun' is also one of those records that help define a point of technological transition. Simply stated, it must be heard on a compact disc - or, as a very distant second choice, on cassette. At fifty-four minutes, it's too long for a single vinyl album, and spread thinly over four sides, it breaks too often and abruptly to sustain its otherwise consistent mood. The CD version also allows a greater appreciation of the record's choice sonic details.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn any configuration, however, '...Nothing Like The Sun' represents impressive growth for Sting. His voice is rich, grainy and more mature; his ideas are gaining in complexity; and musically he is stretching without straining. His mistress's eyes may be nothing like the sun, but on this fine new album Sting's intrepid talent shines on brightly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Q magazine by Dave Rimmer\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithout freedom from the past, sings a typically philosophical Sting on one track called 'History Will Teach Us Nothing', things will only get worse.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis may be true. Buckminster Fuller has, according to the sleeve notes, said so too. But in the fact of 1985's 'Dream Of The Blue Turtles' (A\u0026amp;M), history has certainly taught us that freedom from the pop past of The Police allows a more versatile and sophisticated, less obviously cynical Sting. Finally finished with all the silly voices and dippy white reggae jogging rhythms, freed of the bass-drums-guitar format and adding a jazz inflection to his work, the star in Sting was beginning to shine in a new kind of way. And on the evidence of this second solo studio LP - a double, no less - it seems that Sting will only get better.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough brilliant in places, 'Dream Of The Blue Turtles' (A\u0026amp;M) was a patchy collection. On 'Nothing Like The Sun', musical Sting seems to have solved most of his stylistic difficulties. It's a much more even textured album. Where different styles stick out-as during the musical tour of Manhattan on the affectionate 'Englishman In New York' - it is because they are meant to. Among the musicians credited here are Kenny Kirkland and Branford Marsalis (again); Eric Clapton, Andy Summers, Mark Knopfler and Hiram Bullock variously on guitar (this time Sting sticks mostly to bass), Gil Evans and his orchestra on an enjoyable version of Jimi Hendrix's 'Little Wing', and Ruben Blades doing a Spanish talkover in the moving 'They Dance Alone'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeedless to say, then, the playing is impeccable throughout. But that's not the point. Sting can now juxtapose pieces as various as a piece of sweaty, thumping R\u0026amp;B ('We'll Be Together' - the album's sequel to 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free'), an updated tongue-in-cheek version of the story of Noah's Ark set to a piece of jazz sleaze ('Rock Steady'), and a song based around a mournful melody from German composer and Bertolt Brecht collaborator Hans Eisler (The Secret Marriage), and still make it all sound shamelessly, seamlessly Sting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLyrical Sting meanwhile still spends a lot of time singing about love, mostly in songs that have the word heart in the title - 'The Lazarus Heart', 'Be Still My Beating Heart'. Best of this bunch is 'Straight To My Heart', a simple fresh-sounding song built around what feels like a flamenco-derived rhythm.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter love, Sting's next favourite subject is death, in various guises. The best part of this album is side two, on which concerned Sting first takes a tragic view of history in 'History Will Teach Us Nothing', then sings about torture and the disappeared in Chile on 'They Dance Alone' (a song that also refers to his own mother, recently deceased, to whom the album is dedicated) and finishes with 'Fragile', a hymn to mortality apparently inspired by a friend of Sting's being murdered by the Nicaraguan Contras. On the second or third play, this reviewer found that sequence reducing him to tears.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's a measure of what makes solo Sting special that after so many years in the hype machine, living a lifestyle based on god only knows what riches in the bank, he has finally found the will and the voice to sing simply and affectingly about political subjects like the arms race, the miner's strike or torture in Chile - a country to which, as part of The Police, he once actually paid an official visit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt heart, he's clearly just another northern romantic. Idealist Sting counterposes political tragedy against the consolation of love, still tempering both sides of the equation with a vague mysticism. These songs are sensitive, literate, intelligent, thoughtful, moving and occasionally very funny too. There aren't too many stars who can manage all that and we should value Sting for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Post by Richard Harrington\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn his second solo album, 'Nothing Like the Sun' former Police frontman Sting has stepped back from the stylistic liberation offered by 1985's 'Dream of the Blue Turtles', his coalition with several young lions of jazz, including saxophonist Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland. Drummer Omar Hakim has been replaced by Senegal's Manu Katche and percussionist Mino Cinclo from Martinique, but the visceral pop\/bop synthesis has been subdued, though Marsalis' liquid fills and supple ornamentation are still evocative.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has chosen to issue this 12-song, 54-minute collection on two records (one tape or CD), the theory being that uncluttered grooves have more breathing room, thus giving the record a deeper dimensionality. Sonically, it's a good decision, but it still comes down to the music, and 'Nothing Like the Sun' contains four powerful songs, one per-funk-tory accommodation to commercial radio and seven songs that sound better than they are.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe best song, and one of Sting's finest compositions ever, is 'They Dance Alone (Gueca Solo)', inspired by last year's Conspiracy of Hope tour for Amnesty International, where the participating musicians interacted with former political prisoners. That hands-on, hearts-out experience led to a moving song about the families of los desaparecidos, Chile's \"disappeared.\" While a wistful Andean flute line (synthesized) floats above a dragged-out martial cadence, the singer describes women silently enacting a traditional courtship dance with pinned-on pictures of their husbands, sons and fathers, all under the cold stares of the army.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's the only form of protest they're allowed\/I've seen their silent faces scream so loud\/If they were to speak these words\/they'd go missing too.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe languid melody is haunting, Marsalis' fills ache, and both Sting's singing and his compassionate lyrics evoke the agony of separation even as they suggest some ultimate triumph: \"One day we'll dance on their graves\/One day we'll sing our freedom\/One day we'll laugh in our joy\/And we'll dance.\" The song ends with an accelerating rhythmic pulse, as if that day is not too distant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'They Dance Alone' is not the only political song on the album. There's the informed but somewhat didactic 'History Will Teach Us Nothing', a pop-modified reggae number in which Sting sounds like the teacher he once was, and 'Fragile', a beautiful homage to Benjamin Linder, the American engineer killed earlier this year in Nicaragua by the contras. The latter song, on which Sting plays acoustic guitar, has a shimmering, neo-Brazilian pulse in the manner of Jao Gilberto and Milton Nascimento, and his singing has that feel as well as the soft focus of Nick Drake.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe other two standout cuts are not original. Sting's reading of Jimi Hendrix's 'Little Wing' is more wistful, but transcendent nonetheless. Neither his probing vocal, nor Hiram Bullock's sensational but thankfully nonmimicking guitar solo, nor Marsalis' soprano excursions evidence anything other than genuine respect for the source, making it a searing but not an exorcising experience (though one wonders what happened to Gil Evans and his orchestra, barely audible). The other notable song is 'The Secret Marriage', a haunting deconstruction of the marriage contract based on a melody by Hanns Eisler, a colleague of Bertolt Brecht's in pre-Nazi Germany. Probably an offshoot of Sting's participation in the Brecht-Weill 'Lost in the Stars' project, it could easily fit into a corner of 'Cabaret'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe rest of 'Nothing Like the Sun' confirms Sting's sensitivity to intra and extrafamilial relationships through lyrics couched in more familiar musical settings. The opening cut, 'The Lazarus Heart', is Sting's moving homage to his mother, who died while the record was being made, and is full of vivid imagery drawn from the dream journal that the current People magazine suggests is his constant bedside companion. 'Straight to My Heart' is an exuberant and word-witty celebration of love's power. 'Be Still My Beating Heart' is elegant cool masking the disquieting confusion attendant to matters of said heart. All sound like percussively terse Police cuts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOther cuts are 'Englishman in New York', a slight celebration of Quentin Crisp; 'Rock Steady', Noah's tale told with Mose Allison panache; 'We'll Be Together', a slice of funk that never gets warmed up; and 'Sister Moon', a mood piece on the redemption of woman-love graced by Marsalis' embellishments.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Nothing Like the Sun' is a much more serene, thoughtful effort than 'Blue Turtles', its subdued hues and the absence of any hook-laden or rhythmically compulsive selections forcing greater attention to the lyrics. There are some name guests, including Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler and Police-mate Andy Summers, but they never intrude or really make their presence felt. There's a lot of complex rhythmic current, some of it dense as underbrush, but the focus is clearly on the songs. Like Bruce Springsteen's 'Tunnel of Love',' 'Nothing Like the Sun' is a self-portrait of a popular artist seeking a musical and moral balance while confounding commercial expectations. That takes some getting used to, but it's also worth the investigation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arizona Republic by Divinia Infusino\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was downright odd to hear Sting's new solo album, '...Nothing Like the Sun' for the first time. Where's the single Where's Sting's indomitable pop sense\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's first solo album, 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles', was touted as an experiment, and in some ways it was. For the first time, Sting was recording without his band, the Police. Instead, he organized a group of young New York jazz players, including Branford Marsalis on saxophone. But while 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' veered from Sting's usual songwriting formulas, it held tight to the rules of the marketplace. Many of the songs were hummable, and immediately engaging, shaped into tight pop nuggets that radio could not refuse.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot so with '...Nothing Like the Sun'. Rather than punching up the hits, the album drifts into the mind and settles slowly. The jazzy elements are intact, bits of Eastern musical sounds and polyrhythms are evident also.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut '...Nothing Like the Sun', does not beg to be analyzed as much as absorbed. Its hallmark is understatement, a real progression for a guy who once wrote songs according to a strict reggae-verse, pop-melody construction. Lyrically, too, Sting has advanced. Rather than the obvious statement made on 'Russians', on the first record, the new album extends a more evocative political image with 'They Dance Alone'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn seven minutes of delicate sounds and an eerie melody, the song describes the mourning ritual of Chilean women for their dead husbands, fathers and sons. Undoubtedly the song reflects Sting's participation in the Amnesty International tour two years ago.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOther songs indicate a change - or, more precisely, a softening - of heart for Sting. The man who sang the praises of the strong independent soul, ('If You Love Somebody') now muses ''How fragile we are.'' He speaks of relationships as safety nets for sanity on 'Sister Moon', and he sends out messages of love and devotion on 'The Secret Marriage' and 'We'll Be Together'. The latter is the album's first single. And a catchy one. The video debuted on MTV Wednesday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Sting feels secure enough for emotional commitment and vulnerability in his lyrics. And some real risk in his music. '...Nothing Like the Sun', is not the result of Sting's ego wrenching itself from the Police, or the outpourings of his analytical mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has some deep-seated emotions to express this time, and he does so beautifully.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from USA Today by Anne Ayers\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Nothing Like The Sun' is an uneven, sometimes splendid second solo LP that isn't love-at-first-listen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's penchant for didactic political lyrics ('History Will Teach Us Nothing') and obscure philosophising ('Sister Moon') is still apparent, though less than on 1985's 'Dream of the Blue Turtles'. And the first single, the funked-up, radio-oriented 'We'll Be Together', sounds like false advertising for the other 11 songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut these 59 minutes of music eventually reveal gems, both instrumental and lyric. Two of Turtle's top notch jazzmen reappear - Kenny Kirkland on keyboards and Branford Marsalis on sax - joined by Mino Cinelu, who adds inspired percussion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe standout track, 'They Dance Alone', is a stately, moving paean to the women who mourn Chile's \"disappeared\". And there's a lovely cover version of Jimi Hendrix's 'Little Wing' with a great guitar solo by Hiram Bullock. Sting himself plays mesmerising acoustic guitar on 'Fragile'. Other treats: 'Rock Steady', a bopping update of the Noah's ark story, and 'Straight to My Heart' a sci-fi vision of future romance, filled with wordplay.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Miami Herald by Tom Moon\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo now we know: Crossing Shakespeare with a British rock star's crude approximation of Miles Davis just doesn't work. This insight comes from the work of Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting, who continues his role as cultural ambassador to pop music with 'Nothing Like the Sun', the recent digitally recorded, two-LP\/ one-CD work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere, he quotes Shakespeare's Sonnet 130. There, he tosses up a Schubertian theme by Hans Eisler. One minute, he begs the band for blue notes. The next, he employs a full string section to pluck out - in stiff music-hall style - the reggae backbeat of 'Englishman in New York'. Most of the time he gets away with this kitchen-sink music making. Sting is, after all, one of the most adventurous souls left in pop music. But repeated listening reveals a disturbing thinness in his world-music stew.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHear 'Fragile' once, and it's Sting doing a light, wind-blown bossa nova. On and on the rain will fall, like tears from a star, he sings. A few more spins around the block, and Sting can be seen standing in the shadows of Brazilian music masters Antonio Carlos Jobim and Milton Nascimento, trying to get the melancholy right. When he sings, in a tone that is surprisingly breathy, he communicates only the dislocation of a baffled alien, an alien singing studiously perfect cadences.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe measure of calculation evident on Fragile exists to some degree on each of the 12 tracks. 'Nothing Like the Sun' is nothing like run-of-the-mill pop. It is also a significant drop in quality from the plateau on which Sting, now 36, has been operating since the breakup of his old band, the Police.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eClearly, this songwriter's experience in the world of improvised music has changed him forever. Before the tour for 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' last year, Sting orchestrated every moment of his songs as if from a blueprint. Working with saxophonist Branford Marsalis, keyboardist Kenny Kirkland and other jazz musicians on the road, he learned to leave space, to alter the plans. The extended selections on the live LP 'Bring on the Night' showed him - and many in his audience - just how alive a once-rigid pop song can be. Now back in the studio, Sting has worked the \"less is more\" axiom to an extreme. He has stopped trying to save the world, or draw grand connections between its events. His sights are lower, his songs smaller and more inward-looking. He has focused the telescope. To the jazz players, this means the environment for interplay is much improved.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the results are mixed: On open-road jaunts like the cooing 'Be Still My Beating Heart', Kirkland unfurls boogie and blues-influenced lines as a reflexive, natural-sounding counterpoint to the vocals. Marsalis gets room to stretch on Little Wing, delivering a brainy, only slightly bluesy solo he probably wishes he could do again. With the chorale-vocal 'The Lazarus Heart', Sting tries too hard to re-create that concert-setting spontaneity, ending up with a moment of darting soprano saxophone followed by an ensemble section that's about as ad-libbed as a presidential address. It's stiff. It's Sting-jazz. It doesn't swing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn contrast to the live album, where everybody on stage weighed into every backbeat, Sting misuses his musicians here: On the delightfully sombre 'They Dance Alone', the album's overt protest song, Sting tells the tale of the Chilean disappeared with guitarists Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton so far in the background, they're indistinguishable. The same problem plagues Gil Evans and his orchestra on Jimi Hendrix's 'Little Wing'. They're credited, but invisible. Were it not for Hiram Bullock's tortured taffy-pull of a 'Little Wing' guitar solo, there would be no impression of a personnel change at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere's more. The minute Sting decided to write songs geared toward playing, it seems, he put down the pen that brought so many innovations. Sting's Police output endures because it is universal stuff wrapped in harmonic freshness and articulated through unusual chant phrases. That muse is on vacation here, as the songs follow two lines of approach: The simple one-chord vamp tune, and the lush harmonic motion of jazz standards such as Autumn Leaves - best represented on selections like 'Fragile' and 'Sister Moon'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the one-chord category, 'We'll Be Together' is the most insulting. Sting has always made reference to past hits; here he conveniently clones. There's nothing but a shout's worth of difference between this song and 'If You Love Someone (Set Them Free)', as though Sting, realising the need for a hit, simply served up what worked so well last time. 'We'll Be Together' is out of place in the Brecht-Weill theater-in-song atmosphere Sting is trying to create, a generic single shoehorned in for obvious reasons.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe most inventively reworked blast from the past happens on 'History Will Teach Us Nothing', or 'Driven to Tears II,' which sports an instrumental melody lifted from Miles Davis' 'Tutu' LP. Its cry - \"Sooner or later\" - manages to reinforce the enumerated despair of the verses, while the closing double-time chant - \"Know your human rights, be what you come here for\" - ends the song on an optimistic, if not downright inspirational, note. Once a mad scientist in the laboratory of his musical dreams, songwriter Sting has settled down, become deliberate. The songs are more pedestrian. The performances are somewhat muffled.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt least Sting the vocalist has a good run: On the odd-meter 'Straight to My Heart', the voice sails, smug and triumphant, over choppy waters created by the instruments behind it. On 'Secret Marriage', his poised pipes ring only slightly, as if controlled by a schooled opera singer. 'Be Still My Beating Heart' reunites the sinewy side of Sting with alter-ego Police guitarist Andy Summers, whose now slicing, now harrowingly atmospheric guitar lead-lines outline the singer's blues connotation effortlessly. The simplicity of this track and the pointed 'History Will Teach Us Nothing' demonstrate the irony that prevents 'Nothing Like The Sun' from being a complete success: Since his 'Da Do Do Do' days, Sting has learned to take chances with his music. He brings new wisdom to his lyrics. But all these options have created a stylistic clutter from which his eloquence must struggle to escape.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Akron Beacon Journal by Chris Willman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the past, even Sting's biggest fans might have occasionally supposed that they were the ones getting stung, emotionally speaking. Even as concerted an effort to warm him up image-wise as the 'Bring on the Night' documentary film only served to further the suspicion that underneath the man's cool exterior lay, well, a cool interior.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis second solo studio album, '...Nothing Like the Sun', however, burns with real emotion, though its musical veneer is once again quite cool, as in jazz cool (more mellow even than the first album, in fact). Three of the 12 song titles include the word 'heart,' and though you want to dock points when someone has the nerve to title a tune 'Be Still My Beating Heart', you cannot. It sounds like Sting actually has one (a heart, that is), full of romantic fear and trepidations, no less.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd there are again no points to dock when Sting predictably pulls out his Amnesty International stripes for 'They Dance Alone', a moving companion piece to U2's 'Mothers of the Disappeared' in which he describes the loved ones left behind by the imprisoned or dead dancing solo in protest and grief - a symbol good enough to be a metaphor, but actually a practice in Chile, the song's setting. The following cut, 'Fragile', best brings together the album's romantic and topical tensions for an only human statement of faith.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBranford Marsalis (sax) and Kenny Kirkland (keyboards) are the key musical links between the last album and this one. With compelling jazzy-funky grooves that are insistently low-key and obsessive, '...Nothing Like the Sun' lives up, in a way, to its Shakespeare-derived title - it is noir through and through, but a curiously warm noir. Here in Sting's shadowland, the heat is finally, palpably on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Milwaukee Journal by Thor Christensen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Sting broke away from the Police two years ago, it led to the end of one of the great commercial rock bands of the last 10 years. But the Police's demise was not all for naught.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWorking with a bunch of young jazz instrumentalists, Sting produced a stunning collection of modern jazz and rock with his 1985 solo debut, 'The Dream Of the Blue Turtles'. When that LP became a unanimous commercial success, the singer-bassist made his temporary hiatus from the Police permanent. Earlier this year, the trio officially disbanded.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn 'Nothing Like The Sun', Sting's second solo LP, he continues to explore and conquer musical terrain that the Police barely knew existed. Though not as immediately striking as 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles', the record is a testament to Sting's growing stature as one of pop music's most provocative artists.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMany of the musicians who backed Sting on his solo debut are present here, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, keyboardist Kenny Kirkland and vocalists Janice Pendarvis and Dolette McDonald, among them. It's anyone's guess whether Sting could work the same magic without such stellar backing musicians - especially Marsalis who gives several songs their eeriness via his magnificent, flute-like soprano sax.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet there is never any doubt that Sting is steering the music. As a lyricist, he does a commanding job walking between subjects as far removed from lunacy, the families of political martyrs in Chile and the state of love in the year 2087. As a singer, he is almost as versatile lending a lusty torch voice to his jazz standards, then squeezing soul out of his icy, English mantra for the album R\u0026amp;B tracks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut it is Sting's skills as a musical composer that makes 'Nothing Like The Sun' such a joy. In 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles', he brought in a half a dozen shades of jazz; here he expands on that LP's approach, calling on Latin influences when the song's topic turns to Central and South America, and constructing bold, funk-rock workouts out of his jazz influences.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the album's most stirring tracks, however, is its quietest. In the tune called 'Secret Marriage', Sting takes a song by German composer Hans Eisler and strips it down to an intimate core of piano, vocals and bass.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith the Police, Sting and company came up with a truly amazing blend of reggae, punk and pop-rock. Though Sting's tastes as a solo artist run more toward the esoteric. 'Nothing Like The Sun' is every bit as arresting as his Police records.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Playboy magazine by Charles M Young\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has never hesitated to take on the big issues - nor has he been reluctant to take on the small issues. '...Nothing Like the Sun' is well within the Sting tradition, dealing as it does with everything from international politics to very personal nightmares. The title is taken from a sonnet (\"My mistress eyes are...\") in which Shakespeare expresses love for his significant other despite or because of her flaws, and Sting throughout this two record set wrestles with his own feelings toward females. Typically, the pop single 'We'll Be Together' is the least interesting. But be not put off by what you first hear. The best stuff is too long, too thoughtful and often too mournful for most radio formats - 'They Dance Alone' concernss the widows and mothers of murdered political prisoners in Chile. Nonformatted jazz and rock fans, however, should find much to their liking here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The St. Petersburg Times by David Okamato\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow that a Police reunion appears out of the question, we're just going to have to accept Sting on his own, restless terms. The lean and hungry sound is gone: No more snapping Stewart Copeland snare; forget Andy Summer's atmospheric guitar; vocally, Sting shouts for the heavens no longer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut as much as the passing of the Police is lamentable, Sting has found a new, more sophisticated sound that is well realized on his new double LP\/single CD and cassette '...Nothing Like the Sun'. Unlike 1985's 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' - in which the moonlighting cop enlisted the aid of four young jazzmen - the new album does not sound like a sociology project. For the most part, it's cool pop-rock with a jazzy tinge. Sax man Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland, holdovers from 'Blue Turtles', are used more effectively this time around. Marsalis' coy soprano work provides the album's improvisational backbone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlthough not remotely as driving as the Police, Sting's new direction is still uncluttered and spacious. 'History Will Teach Us Nothing', with its reggae groove, has a decidedly Police-like chorus, but the song is considerably more restrained. Plaintive organ-synthesizer, scratchy rhythm guitar and clattering percussion provide the framework. Relentless abandon has been replaced by a more controlled artistry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album's centerpiece is the moving ballad, 'They Dance Alone (Gueca Solo)'. The long track features a simple, elegant melody that simmers along toward a breezy, samba-style instrumental finale. It tells of the wives, daughters and mothers of men killed by the Pinochet regime in Chile - they dance alone in the streets with pictures of their loved ones pinned to their clothes. Sting sings: \"It's the only form of protest they're allowed\/I've seen their faces scream so loud\/If they were to speak these words\/ They'd go missing too.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting takes a shot at dance-funk on the album's first single 'We'll Be Together', and it proves to be the weakest track. The cracking drum-machine, a repetitive backing vocal part and a flimsy, beaten-to-death hook combine for a forced shot at urban dance music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are, however, far more hits than misses. 'Straight to My Heart' is brisk and snappy; 'Be Still My Beating Heart' is moody and haunting; 'Rock Steady', a glib hipster version of the Noah's Ark tale, is a shuffle with some smooth, jazzy vocals; the ballad Sister Moon showcases a superbly crafted melody and some floaty synthesizer swells.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnother highlight is Sting's version of Jimi Hendrix's 'Little Wing', which features jazz icon Gil Evans' orchestra in a low-key role and guitarist Hiram Bullock's hot, high-profile leads pitted against Marsalis' graceful solo. Sting's voice is more conscious of nuance than blow-'em-down bombast. His singing is that way on most of the album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerhaps a touch more vocal energy on '...Nothing Like the Sun' wouldn't have hurt, but - song for song - this is pop music of the highest order.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978621010,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_05e6696a-3f1c-4dd7-bcab-6c73b31667a8.jpg?v=1758314759"},{"product_id":"bring-on-the-night-2","title":"Bring On The Night","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The film's about the formation of this group. It's about musicians from different areas forming a common language. A lot of the film is rehearsal footage in which we explain how arrangements are put together and how certain decisions are made; plus concert footage taken from the Mogador. So it's not just a concert movie. Hopefully it will explain how music is made. Most rock films are made about bands at the peak of their career or when they are finished - like 'The Last Waltz' or 'Let It Be'. I can't think of a film that's about a band starting off. It's being shot as a 35mm feature by Michael Apted - the director of 'Gorky Park', 'Coalminer's Daughter', 'Stardust', - and to me some of his best works were his documentaries for Granada. He did a series called '28 Up' which took children at the age of seven and interviewed them at seven year periods.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Record Mirror, 6\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Bring on the Night promotion was aimed at 15-year-olds. If we had tested it properly, perhaps we would have realized the movie is more for the 20- to 35-year-old crowd. When a 15-year-old thinks of a documentary, it's usually in terms of a film about aboriginal Indians baking manioc cakes in the South Amazon.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDavid Manson, the Producer in The Chicago Tribune, 12\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Maybe Sting and I made a mistake. We didn't want the film to look like an MTV version of the album (Sting's hit 'Dream of the Blue Turtles') but realize now we should have used the LP to sell the film. We avoided it. We underestimated the drawing power of the album. I think it will be a big video cassette seller, but I am disappointed. We wanted to get more juice out of the movie in movie houses.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMichael Apted, the Director in The Chicago Tribune, 12\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"'Bring On The Night' is a part of that. It's about the life of a band in one week. I'm going to be very involved in the editing process of the film. I won't be just saying my lines. It's being shot as a feature movie, in environments that are meant to look like film sets. So it's a real movie, but there's no script. The thing that's interesting about the movie is that most rock films are about bands after they make it big or when they finish. This is about a band at the beginning. It's quite exciting, fresh.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Record, 1985\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's an honest look at the beginning of a group and in that sense it's unique. I've never seen a film like it. Most bands don't have the funds to film the beginning, even though that's the most exciting part.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 11\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This is the first film about the process, about how the music is created and how a band gets to the stage. And it's a character study. I didn't want to do just a concert film - I wanted to know about the people in a band. It's not a glorified look at the album or a puff piece for Sting or an extended MTV video. In fact, you'll notice that not a single song is played all the way through in the film.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMichael Apted, the Director in The San Diego Union-Tribune, 11\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The way we related to each other seemed right, and then one morning I had a whim. Wouldn't it be a great idea to do a film about starting a new band. But it became a reality very quickly. Before I could tell everyone it was just a joke, there were 120 people around us and we were spending all this money - somebody else's money. And I felt responsible, which is why I look so worried in the first part of the film.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 11\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Miami Herald by Tom Moon\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis was the sound Sting wanted all along. The sound Sting wanted for his jazz band didn't really come out on 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles'. It started to happen only when the six-piece outfit hit the road: Natural segues developed, linking past and present Sting compositions in a way he couldn't have orchestrated. Riffs delivered casually one night became huge motifs the next. For Sting, the static pop song was no more. His band played fresh, to the moment. Anything could happen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo it's a good thing he chose to record the 'Blue Turtles' world tour. This two-record set, taken from the European segment, contains some classic Kenny Kirkland piano improvisations (especially on 'When the World Is Running Down'), some near-brilliant Branford Marsalis (on 'One World', where he quotes the standard 'Let's Fall in Love'), as well as propulsion from the never-let-up rhythm team of drummer Omar Hakim and bassist Darryl Jones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe highlight is an 11-minute medley, 'One World (Not Three)' into 'Love Is the Seventh Wave'. Once the initial commotion dies down, Sting begins a long development section with Wes Montgomery-influenced block guitar chords. Soon the background vocalists come in, and an exchange develops over the 'Seventh Wave' lyrics. Just as the energy peaks, Sting switches to 'One World', leading a series of rhythmically challenging chant phrases that build to a furious soul revue-style climax. 'Bring on the Night' is the album Sting wanted to make all along, a genre-busting statement that works brilliantly on many levels.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Times by David Sinclair\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's double live album 'Bring on the Night' draws a neat line under the first year's activities of his all-star jazz musicians' band. The collection features songs from The Dream of the Blue Turtles album, and some reworked Police material, all expertly played, and expertly produced by Sting and his co-manager, Kim Turner. Perhaps the strongest feature to emerge is how well Sting has maintained his extraordinary facility to write great songs over a prolonged period of time. But the album's air of meticulous precision, which makes it hard to believe that it is a live album, is a worrying pointer to the future, suggesting that Sting needs the Police to protect him from his own perfectionist tendencies. If he is not careful, a couple more years with his current line-up and Sting will find himself entering the high-gloss middle-ground currently dominated by Phil Collins.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by Rob Tannebaum\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a high-profile plan for musical and racial integration, The Dream of the Blue Turtles was one of last year’s most significant projects. Unfortunately, the band Sting so carefully assembled was dominated by his earnest verbiage and limited by the requirements of his popmanship. Consequently, the record was an admirable muddle, hardly deserving of the ongoing documentation Sting seems to think it merits. After an album, a lengthy tour and a movie, a double live album may seem like narcissistic redundancy. But Bring On the Night is more fulfilling than any of the other Blue Turtle projects. Sting finally lets his band exhale, and the resulting gales can knock you down.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting correctly insists that his is not a jazz band - in the liner notes, he writes that the nomination of “The Dream of the Blue Turtles” for a jazz Grammy filled him with “horror and embarrassment” - but the instrumentalists all have distinguished jazz backgrounds, which means they’re more capable of compelling improvisation than almost any rock band. On this album, they navigate a smart selection of Blue Turtles material, wisely avoiding the hits. The cool strut of “Consider Me Gone” is especially good. But they’re shrewdest when rearranging old Police songs, the quality of which increases with the leniency of Sting’s leadership. During a “Bring On the Night”\/”When the World Is Running Down” jam, keyboardist Kenny Kirkland’s barrelhouse romp prods Sting into celebrating the apocalypse. And saxophonist Branford Marsalis illuminates the coda of “Driven to Tears” with a white-light solo that pays tribute to Junior Walker.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting falters with the blues standard “Down So Long,” and more of the arrangements should swivel like “Demolition Man.” But the ensemble and individual playing tempers the singer’s grim scenarios and resuscitates the notion of an uncompromised jazz-rock fusion. If only the world tour had come before the recording sessions, Blue Turtles might have been this good.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All About Jazz by Trevor MacLaren\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith pop\/rock group The Police, Sting (aka Gordon Sumner) created some of the greatest pop songs ever. These songs were a mix of pop, rock and ska meshed with articulate lyrics that would render the band's catalogue legendary. But as the band had peaked with its best selling record, Sting went off to pursue a solo career. During the process of creating his debut record, Sting sought out a separate path of musical ideas than the ones that made up his work with the Police. Sting looked back to his first love, which was jazz.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen taking to the studio to record what would be Dream of the Blue Turtles, Sting revisited the fusion sounds that were a part of his pre-Police band Last Exit, pulling together a band of killer jazz players that featured Omar Hakim, Kenny Kirkland, Daryl Jones and Branford Marsalis. The idea was so important that Sting had the sessions filmed and released as the documentary Bring on the Night. Due to the varying styles and pop overtones, Dream wasn't the jazz record that such players would be expected to make. In fact for many jazz fans thought it was all hype and no action. Yet the record has many redeeming qualities, namely its particular brand of fusion and Sting's brilliant songwriting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith the release of the documentary came an expensive double live record that only appeared in North America on import and unfortunately did not get a lot of press. Bring on the Night was the jazz record that Sting hadn't made with Dream of the Blue Turtles. Over the course of the record, Sting band mates work their way through obscure and classic Police tracks and Blue Turtles material. With live atmosphere the band cuts loose and frees the restraint of recording a pop record. Though some tracks work better than others, the feel through out the record works more into the ideology of jazz than any post- or pre-Sting solo work. On this collection Sting helped to evolve a newer version of the jazz\/pop\/rock fusion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSince he had the band and the chops, Bring on the Night brought to life many works that have failed in the past. It still doesn't stand-alone as an essential jazz or pop record, but makes a solid stance for a crossover record. Even though many fans of jazz detest any artist crossing over and claiming themselves a jazz player, Sting's intent opened the ears of pop fans who would normally have banished all jazz in sight.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978653778,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_c90c26b3-7aac-480d-9b71-ffb082abf415.jpg?v=1758314760"},{"product_id":"the-dream-of-the-blue-turtles","title":"The Dream of the Blue Turtles","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Following the massive success of 'Synchronicity', I decided to set out on my own. This decision, I admit, was not particularly logical. In the eyes of some it was the highest folly to leave what was arguably the biggest band in the world at that time. Of course it was a risk, but I can only say that I listened to my instincts, no matter how irrational they seemed to everyone else, and then followed them, fully aware that falling flat on my face was a very real possibility. I ignored this as much as I could, believing that the momentum of the band had been such that people would at least be curious about what I was up to. I have to say the sense of freedom in not having to tailor songs to accommodate a three-piece, even one as versatile as the Police, was like opening a window in a closed room. Although I believed that the Police had thrived on the limitations of being a small band, I was more than ready after seven years to fly the coop.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Lyrics', 10\/07\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"With the help of my friend, the writer and critic Vic Garbarini, I recruited a band of young jazz musicians, including alumni of Miles Davis's band, Art Blakey's band, and Weather Report. Branford Marsalis would play saxophone, with Kenny Kirkland on piano. This caused some friction with Branford's brother Wynton, who, apart from losing two of his band, thought they were selling out by playing with a pop musician like myself. Nevertheless, we all set out for Eddie Grant's studio in Barbados with a bag full of new songs and a mission to start a new adventure.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Lyrics', 10\/07\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The title of the album came from a dream that woke me up on my first night in Barbados. I dreamed I was sitting in the walled garden behind my house in Hampstead, under a lilac tree on a well manicured lawn, surrounded by beautiful rosebushes. Suddenly the bricks from the wall exploded into the garden and I turned to see the head of an enormous turtle emerging from the darkness, followed by four or five others. They were not only the size of a man, they were also blue and had an air of being immensely cool, like hepcats, insouciant and fearless. They didn't harm me but with an almost casual violence commenced to destroy my genteel English garden, digging up the lawn with their claws, chomping at the rosebushes, bulldozing the lilac tree. Total mayhem. I woke up to the sound of Branford in the room upstairs, riffing wildly on his tenor sax, followed by his unmistakeable laughter.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Lyrics', 10\/07\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There's as much excitement about the record in the record company as there would be for a Police record, which is quite thrilling. It's not Oh, Sting's got to have his little hobby, humour him and let him make his jazz record.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, NME, 6\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This new band is more clearly defined. I hired them to play, and I'm the songwriter and singer. So there are no arguments about roles, which makes the process a lot easier. But there's still room for the dialectic to and fro. They're not sidemen, they're too good for that. It was my intention all along to have a band, not a super-session bunch of hirelings. They're too proud to be that, and I'm too clever to want that. I didn't want to be seen as a patrician white pop star with his minstrel band. That's not the idea...\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, NME, 6\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It wasn't my intention to draw comparisons between the Police and this record, I'm just playing with different musicians. It's as simple as that. I'm not intimidated by great players. On this record I've recruited some of the best young players in America but I think I'm the best songwriter, so I'm not being immodest, the band has a good pedigree, and I'm part of the pedigree. I didn't do this out of any dissatisfaction with the Police. I needed to change. When you've been together eight years, there are no surprises.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Courier Mail (Australia), 7\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"First of all there's Branford Marsalis, who isn't good at anything. Then there's Omar, who thinks he's a good drummer but really he's nowhere as good as me. But I like him. Then there's Darryl, whom I'm trying to teach to play the bass. He's kind of cute. Finally there's this joker called Kenny Kirkland who sounds as if he's playing with boxing gloves on. It's a pretty good band.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Musician, 7-8\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The four blue turtles are the four musicians in my band. They're a good symbol: The turtle is a creature who lives both under the sea and out of it. The sea is a good symbol of the subconscious. I feel black people are closer to that unconscious and blue is a good colour for jazz musicians anyway. What they're doing is destroying my safe formula, my safe back yard. They're wrecking that safety, that formularised easy option, which is making a Police record. Churning up the land is what a farmer does when he wants it to be fruitful a year hence. In many ways it's a confirming dream. Yes, it's frightening and dramatic, but ultimately you'll be rewarded.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Los Angeles News, 6\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The album certainly would have been different with Andy and Stewart. You'd know exactly what to expect and how it would sound. Once you're in a successful group you become part of people's gestalt, and you're not allowed to escape from it. Freedom is everything to me - freedom to change my mind, freedom to be seen differently. The more people pigeonhole me the more my freedom is impaired. I want to be able to change what I do. I get bored very easily. My threshold for boredom is very, very low.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Record, '85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's not a concept album. There's no consistent theme running throughout - but there's also no song on the record that doesn't have an issue. It's not just a riff of a guitar with nonsense lyrics. A lot of thought and energy went into it. The songs are more didactic than they've ever been before. I have to be inspired before I write, but then when you're writing about issues like the miners' strike, the proliferation of nuclear power, and the arms race, then you have to have a certain responsibility to those issues. You have to think about them. I think time is running out. You can't really make records that are about nothing anymore.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Record, '85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I think it's my best work, the most refined piece of work I've done. And I'm proud that it's not going to be easily formularised. It's not going to fit terribly well on radio formats, for example. But I'll be intrigued as to how they treat it. The whole idea is to keep people confused, because that allows you freedom. As soon as they're sure about who you are and what you're gonna come up with next, then you're dead, stagnant and useless - which is why rock \u0026amp; roll is dead; I know what MTV is going to look like today. I don't want to be in that kind of prison. I like people to go, \"What the fuck is that boy gonna do next\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, International Musician, '85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm very pleased with the record. It's live, it's obviously played by musicians and not by machines - in fact, it's rough as hell - and yet it satisfies a lot of ingredients that needed to be satisfied in order for it to be a commercial record. And I wanted it to be as commercial as possible.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, International Musician, '85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Darryl is one of those bass players who started to play the bass. I was a guitarist first, then a double bassist, then, at about nineteen, an electric-bass player. Darryl has a very pure approach to bass playing. However, there are some things, I'm happy to say, I did on the album; I played the reggae\/calypso song, 'Love Is the Seventh Wave'. I played on 'Fortress Around Your Heart', only because I was writing it in the studio, and basically I just put down the bass straightaway and it seemed fine, so I kept it on. And I also played double bass on 'Moon Over Bourbon Street'. So I did play some of the bass, but the motherlode of the work was done by Darryl, largely because he's just a wonderful player and can do things I can't. And I'm not precious about my ability as a musician. I think that my function in this group is as a concept organiser. I'm working with musicians who are technically much, much better than I am.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, International Musician, '85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"These musicians, who were all ten years younger than me and middle-class blacks at that, did things so naturally and so easily. I found the way they played and learned to be incredibly stimulating. It opened me up a bit. Here I m not sure what my position is. Am I the patrician white rock star Or am I the novice I really had to assess what I was.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Timeout, 10\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jazz musicians are forced to play standards. I wanted to give them a new springboard. I provided the lyrics, the harmony and melody for them to explore. The first album was a new position for me. I'd left the Police, I felt like a duck out of water. There Is a lot of nervous energy in it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Sky Magazine, 11\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It was a band in as much as what they were good at playing; and as jazz musicians, they were used to composing or arranging on the spot. It was a band in the sense that they were allowed to do that. I had arrangements and we worked from there. They were allowed input to play what they wanted, as long as I liked it. On the live album, I paid the band royalties, because I thought a lot of the stuff was theirs too. So we shared the royalties.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Musician, 12\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It wasn't my intention to draw comparisons between the Police and this record, I'm just playing with different musicians. It's as simple as that. I'm not intimidated by great players. On this record I've recruited some of the best young players in America but I think I'm the best songwriter, so I'm not being immodest, the band has a good pedigree, and I'm part of the pedigree. I didn't do this out of any dissatisfaction with the Police. I needed to change. When you've been together eight years, there are no surprises.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Courier Mail (Australia), 7\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Let me explain. During the week of rehearsals for the Ritz shows, I had a dream that I was back home in Hampshire, looking out the window into this big walled-in garden I have out back with its very neat flower bed and foliage. Suddenly, out of a hole in the wall came these large, macho, aggressive and quite drunk blue turtles. They started doing back- flips and other acrobatics, in the process utterly destroying my garden. So anyway, I'm somehow enjoying this curious spectacle, and the dream is so strong I remembered it perfectly when I woke up, to the point where it became part of my juggernaut to complete this record. Having undergone Jungian analysis, I've gotten proficient at interpreting my own dreams, Carl Jung; having believed that there're doors into the innermost parts of your psyche. For me, the turtles are symbols of the sub-conscious, living under the sea, full of unrealised potential, very Jungian in their meaning. I have dreams where I create the most unbelievable music, music like Mozart, that I don't consciously have the knowledge to write. It's there, I'm writing it, and it's real. So with the album I wanted to destroy a lot of preconceptions and expectations, and do something unsettlingly different. These blue turtles, these musicians, were gonna help me. And they did.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Spin, 7\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Pop music at it's best is a great mongrel, taking in sources from everywhere. I think pop music was at it's best in the '60s, when there were no barriers, no demarcation lines of jazz, classical, whatever. So, I wanted to inject some of that dialectic into this project, and I managed to get the best young jazz musicians in the country. They all wanted to do it, which I think is a great tribute to me, because they don't particularly like rock music. But also, I didn't want to make a jazz album. I wanted to stretch myself, I wanted to be challenged by what they could do, and I also wanted them to stretch too. I don't think they found it particularly easy, and I was very demanding about what I wanted. I didn't want them to just slip into their jazz mould and go off and do what they can do falling off a log.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, International Musician, '85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm not really interested in the spirit of rock \u0026amp; roll. I don't know what rock \u0026amp; roll is, or if it's valid anymore. I'm interested in the spirit of live music, and I don't think Branford, Omar, Kenny, Darryl or myself miss the spirit of rock \u0026amp; roll at all. I think we're right in there, and I would hereby challenge any band to blow us off stage!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, International Musician, '85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I composed a lot of the songs on keyboard anyway, so those basic parts were already written. I didn't write any sax part as such; I trusted Branford to come up with my vision of it. Like, for 'The Children's Crusade', I said, \"I want something that's kind of military,\" and he played something that was totally, utterly appropriate. He wouldn't be improvising just with the changes and the chords, he'd be improvising with the lyrics, and you can hear it in the sensitivity of his playing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, International Musician, '85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Basically, the whole project was designed to create a new kind of hybrid that was neither rock'n'roll nor jazz, but was hopefully another country - another country that I'd have to make a journey to, just as the band did. So we don't play like Weather Report or Miles Davis - but neither are we going to sound like uh, Van Halen! Or the Police!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Charlotte Observer, 10\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There was never any intention of it being a jazz record. That was an easy label that journalists put on it. It wasn't marketed that way. It has some flavour of jazz, hopefully the sensibility of jazz. I'm not that interested in jazz to produce a jazz record. I'm interested in selling songs. We got a jazz Grammy nomination for the album. Thank God we didn't win. That would have been too much.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Musician, 12\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Blue Turtles had songs on it that I thought would never get on the radio, but because I was in such a position of power it was a challenge. A song like 'Bourbon Street' was a massive hit in Europe; 'Russians' was in the Top 20 here. I put this on the record and thought, \"This is really going to put the cat among the pigeons - how are they going to play it in their format\" And they did. I think it's my duty to use the power to, if not revolutionise it, then push the boundaries of what they're willing to play.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Musician, 12\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Dream was more about a band meeting a pop star. That's what the album's about, going through that filter. I didn't want to extend what the Police had done because that would have sounded like a Police album. It was something we really didn't think about. We knew about space, less is more, and simplicity. We didn't really think about \"Let's play that chord here.\" It wasn't a philosophical thing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Musician, 12\/87\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's a song selection, rather than an album that sounds like a unified piece of work. If I have to look for a blueprint for what I hope to do, it's probably 'The White Album' by the Beatles, which was about songs. It wasn't about a group of songs or a direction at all, it was about 'Rocky Raccoon' and 'Why Don't We Do It In The Road' and 'Birthday', so the individual songs drive it. I've never been into having this \"sound.\" My idea is to have this body of work, and every album I just add to it; it's not like each is a separate chapter. I hope I'm getting better at what I'm doing, but I'm just trying to add to what I've done. The modern pop song form was becoming narrow and formulaic again by the time of Blue Turtles, but you felt it could have jazz in it, a Caribbean lilt, and more substance rhythmically and thematically. I needed to exorcise the Police, which in a way had a defined form and structure. I wanted to escape that and present a whole plethora of possibilities. 'Blue Turtles' does that - it's all over the place, and by some definitions, that's not a unified piece of art. But for me it was just a banner, saying, \"Here, I can do this! I can fly here, I can fly there, up, down, go sideways!\" That was me exercising my freedom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Billboard, 9\/99\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In this band, the roles were very clear. I hired the musicians and my function was to sing and to write the songs. I have the advantage, Andy and Stewart are forced to go into more esoteric areas, which obviously doesn't have as much commercial cachet as a guy singing songs. I'm probably in the top five commercial song writers in the world, so I am assured some kind of guarantee of success. Let's face it, the bigger the hit the more pleased I'll be.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Courier Mail (Australia), 7\/85\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone magazine by Jon Pareles\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith the Police on hiatus, Sting had choices galore for ways to make his inevitable solo album. The most obvious was to become the world's best-qualified Police imitator; what he did instead smacks of brilliantly enlightened self-interest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDer Stingle chose to form a new band with young jazz hotshots from Weather Report (drummer Omar Hakim) and the Miles Davis group (bassist Darryl Jones), plus saxophonist Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland. These aren't the usual sleepy gang of veteran sidemen; they never bothered to learn pop-jazz cliches, but they know their Jimi Hendrix, Chic, Herbie Hancock and Led Zeppelin, along with their Duke Ellington.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike Joni Mitchell another Big Blond Star who attempted this kind of jazzification, Sting can swing. You can hear how much fun he's having, and how much goosing he gets from the band, in the remake of the Police's Shadows in the Rain. The spooky, dubwise reggae tune from 'Zenyatta Mondatta' now steams along like a workout by soul-jazz organist Jimmy Smith. Kirkland pumps out organ chords over Hakim's stomp, while Sting and Marsalis dodge each others' syncopations around the bass line.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut except for Shadows, the bluesy 'Consider Me Gone' and an instrumental, 'Blue Turtles', that grafts progressive 1960s jazz onto a Weather Report march, 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles' is a pop record above all. It's only a jam session between the lines, where Marsalis answers Sting's voice with slyly ubiquitous fanfares and curlicues and epigrams.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting still writes short, modal melody lines, and sometimes he plays around with the Police's quiet marches (ala King of Pain) and Afro-Anglo-Caribbean rhythms - to do anything else would be like changing his fingerprints. But if you listen to the way verses and phrases end, there are new twists, surprising extended chords by way of Steely Dan, Weather Report and Ellington. Although Sting is working with world-class improvisers, many of his new band's arrangements are more structured than tracks by the Police. That amazing trio could juggle rhythm and lead roles like nobody's business, while a quintet that tried the same openness would find itself in chaos. The new band is also punchier than the Police, because Kirkland's keyboards - especially the organ - reinforce the rhythm, and the Hakim\/Jones team packs a mighty wallop.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSolo albums are traditionally variety shows and statements of purpose, and 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles' is a little of both. Sting delves into neo-vaudeville with 'Moon Over Bourbon Street' and seriouso classical hymnology with 'Russians', a disarmament song. He also comments on the British miners' strike ('We Work The Black Seam') on lost generations ('Children's Crusade') and on matters philosophical and epistemological ('Love Is The Seventh Wave' and 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free').\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I saw the band in concert (as you should when it tours this summer) its musical exuberance was contagious: I kept losing track of the lyrics in the brainy kicks of the music. On record, things are a little more sober - and, to my taste, too earnest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was easy to see it coming. Sting has been driven to tears by world problems since the Police's third-world tour. Yet I'd suspect that the rest of the band edited his pronouncements for commercial zoning; without them, he does tend to go on about \"All the bloodshed all the anger \/ All the weapons all the greed \/ All the armies all the missiles \/ All the symbols of our fear,\" as he does on 'Love Is The Seventh Wave'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Children's Crusade' makes a rather tenuous connection between soldiers in World War I and young drug users. 'We Work The Black Seam', - with a winding melody chat suggests climbing and descending and with a rhythm track like the clang of picks - extrapolates from neat denunciations of Thatcherism (\"We matter more than pounds and pence \/ Your economic theory makes no sense\") and nuclear power (\"Bury the waste in a great big hole\") to goofy stuff about the universe. Sting acts worried about carbon 14, which must be easier to rhyme than plutonium.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm all for political songs, and there's no better vehicle for them than a megastar album. Yet Sting sabotages good intentions when he gets preachy or spacey or sanctimonious. 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free' is a postgrammatical, T-shirt sentiment and a denunciation of possessiveness that would be a lot more convincing issued by someone other than a millionaire. If Sting really believes that we can be happy with less, he can send me 0,000 care of this magazine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo dump the lyric sheet and enjoy the tunes: the transparency of 'We Work The Black Seam', the way 'Children's Crusade' slowly spirals to its climax, the Caribbean lilt of 'Love Is The Seventh Wave', the impassioned singing on If You Love Somebody Set Them Free and the delicate-to-martial dynamics of 'Fortress Around Your Heart', which evokes Pete Townshend and Steely Dan, along with the Police. Sting the musician has more to say than Sting the deep thinker - especially when he's paced, and pushed, by extraordinary young musicians.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Sydney Morning Herald by Henry Everingham\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDo you remember love songs? \"Real\" love songs. You know? The ones with music sounding like it came from some tacky musical and lyrics that contained at least a dozen \"babys\" - not to mention the obligatory \"if you leave me, I'll drive Dad's car over Niagara Falls\" sentiment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, those songs are still out there, somewhere. Only we don't hear them so much any more, because for the last seven years, the Top 40 has been ruled by Sting, and his immensely popular band The Police.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot that Sting doesn't write love songs. Indeed he does. But the subject of his love songs is not your average cheated-teenage-sweetheart. His subjects tend to be prisoners in chains and dominating beasts, all thrown in with a liberal dose of Jungian theory. Even in The Police's hit 'Wrapped Around Your Finger', Sting denied being Mephistopheles. (How many spotty-faced kids out there watching Countdown know who Mephistopheles is?)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf that's the kind of music that turns you on, then you'll be thrilled to learn that Sting has released his long awaited solo album. However, first things first. Despite all the guff you may have heard about 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles' being a jazz inspired album, forget it. Certainly, he has employed a variety of musicians with solid backgrounds in the vein of Weather Report, but it is still basically Sting's style of pop music. And naturally, it still sounds like The Police. What made that band sound so good was not so much their deft musical style, but Sting's rasping lead vocals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill, 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles' is one remarkably fine album. I (and no doubt many others) had thought Sting had reached his pinnacle with the last Police album, 'Synchronicity', but he has proved us wrong and returned with a collection of rather daunting songs dealing mainly with relationships and that now perennial favourite, war.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Billboard magazine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerhaps the most anticipated release of the summer, and the wait proves well worth it: Police vocalist\/bassist's solo collection features 10 tunes, and not a throwaway in the batch. First single, 'If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free', is already a hit, and 'Fortress Around Your Heart' appears to be lined up as the second single. But aside from raising an eyebrow towards the charts, Sting's album has to be admired for its strong identity and wealth of ideas. The Monkish title tune and ambitious compositions like 'We Work The Black Seam' and 'Moon Over Bourbon Street' are the work of an original artist. First class.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Miami Herald by Tom Moon\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUsing opium as the connecting image, a historian draws sharp parallels between the loss of young life during World War I and drug abuse today. Unemployed coal miners mourn the onslaught of a sophisticated and frightening power supply: \"One day in a nuclear age, they may understand our rage\/Build machines that they can't control, then bury the waste in a great big hole.\" A concerned citizen, frustrated by the cumbersome rhetoric of U.S.-Soviet detente, says with cautious resignation: \"I hope the Russians love their children, too.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis cast of characters comes from the debut solo project by Sting, bass-playing leader of the rock trio The Police, scheduled for nationwide release today by A\u0026amp;M records.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' is a collection of 10 somewhat-experimental, fiercely focused pop compositions performed by a crack team of young jazz talent. It is not the new Police album, though at first it is hard not to imagine Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland supporting the fiery-voiced Sting (a.k.a. Gordon Sumner) with their trademark minimalist accompaniment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut since 'Dream' is an extension of his development as a songwriter, Sting has appropriated a more personalized sound to compliment it. The goal, he has said, was to forge a connection between rigid pop formulas and the creative spark of improvised music. Like a chemist confident of his materials but unsure how his experiment would turn out, Sting took chances.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt worked.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor this experimentation he hired saxman Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland - both from the ranks of mainstream jazz artist Wynton Marsalis' band. Miles Davis' current bassist, Darrell Jones, was enlisted; his rhythm section partner is Weather Report drummer Omar Hakim.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting, whose resume looks almost lightweight by comparison, plays jangling rhythm guitar and Synclavier synthesizer, but his voice is the focus of attention throughout - in growling, soaring lead lines as well as loosely structured background roles. He plans to tour with this band this summer and is filming an hour-long documentary to trace the evolution of the project. 'Dream of the Blue Turtles' is clearly Sting's new thing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt catches the singer\/songwriter moving away from the fleeting images of Syncronicity toward sustained, long-view scenarios reminiscent of musical theater. 'Moon Over Bourbon Street', a recasting of the standard Autumn Leaves, might be called \"Confessions of a Wayward Vampire.\" The opening R\u0026amp;B raveup, 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free', works as a companion to the Police hit 'Every Breath You Take': Here the obsessed lover has learned what it takes to keep a relationship alive and is happy to dispense the advice. Then 'Fortress Around Your Heart' cloes the album with a fantastical allegory on the risks of past mistakes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough Sting's poetry has become more detailed and immediate, it is not necessarily any more revealing. A deliberate air of mystery surrounds compositions such as the steel-drum flavored 'Love Is The Seventh Wave' and the cool 'Consider Me Gone': At every turn the churning instrumental interaction help shadow the true intention of his lyric. Only two compositions ('Set Them Free' and 'Shadows In The Rain') break out of the languid, medium-tempo mold Sting has cast; this similarity is the album's biggest weakness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThroughout 'Dreams', Sting adapts the manner of an expert bandleader, allowing his sidemen to do what they do best: drummer Hakim shoots for a steady, crisp pulse dusted with cymbals - gone are the abrupt polyrhythms Copeland used as punctuation. Marsalis' job is to add a soulful edge where Sting has neglected it, and his soprano sax is a vital element on 'Love Is The Seventh Wave' and 'Children's Crusade'. Kirkland's synthesizers provide orchestrally thick padding, though the pompous Slavic theme of Russians would have been better served by an authentic brass choir.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy sandwiching experimental numbers such as 'Children's Crusade' and the title track between more conventional, pop-oriented material, Sting has created a coherent, seamless work bonded by a sense of looseness. There are moments of ecstatic music here: the shrill, almost panicked chorus of 'We Work The Black Seam', Sting's evenly measured vocal crescendos on Fortress. As the primary architect for The Police, Sting developed a sound that was urgent and irresistible. Now he delicately alters the proportions in order to further personalize his solo concept, and the result is a bold \"fusion\" worth noting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Post by J D Considine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePop idols aren't exactly known for taking risks, throwing their audience curve balls or walking away from sure things. Yet that's exactly what Sting has done with 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles', his solo debut.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike the outside projects of his cohorts Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, this is no mere Policeman's holiday, for what Sting has attempted is a marriage of pop and bop that pushes beyond the traditional notion of fusion music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRather than try to mix and match the two styles, Sting works a middle ground that leaves room enough for a walking bass and aggressive solos and, at the same time, sticks plenty close to the melody. On the best material - 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free', 'Childrens' Crusade', and 'Fortress Around Your Heart' - Sting supplies swing and sophistication without losing the melodic appeal that powers The Police's best work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnfortunately, that balance is not maintained throughout the album. Sometimes, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland seem unnecessarily constrained; at others, the listener yearns for the music to break free. Drummer Omar Hakim is a powerhouse player, but lacks the polyrhythmic fluidity Stewart Copeland uses to lighten The Police sound. Add in Sting's tendency to preach (\"There is a deeper world than this\/That you don't understand\" from 'Love Is the Seventh Wave'), and 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' ends up an only partly successful experiment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from People magazine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lyrics are penetrating enough to make you think of Yeats. The voice sounds like a more thoughtful Rod Stewart. The music is an unpredictable combination of rock, jazz and socially conscious folk. The man behind this remarkably passionate, thoughtful album is, of course, on leave from the Police. But nothing the Police have done - as entertaining as the group is - could have prepared anyone for this distinctive album. The songs, all written by Sting, are filled with allusions to nuclear war, pollution, despair and other concerns of our era. In the reggaeish 'Love Is the Seventh Wave', he sings of \"All the bloodshed, all the anger\/All the armies, all the missiles.\" In 'Consider Me Gone', he comments, \"The search for perfection is all very well\/But to look for heaven is to live here in hell.\" Sting avoids pretension with bitingly energetic and wide-ranging music. There are splendid contributions from keyboardist Kenny Kirkland and especially saxophonist Branford Marsalis, whose solos offer annotations to the lyrics. Sting also demonstrates a sly sense of humor. He ends 'Seventh Wave' with a comment on a Police pop hit, idly singing, \"With every breath you take\/Every move you make\/Every cake you bake\/Every leg you break.\" His more serious moments are impressive too, as in the evocative 'Moon Over Bourbon Street': \"The brim of my hat hides the eye of a beast\/I've the face of a sinner but the hands of a priest.\" This album will set minds to spinning and toes to tapping. It adds a new dimension to the fierce appeal of its creator.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Times by Richard Williams\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo his great credit Sting has opted in his first solo album for the spontaneity that has made the Police an exceptional group. 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' may well have cost as much as the half a million pounds that it took Bryan Ferry to piece together Boys and Girls, but it certainly does not give that impression. All the 10 tracks sound as though they were recorded by a small group of musicians playing together at the same time, exploring material undulled by over-familiarity, mixed on to tape more or less as they stood.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis, presumably, is what Sting was after when he drew into the project young American jazz musicians of the calibre of Branford Marsalis (saxophones), Darryl Jones (bass), Kenny Kirkland (piano) and Omar Hakim (drums). To ask such men to overdub on rhythms set by electronic drums and synthesizers would be like inviting one of the Roux brothers to pour the tomato ketchup over your Big Mac.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe best of this music jumps and flows with pronounced rhythmic vivacity, notably the first single, 'If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free', the slinkily jazzy 'Consider Me Gone', and the burstingly melodic 'Fortress Around Your Heart', which builds through a rather shapeless verse to its indelible chorus in the best tradition of the Police. On the rowdy 'Shadows in the Rain', young Marsalis sounds both amused and pleased by being asked to impersonate Clarence Clemons, a task he achieves with honours.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe worst of it meanders in a dream, grasping at Sting's own cliches - the melodies of 'Russians' (despite its acknowledged borrowing from Prokifiev), 'Children's Crusade' and the streamlined reggae of 'Love is the Seventh Wave' - and grappling inconclusively with Big Themes. For all its careful craftsmanship, even the already celebrated 'We Work the Black Seam', his impassioned defence of the miners' strike, lacks the mysterious dimension that turns propaganda into art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Newsweek magazine by Jim Miller\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' is the latest excursion in Sting's ongoing crusade to break down the barriers between different types of music. With the Police, he dabbed first in punk rock and then in reggae, slowly developing a distinctive voice and style. By 1983 and Synchronicity - the fifth and best Police album - the style was complete. Carefully layering different musical tracks in the studio and using synthesizers to create ostinato figures, chiming tones and orchestral textures, Sting seamlessly blended Slavic melodies, modal scales and African and Caribbean rhythms into a kind of high-tech global folk music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, in his first solo recording, Sting has gone in a different direction, recruiting four gifted younger jazz players in an effort to reinvent his musical synthesis. He is scarcely the first person, of course, to attempt a fusion of jazz and rock. Organist Bill Doggett, who once played with the big band of Lucky Millinder, did it in 1956 with 'Honky Tonk'. More recent - and self-conscious - examples include Herbie Hancock, Joni Mitchell and the currently popular British singer Sade. The most artistically successful of these recent fusions, the jazz-based band Weather Report and the pop group Steely Dan, succeeded in part because they largely eschewed improvisation, swing and the three-chord simplicities of traditional rock in favor of angular riffs and pastel tone poems.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough Sting follows a similar approach, it works only fitfully. Confined within tight arrangements, his musicians rarely have a chance to cut loose. Even so, the players get their licks in. Keyboard player Kenny Kirkland contributes fleetsizer choruses made to sound like a slippery celeste, but the real standou is saxophonist Branford Marsalis. He quietly shines throughout, playing obligatos, often on soprano sax, with a terse eloquence reminiscent of Weather Report's Wayne Shorter (who once helped out Steely Dan in similar fashion).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToo Clever: As a composer, Sting is nothing if not resourceful. Like much of his writing, 'Russians' is too clever by half, but puts its Prokofiev theme to wonderfully atmospheric use. 'Moon Over Bourbon Street' is a floating lament. 'Children's Crusade' skillfully evokes the appropriate mood - the sound of distant bells is a typical touch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the most striking aspects of Sting's music remains his singing. Despite its thiness, his tenor has an attractively sandy grain, given texture by his deft use of growls, falsetto and the full range of modern recording techniques, from phasing and filtering to overdubs and reverb. On some ballads his voice seems to hang in the air like mist. And when he lights into the right kind of song - 'Every Breath You Take' or 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free' - he manages to enliven even his most studied hits with a flash of real feeling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Los Angeles Times by Matt Damsker\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has gotten over his king-of-pain obsessiveness: \"If you love somebody,\" he sings on the lead track of his first solo album, \"set them free.\" And so he sets a generous tone. And lovingly, he frees us of the Jungian densities and pathological tilt of the last Police album, 'Synchronicity', and its arch-possessive ballad, 'Every Breath You Take'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles', the Police chief voices a clear, anti-war, global valentine amid a boggling array of polished, passionate yet subtly insinuating tunes. This is music fully liberated from the three-man reggae-pop cage of the Police. Instead, Sting meshes with a jazzy four-man group: drummer Omar Hakim, bassist Darryl Jones, keyboardist Kenny Kirkland and saxophonist Branford Marsalis, whose precisely inspired lyricism carries the album's wealth of mood.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMarsalis is a star attraction, certainly, yet the album is no less Sting's triumph. The sharp tenor slap and grainy croon of his vocals have never been more expressive or varied, and his stylistic depth is evident at each turn. The aggressive R\u0026amp;B charge of 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free' yields to the congenial reggae of 'Love Is the Seventh Wave'. The naively beautiful 'Russians', in which Sting salves his nuclear fears with a \"hope the Russians love their children too,\" swells with a synthesized snatch of Prokofiev.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen comes 'Children's Crusade', a mournful look back to World War I (\"Poppies for young men\/such bitter trade... all for a children's crusade\") that equates its legacy with the drugged hopelessness of Britain's modern youth, Marsalis' horn an elegiac underscore. Here, as elsewhere on the album, the sense of a strongly sympathetic collaboration between gifted players is profound. On 'Shadows in the Rain', a full-tilt boogie propels the track - a whiskey-voiced hangover tale - into that rare realm where singer, song and band are thoroughly loose yet perfectly balanced.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSide 2 opens with an extraordinary ballad, 'We Work the Black Seam', which builds on a minimal five-note figure and Marsalis' atonal accents. The song laments the deadly byproducts of the nuclear industry from the angry, unsung viewpoint of mine workers (\"One day in a new clear age\/they may understand our rage\/Build machines that they can't control\/and bury the waste in great big hole...\").\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut there's a lighter touch here as well. 'Consider Me Gone' is a bluesy, lounge-jazz kiss-off of a love affair, while the album's title track instrumental is a slice of pure improvisational joy, echoing Brubeck. And 'Moon Over Bourbon Street' - inspired by Anne Rice's novel, 'Interview With the Vampire' - has the timeless sound and perfect melody of a pop standard, as Sting's double-bass paces an arrangement that hints of an infernal Mardi Gras and his voice superbly enacts the tale of an ambivalent bloodsucker.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven hard-core Police fans will respond to the album's closer, 'Fortress Around Your Heart', which kicks in a stirring rock chorus and cements the album's theme of building bridges with love and reassessment. Yet there's not a hint of pandering about this album. There's continuity enough between Sting's Police record and this solo blotter, but when he coyly fades out one song with a joking reference to \"every move you make, every cake you bake,\" it's clear that he's found a higher emotional and broader musical ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithout losing sight of the pop audience, Sting has delivered a brilliant, uncompromised fusion of pop and jazz. It manages to transcend the self-centered \"solo album\" format with every collective breath it takes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978686546,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_776e120e-b5f1-4904-912e-b43cc0d22a85.jpg?v=1758314765"},{"product_id":"nada-como-el-sol","title":"...Nada Como El Sol","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'...Nada Como El Sol' is a five track mini album of tracks from '...Nothing Like The Sun' recorded in Spanish and Portuguese.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978719314,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_39a5d7ab-a217-4e77-ba3d-eb3a1b41e996.jpg?v=1758314765"},{"product_id":"brand-new-day-the-remixes","title":"Brand New Day: The Remixes","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a Japanese only release bringing together a collection of some of the various remixes of 'Brand New Day' tracks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReleased in September 2000 to coincide with Sting's concerts in Japan, this Japanese only release brought together a collection of remixes of tracks from the Brand New Day album. There's something for everyone on this collection, from the radio friendly 'Desert Rose' which has three remixes included on the album; 'Brand New Day' which has two very different takes on the song from Cornelius and the Murlyn crew; 'After The Rain Has Fallen' which has two marginally different remixes by Tin Tin Out through to 'Perfect Love...Gone Wrong' which features a Japanese rap by Lisa from m-flo. Perhaps the standout track - ceratinly times in of duration - is an epic Bill Laswell mix of 'A Thousand Years', which clocks in at an amazing 12:26. Dave Hartley's orchestral, string heavy arrangement gives way to Kipper's noodlings and a Flugelhorn, and a different vocal by Sting in which at one point he acknowledges \"All messages have been received\". The strings and horn really do add to this already atmospheric track, and the track becomes bass heavy about a third of the way in. The track is also notable for the inclusion of eldest son Joe on backing vocals, and Karsh Kale's drums and tabla work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978752082,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_1afc360c-dfdc-494f-8c27-e36441acf378.jpg?v=1758314765"},{"product_id":"acoustic-live-in-newcastle","title":"Acoustic Live In Newcastle","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReleased in the UK in 1991, catalogue no A\u0026amp;M 397 1 71-2, the CD captures several tracks from Sting's exclusive one-off acoustic performance at the Buddle Arts Centre in Wallsend, Newcastle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis special boxed set, which consists of a five track CD recorded live at The Buddle Arts Centre on 20 April 1991 and an illustrated lyric book by Sting look-a-like Roberto Gligorov. These were packed in an album sixed presentation box. Only 3,000 of the sets were issued, so this is an attractive collectors item, and fairly hard to locate these days. Despite the songs having appeared over the years as bonus tracks on an assortment of singles, this is an item worth searching out. There is also a Japanese version of this boxed set (A\u0026amp;M PCCY-10281), the most noticeable difference being a foam rubber box inlay instead of the UK's card inlay. We're not sure of how many of the Japanese boxed sets were issued but it seems highly unlikely that the number exceeded 3,000.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe \"invitation only\" concert was the evening before kicking off the first British dates of his 'Soul Cages' tour, and saw Sting repeat much of the set he recorded for the MTV unplugged session. The evening ended with Sting jamming with some of his old band-members from pre-Police days.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe following item is a review of the Buddle show which appeared in The Daily Mail newspaper:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA Tug At The Heartstrings\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting was brought up just a few streets from where he was sitting. The prodigal was back for a sentimental journey in front of his granny, brother, two sisters and others, about 140 people in the round. He was performing in an arts centre that used to be a school attended by his late mother. Outside, few streets which Sting knew remain, having disappeared with the Tyneside shipyards.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting knows he can't make a living doing this sort of show, but it was a fitting opener for this current short tour based around the new album 'The Soul Cages', with its ships and river imagery and dedication to his late father. Sting's fingertips were covered in fabric Elastoplast because he hadn't played the double bass regularly for some time, so the skin had not hardened. Such close observation offered all sorts of insights. The atmosphere in the hall was respectful, and although the American members of the band were somewhat bemused at the community surroundings, Sting was content, indulging in less showmanship and more tenderness than arenas allow.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe started with the reflective 'All This Time', an upbeat, almost jokey number about a dying man. Then it was into the lusty 'Mad About You'. Here was Sting at his best, giving what felt akin to a sitting room recital to friends rather than a rock concert. Sting joked about his father. 'He only gave me one bit of advice. Don't get married, and go to sea.' Sting certainly ignored the first, but his travelling lifestyle is a rich man's equivalent of the latter. These words introduced 'Why Should I Cry For You'. It was melancholic and stripped bare, exposing raw emotions. More bittersweet tales unfolded, notably 'Island Of Souls', where Kathryn Tickell came on to play the subtle Northumbrian pipes, squeezed but not blown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was plenty of introspection, a self-indulgence for which Sting made no apology. But there was also something slightly intimidating about the intimacy of these surroundings. Sometimes it's easier to express feelings to strangers than to friends, and there was a sense of bottled-up emotion. The mood relented after about an hour as the inevitable Police songs were played. 'Walking On The Moon' and 'Every Breath You Take' felt fresh by appearing unrehearsed, Sting deciding on the spot how he was going to arrange them, mainly in a tinkering, jazzier style.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen came a playful interlude with his old mates from Last Exit, the local jazz group he left in 1976. They knitted together neatly on 'Way Down East', a song by harmonica player Larry Adler. The last time Sting played in Wallsend with Last Exit was at the Coronation Club, and they were told to turn it down because they were disturbing the bingo next door. There were no fears of that this time. There was more mucking around later but the real end of the set came with 'Fragile'. Sting swapped the bass for electric guitar to gracefully serenade the ghosts of his past who must have been resting peacefully after this homage, like the rest of us.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978883154,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_dc5d8cf5-3ede-4bc2-af5c-8b7e7a3307ed.jpg?v=1758314771"},{"product_id":"sting-at-the-movies","title":"Sting At The Movies","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis considered collection trawls the movie soundtracks of the past twenty years and gathers together, in one place, some outstanding tracks. Ignore the fact the album is billed as \"Sting At The Movies\", and the album contains four Police songs - at least one of which was co-written with Andy Summers ('Murder By Numbers'). Instead, let's look at the songs themselves. Hits such as 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da' and 'Englishman In New York' sit very comfortably alongside the smoky, atmospheric songs from Leaving Las Vegas', 'Angel Eyes' and 'My One And Only Love', and Sabrina's' 'Moonlight' Sting's voice is made for such tracks, and it's a shame that 'It's A Lonesome Old Town' couldn't make it through to the final tracklist, perhaps at the expense of the rather syrupy, but number one hit 'All For Love'. The stand out cut - like it is on any album it graces - is 'I Burn For You.' This song, which pre-dates the Police, positively drips with passion and remember, this is a song that was tucked away on the \"Brimstone \u0026amp; Treacle\" soundtrack ostensibly because Stewart \u0026amp; Andy thought it too sentimental and \"night-clubby\" for a Police album!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAlbum review from Superdeluxeedition.com by Paul Sinclair\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReleased only in Japan in 1997, Sting At The Movies (POCM-1553) is a collection of Sting songs that had featured in films over the years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eActually, it’s not just Sting, because a few Police tracks do make an appearance, including the opener De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da (used in The Last American Virgin) and the fantastic I Burn For You, from the soundtrack to the 1982 Dennis Potter film Brimstone and Treacle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is a superbly listenable compilation. Someone To Watch Over Me (also from Brimstone and Treacle) is exquisite, and the strength of Mr Sumner’s 1987 album Nothing Like The Sun is apparent by the inclusion of three tracks; Englishman In New York and The Secret Marriage are both the standard album versions but Fragile (from the film The Living Sea) has an unfamiliar cinematic intro.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Lethal Weapon 3 soundtrack version of It’s Probably Me (actually the single edit) get’s a rare outing, as does This Cowboy Song (mercifully Pato Banton-free).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe only tracks which feel slightly out of place are Sting’s version of Demolition Man, which is, frankly, awful and the bombast of All For Love, which just sounds like a Bryan Adams song circa 1993.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf nothing else, this selection reminds fans what great and diverse music Sting is capable of. Fans are crying out for a intelligently compiled collection of B-sides and Rarities – if that ever happens, no doubt quite a few tracks from here would make the grade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978915922,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_b8e112ea-bdd3-4795-b80f-ed85515aba56.jpg?v=1758314772"},{"product_id":"sacred-love","title":"Sacred Love","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This album was recorded in Italy and Paris, as the United States and Britain were preparing to invade Iraq. Optimism was somewhat difficult to maintain in the aftermath of 9\/11 and in the face of the messianic determination of our leaders to seek revenge on an Iraqi regime that, while certainly repellent enough, proved to be not guilty in this case. Words in the mouths of politicians tend, more often than not, to become devalued currency. Words like freedom and truth probably suffered the most, as we declared an all-out \"war on terrorism,\" which is of course absurd and the same as declaring \"war on war.\" As of this writing, we are still living with the results of this absurdity. What should have been an international police action became a \"clash of civilizations,\" where the brazen disregard and lack of respect for cultures different from our own polarized the world into two opposing camps, \"us and them.\" The mission of convincing others through logic and the rule of law became a lost battle for hearts and minds - a battle that may be lost for generations. And so we need to reinvest in the words that are important to us, recalibrate their meaning, and, in the lexicon of the songwriter, there is no more important word than love itself.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, 'Lyrics', 10\/07\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The album was really conceived in the wake of September the 11th. In fact, I started thinking about it on September the 12th of 2001. Certainly that mood is reflected in some of the work, and then it was finished off in Paris in the build-up to the Iraq war. So there are certain issues that are to the forefront on the record. But I'm still writing about personal relationships, close relationships, love, if you like, but with this sort of parallel resonance in the political sense. That, you know, we create the world incrementally by our personal relationships. The world is not created by massive political movements but by small acts of kindness or meanness, or greed, or selfishness or acts of love. We can create a negative world or a positive world and it's up to us, so we're responsible for the world - this is my conclusion.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, CNN, 9\/2003\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was deeply upset, because my wife and I lost a friend in one of the [World Trade Center] towers. I elected not to do the concert, but the band wanted to play. There seemed to be groundswell for music rather than doing nothing, and as the evening wore on, it became more defiant, and I became more convinced it was the right thing to do. The next day, everyone left the house: the audience, the band, my crew, my family. I was literally left alone with my thoughts, trying to figure out what my function would be in this new world that had been put on our doorstep. I didn't come to any quick conclusions. But after a great deal of thought, I suppose I went back to that thing songwriters have been saying for years.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Chicago Tribune, 10\/2003\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The process began on Sept. 12, 2001, after the tragedy in New York. I remember doing a concert that night and the next day, like everybody, being traumatized and then reassessing who I was and what could I do in this world that was useful or coherent, and not really coming up with any easy or quick answers. That's a useful place to begin, to feel empty and not entirely sure of yourself. I suppose looking back, in hindsight, I recognize that I must have come to the conclusion to do what I'd always done - write love songs. But perhaps with an eye towards a larger resonance than just relationships. That relationships create the world incrementally, relationship by relationship. Positively or negatively. How you deal with people in your life, how you're dealt with, really does create the world. And incrementally, by acts of kindness, by acts of compassion, acts of generosity, you can create a better world. I feel at the moment that we're slightly out of whack. The world of course will never be perfect. The world will always be this yin and yang. I just think there's too much negativity and paranoia and fear in this side of the pan, so I think art and music and popular culture can help to rebalance that. And I think that's what the job is.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, National Post, 11\/2003\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There was an urgency to the making of a record and to getting this stuff out. With this album I remember feeling anxiety, anger, fear, love, wanting to put the world right through the only medium I have, so it just came out as this stream of consciousness.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Interview, 9\/2003\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There's an urgency about this record that perhaps is separated from my other work in that it was done post-9\/11, during the Afghan war and then during the buildup to the war in Iraq, and in fact the war in Iraq. And all of that anxiety that was being given to us by the media, it obviously affected me. I wanted to get as many ideas as I could on the page because we were being told by our fearless leaders that we were in danger of being nuked within 45 minutes or, you know, an imminent chemical attack. And I didn't quite believe it, but there was certainly an anxiety in the air. And it's reflected on this record.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Canada AM, 11\/2003\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I had to consider my position as a songwriter. What do I write about I didn't want to write specifically about that situation at all, but when I look back on the songs that I've written since then, there is this mood of import. There's something happening in the human spirit, and we're all connected to it, whether you're American or British or from the Islamic world. We're connected to some energy in the world, and we need to sort out what it is.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Sting.com, 9\/2003\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Very simply, I'm saying that we have to go back to that basic thing - love. Mother love, father love, husband love, wife love, child love because when you don't have that, all hell breaks loose, and that's what we've got. I'm as idealistic as you can get - I do believe in love. I do believe that the problems of the world are basically about its lack, and the solutions are all about saying, 'People love each other, understand we are family.' And politics needs to serve that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Tracks, 2003\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"That feeling of emptiness, really, was the beginning of this record. Just feeling useless and, not just bad, but empty. And then I decided to go inside and talk about the microcosms of relationships and then sort of weave a pattern out of it. All of the songs start very personal and then they spiral out to something bigger and bigger, reflecting the world. I think that's what the album's about. I wanted to redefine the idea of what love is. It can sound terribly twee, you know, 'I love you, and the whole idea, and everything wonderful.' But love can be a devastating experience. It can destroy you, if you've been hurt, you never want to take that risk again. And most of us have been hurt. So that idea I wanted to reintroduce and use the entry of war to talk about love - reverse it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Winnipeg Sun, 11\/2003\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Mentally, this was a very tough record to make. At first, I just wasn't in the mood to write songs. Then, because of what was going on in the world - the threat of war after September 11th, and the actual war happening -- it definitely was a difficult time to be creative. You wonder - what on Earth am I doing this for What bearing does this have on reality And of course a lot of the themes of what's happening in the world come into the record unconsciously. So there's a certain amount of confusion and dread on the record, as well as a great deal of joy and hope,\" he concludes. \"I think in that sense it's a realistic record. I'm not denying anything.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Sting.com, 9\/2003\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's a post September 11 record. I think it really was a watershed. An event like that makes you redefine your craft and question what function you serve in society. If the world's going to hell in a hand basket then, you know, how can you either help that along or stop it I'm 51 and I'm not going to write about dancing particularly, or girlfriends, or cars. There is a place for trivia in pop music. I'm responsible for some of it. But sometimes you've got to get serious. My intention is to create something beautiful and unique and pleasing to people and at the same time tell the truth about how I feel in the world.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Daily Telegraph, 9\/2003\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Billboard magazine by MP\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has never been one to shy away from rhythms of the world - or of the dancefloor, for that matter. His previous studio recording, 'Brand New Day', spawned a global crossover hit with the exhilarating 'Desert Rose'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere, Sting continues to embrace a variety of sonic landscapes. The buoyant 'Send Your Love' spotlights the flamenco guitar work of Vicente Amigo and the dancefloor knowledge of DJ Victor Calderone. 'The Book of My Life', a brooding ballad, opens with Anoushka Shankar's dreamy sitar, while dance\/electronic pioneer BT injects 'Never Coming Home' with trance-hued colorings. Indeed, there are numerous high points on this heartfelt and soulful disc, but the spiritual 'Dead Man's Rope' and Mary J. Blige duet ('Whenever I Say Your Name') are extra-special.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThroughout, Sting's own sacred love remains intact. In Sting's world, love - and all that it encompasses - is all that matters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Boston Globe by Steve Morse\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Pink Floyd borrowed Thoreau's phrase to sing about Englishmen leading lives of \"quiet desperation,\" the band could have been talking about Sting. Certainly, Sting shows an anguished conscience on his new album, 'Sacred Love', which represents his first recorded material since the war in Iraq. He is clearly not thrilled about the world situation, and he falls back on that hallowed notion held by most spiritually attuned songwriters: Love will find a way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's new CD, out today, is a complex, sometimes funny, and often extremely musical look at the maladies he sees warping the world. His most severe song is 'This War', a blunt R\u0026amp;B-drenched treatise about how investing in war and corruption \"can make you rich\" while killing your soul. He adds that there's also \"a war on education, a war on information, a war between the sexes ...a war on love and life itself.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut as the album unfolds, Sting finds a partial solution in the title track, in which he tells his mate, \"Take off your working clothes, put on your long black dress and your high-heeled shoes, just leave your hair in a mess.\" Is this glib, or is it an answer?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn short, Sting is just as puzzled as the rest of us these days. He may own seven homes around the world (his careers in the Police and as a solo artist have been very good to this milkman's son from Newcastle), but as he sings elsewhere on the new disc: \"The end is a mystery no one can read.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is rather gratifying to see Sting address his uncertainties so openly. He has been accused of know-it-all didacticism in the past, but this time he sings, \"I'm just hanging here in space\" on the very pretty (if harshly titled) 'Dead Man's Rope'. The song has a gospel flair that adds a special urgency to it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis album is Sting's most demanding since 1991's 'The Soul Cages', which was a reaction to the death of his father. 'Sacred Love' reacts against the emotional void left by terrorism. The album's sound is a typically sophisticated mix of pop, jazz, funk, and world music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGuest Anoushka Shankar plays a brilliant sitar weave on 'The Book of My Life', and flamenco guitarist Vicente Amigo excels on 'Send Your Love', which has a mild Latin beat. (A bonus track of 'Send My Love' is included at the end, remixed impressively by Dave Aude for dance clubs.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome songs falter. Sting's cerebral self gets in the way, for example, on the opening 'Inside', in which he trickily but monotonously begins 20 separate lines with the word \"inside\" and 26 with the world \"love,\" before ending with a string of bizarre phrases: \"Radiate me, subjugate me, incubate me, re-create me, demarcate me, educate me, punctuate me\" - and on and on, not too successfully.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOverall, though, the album succeeds because it has life beyond its philosophical confusion. The song 'Whenever I Say Your Name', a duet with ubiquitous R\u0026amp;B star Mary J. Blige, is a gem. It's an accelerating, call and response track in which Sting gets tricky again (he begins 28 lines with the word \"whenever\"), but this time there is passion, not monotony, due in no small part to Blige's intensity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat's a pretty good antidote to quiet desperation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Daily Oklahoman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting plays with tempo, instrumentation and lyrics the way a chef experiments with food and spices to create one tasty work after another. 'Sacred Love' has a dash of Indian spices, jazz, electronica and religion in its 10 original tracks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere's the comfort food of the familiar sounding 'Inside', where the rhyming Sting surfaces first with \"inside,\" \"outside\" and \"love\" and finally into a near-rap that calls back 'Every Breath You Take', but it's the outstanding cut 'Dead Man's Rope' where he does use a song from The Police's 'Synchronicity', 'Walking in Your Footsteps'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat's the sure way to know it's a Sting album. He re-uses lyrics and chords, the way a chef works with favorite ingredients.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe single 'Send Your Love' has a nearly irresistible beat as it weaves together his ideas of religion, philosophy and kingdoms falling, but the best love song is his duet with Mary J. Blige, 'Whenever I Say Your Name'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe message in 'Never Coming Home' is one of a marriage irretrievably broken but told in a way that stays with you. 'Stolen Car (Take Me Dancing)' also has the flavor of wasted lives imagined by a car thief.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting writes great loves songs with a twist, and you get those with 'Forget About the Future' and the title song.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe best and worst thing about any Sting work, 'Sacred Love' included, is that you have to listen to it about five times to catch the sly nuances he puts in all the songs, including the remix of 'Send Your Love' included as the 11th track on this disc.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce you succumb to the music, 'Sacred Love' becomes a favorite course for your CD player.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Entertainment Weekly magazine by Tom Sinclair\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's hard to believe punk rock and Sting were ever uttered in the same sentence. The former Police captain has been a solo purveyor of highbrow, literate pop for so long it seems like lifetimes ago that he tossed off simple gems like 'Roxanne'. Sure, he's still capable of coming up with catchy, uncomplicated trifles, like 1999's breezy 'Brand New Day'. But his artistic maturity has come at the expense of an attribute crucial to great pop: a sense of humor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhich brings us to 'Sacred Love', a CD purportedly about that trickiest of emotional states, L-U-V. As you might suspect, ol' sobersides has deep thoughts on the subject. \"Love is the child of an edless war\/Love is an open wound still raw,\" he sings on \"Inside\", the opener. Over a swirl of strings, he goes on to rant about how \"love is an angry scar... a violation, a mutilation, capitulation\" and \"annihilation\", working up a nice head of steam that anyone who's ever been caught in the vortex of a relationship will relate to. On 'Whenever I Say You Name', his erotically charged duet with Mary J. Blige, he unites the secular and the sacred with the phrase \"Whenever I say your name, I'm already praying.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnfortunately, not everything here is as immediately affecting. 'Send Your Love' starts out with some gorgeous flamenco guitar flourishes and morphs into a world-beat vamp that, alas, fails to catch fire. Then there's 'Dead Man's Rope', another of those king-of-pain ballads that stumble along on a swampy bed of understated acoustic guitar and keyboards and could have you reaching for your Valium 'script.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf you're a fan, you'll likely find this a fine addition to his oeuvre; it's poetic, sophisticated, jazzy, and occasionally even funky. Still, you've gotta wish our man would lighten up sometimes. Next time out, Mr. Sumner, why not try taking a page from Paul McCartney's book and writing some silly love songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Hindu\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHis band was earlier called Sting and Police. Later, he went solo, and his last album; 'Brand New Day' swept the Grammy awards in 1999. The 'Desert Rose' singer, Sting, is back with his new album called 'Sacred Love'. Each song in this album projects a mature, abstract idea. The inspiration for 'Sacred Love' came to Sting when a unique concert was organised in his backyard in Italy two years back. \"It was the last thing I wanted to do, but people had come from all over the world to see me, and I felt they needed some kind of therapy, just to be together,\" he says in his website (www.sting.com) . This concert set him thinking, and he felt the need to mature as a songwriter, and consequently, 'Sacred Love' projects the theme of a philosophical basis of love. Philosophical in the sense that his songs look deeper into love as an emotion and project ideas that relate to the human spirit. \"There is something happening in the human spirit\" says he, \"and we are all connected to it, whether you are American, or British, or from the Islamic world. We are connected to some energy in the world, and we need to sort out what it is\", he adds. The striving to discover this connection is what is reflected in each of the tracks in 'Sacred Love'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first single, 'Send Your Love', talks about attaining human salvation. \"There is no religion but sound and dancing\", sings Sting. What he means to say is how religion has lost its value in recent times, but at a deeper level, the song projects his personal view where he feels that music, sound and dancing is religion to him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Forget About The Future' satirically suggests how people dig up the wounds of the past, and fail to moved ahead into the future, and 'This War', which, according to Sting, was written during the build-up of war on Iraq, reflects an idea where the war may ultimately be won by someone, but what happens after that?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeginning to feel that the album is too serious and abstract for you Well, not really.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lyrics do make you think and ponder for a while, but Sting's vocals and music are infectious, especially Send Your Love, which has already entered quite a few radio and TV charts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe remix version of this track is very infectious and is sure to be a hit with DJs. Inside is hard-hitting and being the first track in the album, it seems to set the mood and energy for the rest of the album. 'Whenever I Say Your Name' features Mary J. Blige and the vocals are soothing and comparatively soft.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the whole, a very mature album. If you are among the 'thinking' type of guys, this album is ideal for you. If you just want to listen to some good music, buy the album for 'Send Your Love'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Jakarta Post by Hera Diani\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomewhere along the long musical journey of Sting, we've waited for a sign of stagnation, writer's block or him making a desperate jump onto the bubble gum pop bandwagon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd, thankfully, we've waited in vain.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInstead, Mr. Gordon Sumner has come up with another work which is no less brilliant than all the preceding golden output.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe title track may be a straight reminder of 1999's 'Brand New Day', but the rest of the album offers a more upbeat, more soulful and less polished sound.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElectric guitar riffs back 'This War' - a stirring cry of protest against the war in Iraq, 'Send Your Love' has that world music 'Desert Rose' flavour while 'Whenever I Say Your Name' (a duet with Mary J. Blige) is a smoldering ballad with a gospel touch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis album is a reaction to Sept. 11 and its aftermath, where he implies that love is the answer. As an intelligent lyricist, he especially takes on religion, demanding its redefinition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There's no religion but sex and music\/There's no religion but sound and dancing\/There's no religion but sacred trance...\" he sings. Something to think about.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Los Angeles Times by Robert Hilburn\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the gorgeous musical arrangements to the probing themes, this is Sting's most ambitious album since 'The Soul Cages', his somber, intensely personal 1991 reaction to his confusion and grief after the death of his father.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe heart of this album is also about trying to recover emotional balance and faith. But the subject matter is more elusive: the restless anxiety of a world again in crisis, a timeline that stretches from the Sept. 11 terrorism to the Iraq quagmire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are moments, including 'Inside' and 'Dead Man's Rope', when Sting rises to the challenge by capturing the helplessness and despair of the times. In the former, he sings, \"Outside the walls are shaking\/Inside the dogs are waking\/Outside the hurricane won't wait\/Inside they're howling down the gate.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe work reflects the blend of world music and Western pop-rock influences that lent some of the English singer-songwriter's most inspired moments a comforting, universal sheen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut there are other places where the music feels too restrained. The electronica snap in a bonus track - the Dave Aude remix of 'Send Your Love' - greatly improves on the album's formal version of the song. The lyrics feel too familiar in places. Yes, love is the answer, but the message isn't updated in any meaningful way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe singer's duet with Mary J. Blige on the gospel-etched 'Whenever I Say Your Name', however, brings out the best in both of these excellent artists, a vocal interchange that has both sensual and spiritual heat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Mail On Sunday by Tim de Lisle\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting is sometimes accused of smoothness, among other crimes, but next to Dido his new album is as rugged as his new Abraham Lincoln beard. It's a record steeped in the spirit of the age. Sting lost a friend on September 11, 2001, and had to decide, before he knew the victim's fate, whether to go ahead with a concert that evening at his house in Tuscany. He did it, with necessarily mixed feelings, and the next day his family flew off, leaving him brooding on the state of the world and the role of the singer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat day he started writing this album, which is full of the anger and fear of the past two years. The first single, 'Send Your Love', targets religion and the hatred it can inspire. 'This Wa'r, a Hendrix-style rock-out, won't be popular with Sting's near-contemporary Tony Blair: 'And you may win this war that's coming\/But would you tolerate the peace'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lyrics are always thought-provoking and even the more personal songs are unusual. 'The Book Of My Life' and 'Dead Man's Rope' are inspired by the emotional excavation which went into Sting's forthcoming book, a memoir of his Geordie boyhood. But the more political numbers are overstuffed with words, ending in educated rants, as if your ears were being boxed with a rhyming dictionary. The music, as ever since Sting left The Police in 1984, is pop-soul with plenty of complexity smuggled in. As Randy Newman said recently: 'He won't settle for the same old chords.' But by Sting's standards there are not many tunes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The Book Of My Life' has a haunting cello riff and 'Send Your Lov' is propelled by a slinky bassline from Sting himself, but the sole melodic bull's-eye is 'Whenever I Say Your Name'. A duet with Mary J. Blige, this is a gospel hymn to the only deities Sting acknowledges: the gods of love and music. The melody is a gorgeous rolling thing that is both exuberant and elegant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne day there will be an album called 'Sting: The Love Songs', and it will be very good.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The New York Post by Dan Aquilante\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's reedy voice is naturally compelling to the point of urgency as he sings about devotion on 'Sacred Love', but his smarts lie in how he's tapped world music as the canvas for his treatise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis album's musical eclecticism represents Sting's global outlook. Stylistically, the album progresses from pop to Moroccan acoustic guitar to electronic beats to strains of the sitar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn 'Sacred Love', it's evident Sting considers music and love the common threads running through us all, but he deftly dodges the sap and hearts and flowers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCheck out the album's second song, 'Send Your Love', where he opens the tune with the lyrics, \"Finding the world in the smallness of a grain of sand and holding infinities in the palm of your hand.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe song speaks about tasting the sweetness of every moment and making deliberate living a religion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the intriguing 'Inside', Sting sings, \"Love is the child of an endless war, love is an open wound still raw. Love is an explosion, love is the fire of the world.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThose unorthodox notions make this disc worthy of argument and admiration. And if you don't want to think about the words, the music's rock stance is unrelenting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting hasn't forgot about old-fashioned lusty love. In that department, he's best on his duet with Mary J. Blige, 'Whenever I Say Your Name', a sweet 'n' sour couple's confessional that soars with gospel power by its conclusion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The New York Times by Jon Pareles\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's a songwriter's job to parse the endless varieties and fluctuations of love. Only a few shades of connotation separate devotion from obsession, but they make all the difference on the new albums of love songs by two multimillion-selling British songwriters, Sting and Dido.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting wraps his habitual brooding in a concept on 'Sacred Love'. In song after song, thoughts of romance lead to ideas of faith. Love becomes a pilgrimage, a prayer, a ritual and a benediction. It is an old connection that is at the root of devotional music worldwide. And while Sting is more an agnostic than an evangelist, somehow ideas that could become dry and abstract bring out his old fervor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs he did on his 1999 album, 'Brand New Day', Sting collaborates with the producer and keyboardist Kipper on densely layered tracks that merge programmed rhythms with flourishes of improvisation. The music floats in from plush, echoey spaces to focus on riffs, rhythms and Sting's voice, while otherworldly choruses and horns still arrive from the beyond. The songwriting reshuffles Sting's past efforts: major-key hymns, minor-key ballads, jazzy shuffles, crisp funk and quasi-Celtic slow airs. Sting cheerfully quotes a few lines from past songs, slipping 'We'll be together' into 'Whenever I Say Your Name', a gospel-tinged duet in which Mary J. Blige pushes Sting to match her volatile voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's globe-hopping imperative continues on 'Sacred Love'. He enlists Anoushka Shankar's sitar in 'The Book of My Life' (which includes \"a chapter on God that I don't understand\") and Vicente Amigo's flamenco guitar in 'Send My Love', a song that follows the Arabic tinge of Sting's 1999 hit 'Desert Rose' across the Straits of Gibraltar to Spain. 'Send Your Love' begs for universal love in a nondenominational prayer: \"There's no religion but time and motion\/There's no religion, just tribal scars.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe songs aren't all so lofty. \"Never Coming Home,\" with guitar fingerpicking that harks back to the Police, is about a woman suddenly walking out and a man waking up to find her note. In 'Stolen Car (Take Me Dancing)', which may be Sting's penance for his Jaguar commercial, a thief imagines the luxurious life of the car's owner.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe most impassioned song on 'Sacred Love' is about politics, not love. In 'This War', Sting summons the turbulence of psychedelia, with a beefy Hammond organ and guitars distorted to the point of feedback, to denounce war profiteering and deplore the state of the world: \"There's a war on education, a war on information, a war between the sexes and every nation.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting doesn't seek many new converts with 'Sacred Love'. He is comfortable with his musical habits, and his foibles - the rhyming-dictionary lyrics, the portentousness - haven't disappeared. But neither have his skills and virtues, and thinking about higher purposes has burnished them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by David Wild\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has been so famous for so long and done so much - the Police, the rain forest, the tantric sex (or was it), the luxury-car commercial - he has become easy to undervalue as purely a musician. The radiant Sacred Love is a vivid and frequently gorgeous reminder that Gordon Sumner is first and foremost a talented singer-songwriter. Sting clearly studied at the hyperintelligent, musically ambitious school of Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell, but he has consistently infused his postgraduate work with something his own: a wide-open global consciousness combined with a cool British reserve.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSacred Love, the follow-up to 1999's 'Brand New Day', finds Sting in a soulful mood. 'Send Your Love' pulsates like some twenty-first-century take on classic Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye, with a taste of 'Desert Rose' for extra flavor. The gospel-tinged love song 'Whenever I Say Your Name' finds Sting trading lines effectively with the Queen of Hip-hop Soul, Mary J. Blige. Sting and co-producer Kipper have smartly stripped back the polished wall of sound that has sometimes swamped Sting's solo work. The characteristically literate 'This War' rocks as convincingly as anything Sting has done since back when Stewart Copeland was keeping his time. In spots - such as the sleekly trance-y 'Never Coming Home' - Sacred samples some of the strengths that made the Police so arresting in the first place. Sting seems like a man focused on the future but drawing more freely upon his past with heart and soul. Sacred or profane, that's hard not to love.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The San Francisco Chronicle by Joel Selvin\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has long specialized in pseudo-spiritual pop - songs that hint at depth they never have to reveal, brainy, often bloodless productions, polished into bright, shiny objects. 'Sacred Love' finds Sting spending a lot of time on his knees, not all of it praying. In a post 9\/11 frame of mind, the multiculti balladeer casts a suspicious eye at organized religion and finds spirituality in love.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting and Mary J. Blige stir it up together on 'Whenever I Say Your Name', the album's certain highlight, equating worship with romantic love. \"There's no religion but sex and music,\" he sings on 'Send Your Love', the album's first single. On the climactic title track, he preaches the gospel of love (\"Take off those working clothes, put on these high-heeled shoes\").\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeautifully rendered with subtle, highly-nuanced production touches, graceful strains of world music threaded into the basic fabric of the sound, 'Sacred Love' rides on his trademark sturdy musicality. A techno dance mix of 'Send Your Love' is included at the end.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The San Jose Mercury News\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the gorgeous musical arrangements to the probing themes, this is Sting's most ambitious album since 'The Soul Cages', his 1991 response to the death of his father.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuch of this album is also about trying to recover emotional balance and faith, but the threat this time is more elusive: the restless anxiety of a world made uneasy by Sept. 11, 2001, and the Iraq quagmire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are moments, including 'Inside' and 'Dead Man's Rope', when Sting captures the helplessness and despair of the times. In 'Inside', he sings, ''Outside the walls are shaking\/Inside the dogs are waking\/Outside the hurricane won't wait\/Inside they're howling down the gate.''\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are also places where the music feels too restrained and the lyrics too familiar. But Sting's duet with Mary J. Blige on the gospel-etched 'Whenever I Say Your Name' brings out the best in both of these excellent artists. It's a vocal interchange with both sensual and spiritual heat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Times by Lisa Verrico\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA joke about Sting has been doing the rounds ever since the singer confessed his fondness for tantric sex. It goes something like this. \"Why is it so great that Sting can spend all night making love to his wife Because it keeps him out of the studio.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt isn't the funniest joke in the world, but it's still being told because those who hated Sting's solo stuff back then, still hate it now. And 'Sacred Love', the 52-year-old's seventh solo studio album, ain't gonna change their minds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen again, you suspect that most of Sting's critics dislike the man more than his music. And how easy he is to dislike. He's filthy rich - he apparently flits between his seven homes around the world a couple of times each week, first class, of course. He has the dream family - a good-looking, successful wife and beautiful children. He's still sexy. Madonna and Guy turn up to his parties; he takes cameo parts in cool movies; he's always collecting awards; and he has never had his private life dragged through the press (scary sexual stamina excluded, of course).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinally, there's his incredible career. Not for him decades of ropey records and sliding sales - think Bowie, Rod, Elton, George Michael, Mick Hucknall. Hey, Sting's even been cool with the kids ever since Puff Daddy sampled a Police song on Biggie Smalls tribute 'Missing You', and more recently, Craig David and Sugababes both borrowed bits of his solo hit 'Shape of My Heart'. In short, Sting's life is pretty perfect.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo it's envy that puts some of us off Sting. His calm, tasteful songs remind us of everything he has and we haven't. Meanwhile, Sting has so few problems himself, he has to seek them out for inspiration. On 'Sacred Love' he has turned his attention to healing a world at war with love.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe idea came to him when he was due to play a gig in the grounds of his Italian villa on the day New York's twin towers were attacked. Not wishing to cancel, he turned the show into a therapy session. And so came the idea for a whole album of healing. If you are feeling queasy already, you are clearly not a Sting fan. Those who like their pop stars to address such issues, however, will be pleased to hear that he has done a decent job of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Sacred Love' boasts all the hallmarks that make Sting albums sell by the shedload.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's clever and classy; it treads a range of musical territories; there are those familiar, soothing vocals and there are guest spots from great musicians, notably Vincente Amigo on flamenco guitar and Anoushka Shankar on sitar. People can scoff at the lyrics all they like, but at least Sting is trying to say something.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album opens with Inside, a pleasant, sitar-accompanied song about looking inside people's minds to find out what makes them tick. Or, er, something like that. 'Send Your Love' is an upbeat, samba-style track that's as close as Sting will probably ever come to disco, although more surprising is the techno backing and swooshy sounds on 'Never Coming Home', which recalls Sting, or rather the Police circa 'Synchronicity'. The jazzy 'Forget About the Future', with trombones, piano and brushed drums, and the broody 'Stolen Car', in which a thief imagines the car-owner's life, are both more typically Sting - a touch too tasteful for anyone under 40.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting trips up only on 'Dead Man's Rope', on which he tries to do a Bob Dylan, but the chaotic rock of the clever 'This War' - a dig at politicians - and 'Whenever I Say your Name', a striking duet with Mary J. Blige, make up for the stumble. Yes, Blige's soulful vocals do leave you feeling that Sting should sing with more passion, and 'Sacred Love' never comes close to what you could call exciting. It's not Sting's best solo album either, but it's another solid set of songs that proves artists don't have to pander to trends to sell records. Another few million in the bank then. Sod him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Post by Sean Daly\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomebody better go grab the fire hose: Sting and Mary J. Blige - neither of whom has ever been shy about sharing boudoir thoughts - are getting hot 'n' heavy. On 'Whenever I Say Your Name', a sweaty, showstopping duet on Sting's just-released 'Sacred Love', the tantric just-getting-sexier machine and the smoldering queen of hip-hop soul convincingly portray people who really - no, reeeaaallly - dig each other.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTalk about everlasting love: By the flammable ballad's five-minute mark, you'll be blown away and utterly exhausted.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter hearing those two vocally tear each other's clothes off, you'd never guess that the 11-track 'Sacred Love' is actually Sting's two-years-in-the-making response to our war-torn world. But leave it to the ever-randy, always brainy former Police man to figure that what we really need is not better foreign policy but some serious (meta)physical groping. \"There's no religion but sex and music,\" he growls over the swirling Middle Eastern rhythms of the dance-floor-intended first single, 'Send Your Love' - and really, now, who can argue with that peace plan?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155978948690,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_f8ab5dcb-0953-4a82-8b1a-2b167b2030c1.jpg?v=1758314777"},{"product_id":"the-very-best-of-sting-the-police-2","title":"The Very Best Of Sting \u0026 The Police","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis release is an update version of a compilation originally released in 1997. The differences being 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot (Edit)' being replaced by 'Brand New Day', 'Russians' being replaced by 'Desert Rose' and 'Roxanne '97' being replaced by 'So Lonely'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Q magazine by Andrew Collins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn June 1979, Sting assured the cultural Gestapo, \"We never called ourselves punks.\" The Police's calculated rock-reggae alloy was, after months of Transit van torment, hit material. Indeed, despite the trademark banana hair - bleached for an American gum commercial - Sting, lanky drummer Stewart Copeland and wizened Curved Air guitarist (sic) Andy Summers (already 35) could never have been called punks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Sting went solo, six years and 40 million album sales later, he stopped being not punk, and not reggae, and went not jazz and not soul. Not a South American Kayapo Indian, sterner critics say he's not an actor. He's been a lot of things, yet Sting occupies a unique chair at music's top table: eminently likeable among today's over-40 rock aristocracy (surely the fittest), with £97 million, with enough Ivor Novellos to start a rifle range, and yet willing to cameo in 'The Smell Of Reeves \u0026amp; Mortimer'. This career compilation, a fine rich sauce stands testament to Gordon Matthew Sumner's victory over inauthenticity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNine solo singles to eight Police tracks seems, at first, unjust - whither 'So Lonely', 'Invisible Sun' - but Sting was in the band for eight years and has been Himself for fifteen. What separates the distinct halves (they come ready-shuffled, non-chronology fans), is the predominantly mellow nature of the Sting work: one could imagine the Police going on to record 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You' or the sublime 'Englishman In New York', but Copeland would've legged it before mid-life mooners like 'When We Dance' or 'Fragile' (covered, tellingly, by Julio Iglesias in 1995). The Police were more than the sum of their prog-jazz-pub roots, and their new wave (especially 'Can't Stand Losing You') material is hot through with enough finesse to forever distinguish it from The Jags and 1983's 'Every Breath You Take' still remains Sting's most beautiful (and creepy) composition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere's only one real minus to this songwriting masterclass-cum-Newcastle City Council self-help seminar: the uninvited yet obligatory 'Roxanne '97', which despite Puff Daddy's remixing efforts, merely proves that Sting is not rap either.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Vox magazine by Jerry Thackray\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe recent partial critical rehabilitation of Sting via Puff Daddy's inspired reworking of 'Every Breath You Take' should come as no surprise to those of us who still remember The Police as one of the classic singles bands of the late '70s. Turn-of-the-decade songs like 'Message In A Bottle', 'Can't Stand Losing You' and 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' dwelt on the perennial punk themes of alienation and despair - oh, all right then: alienation, suicide and teacher-pupil sex - with suitable amounts of punk vigour and attitude. It was only when Sting split The Police and returned to his roots as a jazz musician, releasing such cod-reggae \"nouveau jazz\" monstrosities as 1988's Englishman In New York, only when he let his infatuation with \"real\" music and a desire to make political statements stand in the way of his pop sensibilities, that his critical stock really tumbled.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the time, 1979's 'Walking On The Moon' was a cool chart-topper to rank alongside Blondie's 'Atomic' and The Specials 'Ghost Town', while early single 'Roxanne' predated the '80s hip-hop predilection for writing about \"bee-yatchs\" and \"ho's\" by several years. Phenomenally successful, bouncy, upbeat pop with a space-age edge - The Police had all the bases covered. \"Why not sell great music to the masses\" Sting asked in a 1980 NME interview. No wonder artists as diverse as Nirvana and Rush went on to hail them as an influence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf Sting had a fault, it was that he was too arrogant. Still, what do you expect from an ex-PE teacher who wakes up one morning to find the world at his feet At the age of 25 It was this arrogance which in later years forced him to go public with his increasingly weird obsessions - tantric sex, saving the rainforest, world peace - and to foist such appalling drivel upon his adoring fans as '85's sax-led 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free'. Contrary to popular belief, however, not all of his solo material is a write-off: the laid-back, wistful 'Fields Of Gold' is strangely affecting, Iikewise last year's Beatles-esque 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot' - a sweet, masterfully underplayed lament. The 1986 Number 12 hit 'Russians', meanwhile, deserves a category all of its own. Full marks for bravery for including it here. It's Sting's very own 'Ebony And Ivory' - \"I hope the Russians love their children too...\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOddly, this compilation chooses to omit most of the material from the final days of The Police: no 'Synchronicity II', no 'King Of Pain', no 'Spirits In The Material World', no 'Invisible Sun'. Likewise, the first solo album is notable by its absence. Instead, what we get are all the early mega-hits and a smattering of the solo work, ending with the astonishing remix of 'Roxanne' by Puff Daddy with sundry Fugees, all slowed down and f***ed-around with. This one could run and run...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155979341906,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_2f89ee52-1078-4c3d-95d4-33f25710f97c.jpg?v=1758314791"},{"product_id":"my-funny-valentine","title":"My Funny Valentine","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSting's varied interests in differing cultures, directions and personal growth have shaped his music into songs that are easily envisioned and used for many different moods, methods and formats. His prolific output has made his work some of the most integrated in mediums other than radio; hence this fitting collection of songs used in conjunction with motion pictures. Sting's instantly recognizable voice, coupled with his sophisticated melodic sense and lyrics as poetic, thoughtful and stirring as any in contemporary music, make his material a natural for the many differing moods and passions of film.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe title track for this collection - 'My Funny Valentine' - is a terrific reading of this much-loved standard and Sting presents a vocal interpretation that is heartfelt and warm. Many associate this song with the late great Miles Davis. The slight break heard in Sting's voice during the first verse was left as is, much in the way Miles' emotional performances of this favourite ballad were often articulated. There's also a 4-bar musical nod to Miles by the incomparable Herbie Hancock during his solo turn, with support from Steve Jordan on drums that is both subtle \u0026amp; tasteful.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis Japanese only release (but available on import) is a wonderful collection of Sting tracks that have been used in movie soundtracks. In terms of artwork it closely copies that of the 1997's 'Sting At The Movies' release but has some notable track changes from the earlier release.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChanges include the addition of 'My Funny Valentine', 'Until', 'My Funny Friend Amd Me', The Mighty' and 'The Windmills of Your Mind'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155979374674,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_34512076-8cd5-474e-ae16-29e1c4395c67.jpg?v=1758314795"},{"product_id":"live-at-universal-amphitheatre","title":"Live at Universal Amphitheatre","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCertainly one of the most collectable and interesting Sting releases is this beauty. Sting's third concert at Los Angeles' Universal Amphitheater in October 1999 was both filmed and recorded. Each member of the lucky audience was handed a flyer that basically said, that by way of apologising for the inconvenience of the show being filmed, if they sent in their ticket stub for the show they would receive a CD recording of the show. Great marketing!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eObviously, only a few thousand of these highly collectable CD's exist - and all are strictly promotional only. They will not be officially released.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eAlthough the CD does not include a full show, the twelve tracks feature some real highlights from the evening. 'A Thousand Years' is a near note perfect rendition of the album version, but when a song is so perfect why play around with it 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free' has a new light arrangement (and also appears on the 'Desert Rose' single) and 'Perfect Love...Gone Wrong' features a nice rap by Manu Katche. 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' gets the crowd going, and the tempo is then slowed down with a beautiful rendition of 'Ghost Story'. This is a particularly nice inclusion because shortly afterwards Sting sadly dropped the song from the set which is an awful shame.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eOn the next track, you can almost hear the roof lift off as Stevie Wonder joins the group and plays some awesome harmonica on 'Brand New Day'. Sting thanks Stevie with the words \"Stevie Wonder - a higher being!\" A throbbing version of 'Tomorrow We'll See' follows and then a storming, excellent performance of 'Desert Rose' with Cheb Mami guesting on vocal duties making this a real highlight of the CD. 'Every Breath You Take' is also superbly done with Chris Botti's trumpet playing adding extra colour to the track - beautiful stuff. Sting then performs a solo version of 'Message In A Bottle' with the audience taking over various parts of the song at Sting's prompting, and then the traditional closer 'Fragile' (also available on the 'Desert Rose' single). A bonus track by Cheb Mami, 'Baida' wraps up the release.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155984191570,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_14a7e98a-2057-4794-b926-524f63714924.jpg?v=1758314900"},{"product_id":"the-very-best-of-sting-the-police","title":"The Very Best Of Sting \u0026 The Police","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eThis is a fairly generous collection of 17 classic Sting and Police videos. On the downside however, there is nothing new on this release. Bafflingly, even the Puff Daddy remix of 'Roxanne '97' hasn't found it's way onto this collection, despite their being a fairly stylish New York shot promo video for the song. So basically, we have a collection of videos that have all been released before - 1996's 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot' apart , indeed some of them are being officially released for the third time. The argument for this particular collection can only be that this is the first time the Police and Sting have had a joint collection released and that the success of Puff Daddy's remake of 'Every Breath You Take' as 'I'll Be Missing You' has opened up the back catalogue to a new generation of listeners and A\u0026amp;M need some available product on the shelves to whet their tastebuds. A couple of things to note: the video for 'Russians' has Russian subtitles which is new, and 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' is actually the 1986 remix video.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Q magazine by Andrew Collins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn June 1979, Sting assured the cultural Gestapo, \"We never called ourselves punks.\" The Police's calculated rock-reggae alloy was, after months of Transit van torment, hit material. Indeed, despite the trademark banana hair - bleached for an American gum commercial - Sting, lanky drummer Stewart Copeland and wizened Curved Air guitarist (sic) Andy Summers (already 35) could never have been called punks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Sting went solo, six years and 40 million album sales later, he stopped being not punk, and not reggae, and went not jazz and not soul. Not a South American Kayapo Indian, sterner critics say he's not an actor. He's been a lot of things, yet Sting occupies a unique chair at music's top table: eminently likeable among today's over-40 rock aristocracy (surely the fittest), with £97 million, with enough Ivor Novellos to start a rifle range, and yet willing to cameo in 'The Smell Of Reeves \u0026amp; Mortimer'. This career compilation, a fine rich sauce stands testament to Gordon Matthew Sumner's victory over inauthenticity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNine solo singles to eight Police tracks seems, at first, unjust - whither 'So Lonely', 'Invisible Sun' - but Sting was in the band for eight years and has been Himself for fifteen. What separates the distinct halves (they come ready-shuffled, non-chronology fans), is the predominantly mellow nature of the Sting work: one could imagine the Police going on to record 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You' or the sublime 'Englishman In New York', but Copeland would've legged it before mid-life mooners like 'When We Dance' or 'Fragile' (covered, tellingly, by Julio Iglesias in 1995). The Police were more than the sum of their prog-jazz-pub roots, and their new wave (especially 'Can't Stand Losing You') material is hot through with enough finesse to forever distinguish it from The Jags and 1983's 'Every Breath You Take' still remains Sting's most beautiful (and creepy) composition.\u003cbr\u003eThere's only one real minus to this songwriting masterclass-cum-Newcastle City Council self-help seminar: the uninvited yet obligatory 'Roxanne '97', which despite Puff Daddy's remixing efforts,\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Vox magazine by Jerry Thackray\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe recent partial critical rehabilitation of Sting via Puff Daddy's inspired reworking of 'Every Breath You Take' should come as no surprise to those of us who still remember The Police as one of the classic singles bands of the late '70s. Turn-of-the-decade songs like 'Message In A Bottle', 'Can't Stand Losing You' and 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' dwelt on the perennial punk themes of alienation and despair - oh, all right then: alienation, suicide and teacher-pupil sex - with suitable amounts of punk vigour and attitude. It was only when Sting split The Police and returned to his roots as a jazz musician, releasing such cod-reggae \"nouveau jazz\" monstrosities as 1988's Englishman In New York, only when he let his infatuation with \"real\" music and a desire to make political statements stand in the way of his pop sensibilities, that his critical stock really tumbled.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the time, 1979's 'Walking On The Moon' was a cool chart-topper to rank alongside Blondie's 'Atomic' and The Specials 'Ghost Town', while early single 'Roxanne' predated the '80s hip-hop predilection for writing about \"bee-yatchs\" and \"ho's\" by several years. Phenomenally successful, bouncy, upbeat pop with a space-age edge - The Police had all the bases covered. \"Why not sell great music to the masses\" Sting asked in a 1980 NME interview. No wonder artists as diverse as Nirvana and Rush went on to hail them as an influence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf Sting had a fault, it was that he was too arrogant. Still, what do you expect from an ex-PE teacher who wakes up one morning to find the world at his feet At the age of 25 It was this arrogance which in later years forced him to go public with his increasingly weird obsessions - tantric sex, saving the rainforest, world peace - and to foist such appalling drivel upon his adoring fans as '85's sax-led 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free'. Contrary to popular belief, however, not all of his solo material is a write-off: the laid-back, wistful 'Fields Of Gold' is strangely affecting, Iikewise last year's Beatles-esque 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot' - a sweet, masterfully underplayed lament. The 1986 Number 12 hit 'Russians', meanwhile, deserves a category all of its own. Full marks for bravery for including it here. It's Sting's very own 'Ebony And Ivory' - \"I hope the Russians love their children too...\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOddly, this compilation chooses to omit most of the material from the final days of The Police: no 'Synchronicity II', no 'King Of Pain', no 'Spirits In The Material World', no 'Invisible Sun'. Likewise, the first solo album is notable by its absence. Instead, what we get are all the early mega-hits and a smattering of the solo work, ending with the astonishing remix of 'Roxanne' by Puff Daddy with sundry Fugees, all slowed down and f***ed-around with. This one could run and run...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155990974546,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_63844e5c-a58c-4341-af83-d65322007311.jpg?v=1758315099"},{"product_id":"newcastle-big-band","title":"Newcastle Big Band","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first band Sting ever played in was a college one, when he was eighteen. However, this didn't exactly offer him the professional experience he was looking for so, one night, he went along to one of the Newcastle Big Band's gigs and asked if he could sit in on bass. The Newcastle Big Band was an assembly of around 20 experienced and accomplished musicians who played a mixture of rock and jazz on saxaphones, trumpets, trombones, drums, guitar, bass and keyboards. They were very popular in the Newcastle area and had their own large and enthusiastic following, and the whole line-up was fronted and led by keyboard player Andy Hudson.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eThey agreed to let Sting play bass on three or four numbers, but Andy couldn't offer him a permanent place with the band because of one major problem - Sting couldn't read music, and it was vital that members of the group should have the ability to read because they rehearsed and learned new numbers by reading musical scores that were drawn up for each one of them to play. Andy can still remember his amazement when, a mere six weeks later, Sting approached him again and announced that he could now read music, so would the band give him another chance? They tested him and found he wasn't bluffing - he had mastered the skill in that incredibly short period of time. \"Actually, I found it pretty easy to learn\", Sting said. \"Reading music is quite a logical, mathematical process\". It also meant, for the first time, Sting could write his own compositions down on paper instead of having to rely on his memory.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eAndy Hudson started the Newcastle Big Band in 1968. By 1970 when Sting first sat in with them, they had achieved international status and were playing at jazz festivals all over the Continent. Sting was in the line-up at the San Sebastian Festival in 1970 and 1972. While they were appearing there, they got friendly with organisers of the Pau Jazz Festival, in South-West France, and were invited to perform at that one, too. So Sting certainly had some experience of touring abroad long before he joined the Police. By 1974, he'd formed his own band, Last Exit, and after Sting had appeared at Pau with the Newcastle Big Band, he went off to Bilbao in Spain to play some gigs with Last Exit.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e1972 also marked Sting's first ever appearance on record. Contrary to popular opinion this wasn't on the Newcastle Big Band album but was an appearance playing bass on a very rare Phoenix Jazzmen single of King Of The Swingers. All the tracks on the Big Band album were recorded live, half of them at the University Theatre in Newcastle and the other half at the Pau Jazz Festival. Side one of the LP consisted of Adam's Apple, Macarthur Park, Li'l Darlin, and Hey Jude while side two was composed of Mercy, Mercy, Trane Ride, Love for Sale and Better Get It In Your Soul, a good mixture of rock and jazz standards. The band's version of Hey Jude was remarkable for the fact that they crammed 600 of their most loyal supporters into the University Theatre when they were recording it and, in Andy Hudson's own words, \"It's the only version with the six choruses arranged for alto sax and crowd!\"\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eThe album's eight numbers were all recorded on a two-track Revox tape recorder - a vastly different set-up to those most groups record on today! Only 200 copies of the album were pressed (catalogue number IS\/NBB\/106) and these were sold at the band's gig's. They soon got rid of the lot, but didn't have a re-pressing, so these albums are now very rare indeed and if you come across one, you've certainly got a collector's item - expect to pay ¬£150+ for a copy should you come across one. The first 50 copies didn't even have a proper label on them (see right), as the band never believed they would sell so quickly, but a Wudwink label was added for all the remaining 150 copies.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eApart from playing great music, another thing the Newcastle Big Band were famed for was their sense of humour. Andy Hudson led the clowning around, and all the other musicians joined in, including Sting. In fact, the notes on the back of the album convey something of the riotous and ribald spirit of this particular musical ensemble. Beneath the heading \"Points to Note To Add To Your Enjoyment Of This Record\" are such items as \"the tracks recorded live in the University Theatre were put down after a large curry luncheon. Unfortunately, the added nasal impact cannot be reproduced on record\".\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eThe Newcastle Big Band generally played one or two gigs a week and Sting continued to perform with them right up until the band split in 1976. On other nights of the week, he sat in with different jazz groups, including the Riverside Men and the Phoenix Jazzmen. As he gained more experience, his bass technique and his knowledge of chords and runs improved in leaps and bounds. By the time he started Last Exit, he was considered a very talented and accomplished bass player, although he had yet to explore the possibilities of his singing voice.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155991957586,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_9a004030-1057-4e37-988c-1009063d277e.jpg?v=1758315128"},{"product_id":"last-exit-first-from-last-exit","title":"LAST EXIT: First From Last Exit","description":"","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155992023122,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_0fabc5a4-5d98-4657-a75a-f5bc89d67722.jpg?v=1758315129"},{"product_id":"songs-from-the-labyrinth","title":"Songs From The Labyrinth","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Dowland, for me is the music of self reflection. Self reflection is a much undervalued concept in modern society. Self reflection leads to melancholy and that's a good emotion. It's not like depression which is a serious clinical problem. Melancholy leads to reflection, it leads to a sense of humility, a sense of kindness, of compassion - so we need it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, BBC2 'The Culture Show', 09\/06\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I wanted to try and present the songs within a context that might help them - which is why I decided to read the extracts from the letter. It was important for me to put the songs within this historical and political context of a man struggling to make a living as an artist in a very difficult time.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, BBC Music Magazine, 10\/06\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"For me, they're pop songs written in 1603 or whatever - beautiful melodies, fantastic lyrics, great accompaniments. Pop music is very conservative - you're not really allowed to have flattened fifths and you've got to have a certain length of intro and chorus. But the rules are there to subvert in order to maintain your integrity as a musician. I feel that my job as a pop artist is to develop as a musician and bring into my sphere elements that aren't necessarily pop - more complex intervals, complex time signatures...\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, BBC Music Magazine, 10\/06\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Having listened to a lot of Dowland records, I thought that no one was doing what I could do: I don't have that trained operatic voice, but this music was composed around 1600 and the bel canto style wasn't invented until 100 years later when they had a full auditorium which encouraged a certain vocal technique. I imagine people would have sung without that technique. I feel there is an intimacy to this music and I can do something that's really me - and still, I hope, respect the music.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, BBC Music Magazine, 10\/06\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"For me it's all about development - becoming a better musician, a better singer, a better songwriter... a better person. And you improve by putting yourself at risk creatively or entering a milieu that may seem uncomfortable at first. If you think you know about arranging, listen to Ravel. If you think you're a composer, then listen to Bach and be humbled; but know you can get better. I didn't think the disc was worth releasing until the last minute. I was thinking 'I can't see this becoming a record, and me taking this risk'.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, BBC Music Magazine, 10\/06\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If people like it, public or critics, then that's the cream on the cake. If I was doing a Dowland record to make money, you'd shoot me! I did it out of love, I did it out of curiosity, a sense of adventure... I can't really explain why. My instinct told me it was right for me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, BBC Music Magazine, 10\/06\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Newark Star Ledger by Bradley Bamburger\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn Dowland, virtuoso lutenist and writer of timeless songs, was a master of melancholy, channeling both his own dark personality and that of the Elizabethan\/Jacobean age (as unstable as our own) into his music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn his way, Sting is an inheritor of this English songwriting tradition; this disc sees the 55-year-old rock singer paying ambitious, heartfelt tribute to his predecessor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith his plangent tone and idiomatic diction, Sting has the measure of this music's soul as well as any early-music singer (although he might have sung \"straighter\" to even better effect). His versions of such doleful songs as 'Flow My Tears' are deeply moving. And the way he multi-tracks his vocals for consort passages is ingeniously musical, with the upbeat songs sounding more persuasively modern than usual. He includes a rarely heard ringer, too, the sweetly sad 'Have You Seen the Bright Lily Grow?' by Robert Johnson, a Dowland contemporary.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith ambient music behind him, Sting also reads a clutch of Dowland's absorbing letters, mostly beseeching or despairing of a position in the Queen's ensemble. (His Catholicism likely ruled him out.) While the readings may strike some as overly \"thespian,\" they take on real drama with repeated listens. Sting's lutenist partner, the Sarajevo native Edin Karamazov, provides tangy flair. This is a brave, beautiful album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Los Angeles Daily News by Steven Rosenberg\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSting is now a true Renaissance man. As in Elizabethan, with lutes and the music of 16th-century composer John Dowland. The pop singer of today tackles what he rightly sees as the pop music of the late 1500s - with substantial and well-wrought help from Serbian lutenist Edin Karamazov. It was he who introduced Sting to the works of the composer who captured the hearts of the people, if not Queen Elizabeth I herself (he was Catholic; complications ensued).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting did learn to play the lute for this recording but wisely leaves the heavy fingering to Karamazov, who plays Dowland clearly and rhythmically. The songs are tied together by Sting's readings of Dowland's letter to one of QEI's courtiers, pleading for a position at court - and possibly his very life. The narrative is powerful and will make for a compelling live performance, should they take this show on the road.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting worked with a voice coach to capture the tone and breathing required for Renaissance vocalizing. He's out on a limb here, in territory too dangerous for almost every other rock star out there. And danger is what true rock, and in this case Elizabethan pop, is all about.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by James Hunter\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere, Sting and Lutenist Edin Karamazov construct \"a soundtrack in words and music\" to the life of John Dowland (1563-1626), the Catholic English composer and musician who was jilted by his own queen as he became a star in European courts. Sting conceives Dowland as a Renaissance Nick Drake, a tortured dude who transcends personal agony with sublime composition. For much of the album, Sting delights in making nostalgic music that sounds exquisitely weathered - you can almost hear the Elizabethan leaves rustling in the background. Things get more interesting, though, when he finds the timelessness in the music. On 'Come Again', 'Wilt Thou Unkind Thus Leave Me' and Dowland's famous 'In Darkness Let Me Dwell', Sting tables his ponderous lower range and invests these crack tunes with skill and soul. This is not old music for new Jaguar drivers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Times by Torrance\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe late science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick prophesied that songs by the Elizabethan composer John Dowland would one day by covered by a pop singer named Linda Fox, a thinly disguised version of Linda Ronstadt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch a scenario seemed less likely to materialize than Mr. Dick's predictions of a police state - but now a single-monikered pop phenomenon has released an album of Dowland songs on one of the world's foremost classical music labels.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJudging from the tale Sting tells in his intelligent liner notes, the pairing was inevitable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe actor John Bird first mentioned Dowland's name to Sting in 1982, when the musician was performing at a benefit concert. In the 24 years since, it seems a handful of Sting's friends and colleagues have suggested the doleful tunes of the composer-singer-lutenist might suit one of the most melancholy of rockers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey were right. In those notes, Sting tries to explain how the work of the composer, who died in 1626, might be relevant to music today: \"Born in 1563, John Dowland was perhaps the first example of an archetype with which we have become familiar, that of the alienated singer-songwriter.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe does a better job simply by singing the songs. Sting's sometimes traditional, sometimes creative interpretations of about a dozen Dowland songs make it abundantly clear that Dowland was a dynamic artist. \"Doleful Dowland,\" as he might be called, did a lot more than pen a bunch of laments. His work was part of a renaissance in British culture - his lyrics sometimes echo the poetry of another famous Elizabethan, Shakespeare - whose effects can be felt in British music to this day, whether most youngsters have heard of him or not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's distinctive voice melds smoothly into an old-fashioned rendering of a song such as 'Clear or Cloudy'. However, he also stretches himself on Dowland's most famous song, 'Flow My Tears'. Who thought Sting could sound like anything but Sting?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's voice, often beautiful, sounds even better when harmonizing with itself, as on 'Can She Excuse My Wrongs', which features lyrics from the doomed Earl of Essex.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's accompanist is the Bosnian lutenist Edin Karamazov. Let's hope his work with Sting brings him to greater notice on this side of the Atlantic. On instrumentals such as 'Forlorn Hope Fancy', his work is a lot more than a simple accompaniment. It sounds utterly modern on this track but with much respect for the composer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn 'Labyrinth', Sting is sometimes silky, sometimes whispery but always focused on what the song requires. Not every song is a success, but this is a strong album and a welcome diversion for the pop singer, who can sometimes write a timeless-sounding song such as 1999's 'Desert Rose'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's release comes just weeks after the latest classical offering from Sir Paul McCartney. Mr. McCartney's work is original; Sting's is not. However, in mixing the modern with the almost medieval, Sting may do more to introduce rock fans to the pleasures of art music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Daily Express\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere's no denying Gordon Sumner knows how to set himself a challenge. Here, he puts aside the pop to tackle the music of Elizabethan songwriter and lutenist John Dowland, who was court player to James I in the early 17th century. Accompanied by renowned player Edin Karamazov, Sting works his way through a number of Dowland's songs, interspersing proceedings with readings from his letters. Although it never quite takes off the way it should, it's an admirable effort with the odd moment of beauty.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Daily Telegraph\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis CD of songs and lute pieces by the great Elizabethan composer John Dowland is the fruit of a 25-year obsession for Sting. He's treated the project with immense seriousness, soaking himself in the history and culture of the period. And he's learned to play lute with virtuoso lutenist Edin Karamazov, who accompanies Sting and also plays several of Dowland's wonderful fantasies and dances.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDowland has been recorded by many great classical and \"early music\" singers, but Sting hasn't been intimidated by this. In fact, one of the refreshing things about this CD is the complete lack of classical or \"early music\" fustiness. Admittedly, it's a jolt when you first hear Sting's husky, slightly drawling Americanised delivery of these carefully wrought songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Sting's pop-singer version of American is in its own way as artificial as Dowland, so it works amazingly well. My main complaint is that Karamazov and Sting appear to be in different aural spaces, which spoils the sense of intimacy. But all credit to Sting for turning this fascinating figure into a living, breathing contemporary.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Denver Post by Jon Denzel\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith artists like Rod Stewart and Elvis Costello taking stylistic left turns from genres that put them on the map, it's no surprise that mercurial soul Sting would do the same. What is surprising is his intense devotion to the excursion. On 'Songs From the Labyrinth' he interprets the work of John Dowland, a composer from Elizabethan England.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting stays true to the phrasing of the originals, expertly switching between 30-second instrumentals and doleful laments of pop-song length. 'Fine Knack for Ladies' dials down Edin Karamazov's omnipresent lute for multitracked vocals, while 'Clear or Cloudy' features a breathy, upbeat melody around which Sting clearly relishes wrapping his husky pipes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Fox 411 by Roger Friedman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting loves to pick at strings. Everyone remembers him from Police videos playing his favorite instrument, the upright bass. It's the sound that gave the Police songs their timeless originality.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut last year, Sting decided to try a new stringed instrument - the lute. You don't hear a lot of lutes on pop records. You hear mandolins, but no lutes. They are usually left to classical musicians with a lot of training.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know that wouldn't stop Sting. The result is a new album that drops next month, called 'Songs from the Labyrinth', for which Sting has used the songs of 16th century composer John Dowland for his foundation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA more seasoned and veteran lutenist - yes, that's what they're called - named Edin Karamazov plays on the CD, but Sting is right in there (this is similar to how Billy Joel put out his own classical CD, having Richard Jewell perform the work).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd how is Sting on the lute? He sounds good to me, but when I asked him about it recently, he did say that Karamazov sometimes winces as his pupil forges ahead.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Labyrinth' is a very ambitious project, and it will not be to everyone's taste. Certainly, if you're looking for a hit single, it's not here. But I have a prediction - 'Songs from Labyrinth' will turn out to be the biggest Christmas CD of the year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt has that feeling, of mulled wine and Yule logs in fireplaces. Sting told me he didn't think it would sell, but my guess is he's wrong. It's going to become a perennial.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat makes pop artists want to make these albums? (Elvis Costello takes side trips all the time, as does Paul McCartney). The answer of course is boredom with the demands of a regular album schedule, and the desire to stretch in a new direction.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Dowland, Sting has found something of a soul mate, too. His \"lyrics,\" written in the early 1600s, fit the rocker's voice well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere's another prediction: even though \"hit single\" is not the first thing that comes to mind with 'Labyrinth', watch for a short number - all 23 tracks are short compared to modern pop music - called 'Fine Knacks for Ladies' to turn into a sleeper on \"lite\" radio stations. Sting's vocal is superbly rich and humorous, much like his much-loved 'Englishman in New York'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome other tracks to watch: 'Clear or Cloudy' and 'Can She Excuse My Wrongs?' (Wait 'til tea leaf readers get a hold of the latter! But Sting's wife, Trudie, needn't worry).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo bravo for Sting. It should be interesting to hear how all of this influences his next rock album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Miami Herald by Enrique Fernandez\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAmerican novelist, poet and mock memoirist (My Life in CIA) Harry Mathews once said John Dowland was the John Lennon of the Elizabethan age. If so, and having lost Lennon, isn't an art-pop singer like Sting the right modern interpreter of Dowland's compositions? Early music buffs may be put off by Sting's smoky voice mouthing the lyrics, but given the wonderful appeal of Dowland, it can be pleasant to hear vocals with echoes of the tavern and the boudoir in music from an era enthusiastic about both venues. There can be no argument, however, with master lutenist Edin Karamazov's work on the archlute -- even when joined in duet by his apprentice Sting - in the instrumental numbers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor songs like the classics 'Come Flow My Tears' and 'Come Again', we are listening to not just early music but early pop, with some elegant naughtiness cached in double entendres as well as heartfelt alienation worthy of any contemporary singer-songwriter - illustrated by readings from a Dowland letter. Dowland rocked. Sting gives it his best, and when his voice breaks into a rocker's loud, missed note, it's a reminder that these are not museum pieces. They're songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Oregonian by David Stabler\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDeath, where is thy Sting?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCheck the recording studio, where the pop singer has just finished an album of sad-sack Renaissance songs about death, dying, tears, darkness, sin and misery.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot just any sad-sack songs, either. Prozac poster boy John Dowland's 400-year-old gems for voice and lute stand today as model portraits of grief, calling for a different sound from Sting, an intensely personal timbre that goes deep into the heart of darkness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot the usual fodder for pop crossover singers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo let's say upfront: Sting is not an ideal choice for this music. His voice is raw and unnuanced. It lacks color, subtlety and the agility to bring out the shades of grief Dowland so masterfully evokes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was smugly appalled the first time I listened - another embarrassing crossover. But the more I played 'Songs From the Labyrinth', the more Sting's rough qualities grew on me. Coarseness actually gives the songs some historical authenticity in what was, after all, a rough-and-ready age - Dowland was born a year before Shakespeare.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnvarnished singing suggests an emotional truth that grounds the music in unexpected ways. Singers back then probably didn't have the refined sheen of today's classical singers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVocal purists will dismiss Sting and return to their favorite Dowland singers such as Emma Kirkby and Julianne Baird. Unfortunately, their CDs are out of print. Try Catherine King on Naxos or 'Earth, Water, Air and Fire' on ASV. But I admire Sting for his humility in the way he approached Dowland.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike other pop stars such as Paul McCartney, who splash around in classical music like it's a wading pool (see accompanying story), Sting immersed himself in Dowland for two years. He took voice lessons and sought vocal advice from Richard Levitt of the Schola Cantorum in Basel.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I wanted someone from the serious music side to advise me,\" Sting told \"Early Music America\" magazine. \"I'm not a trained singer for this repertoire, but also thought that maybe there was something I could do in my own style that would be relevant, respectful and new.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting even learned a thing or two from Dowland. \"He says a great deal without saying too much. He's very pithy, and his musical ideas stand out like little gems in the dark. I'd like to assimilate that into my own work - being less verbose, less flowery.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA good example of simplification - and my favorite of the collection - is the song 'Have You Seen the Bright Lily Grow'. Against noble lute chords, Sting sings a soft scale that rises like vapor. The power of the song lies in its unaffected grace, and Sting's unadorned voice suggests its innocence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA couple of Dowland's most famous songs appear, including a planed-out 'Flow My Tears', with Sting adding some weird vowel sounds, and the more upbeat 'Come Again, Sweet Love Doth Now Invite'. Both songs lack intensity, particularly on 'Come Again's' rising sequence \"To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die, with thee again, in sweetest sympathy.\" But Sting overcomes his caution enough to give the song some energy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat he can't seem to muster is enough breath to form the lines into shapely phrases. He's a blunt breather, a significant drawback. Edin Karamazov is the capable Sarajevan lutenist who contributes nimble playing to a few solo tracks. Sting plays the archlute himself (a larger, double-strung lute) and reads excerpts from a Dowland letter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm guessing we won't be hearing Sting playing 'Songs of the Labyrinth' on an arena tour. It's not going to go platinum. But his take on these famous musical melancholias is an intriguing alternative to mainstream classical choices.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Barnes \u0026amp; Noble by Scott Paulin\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMore than two decades into his solo career, Sting's musical explorations have already taken him farther afield than fans of his early work with the Police could have predicted. Even so, his latest venture comes as a surprise, and ultimately quite a pleasant one. On 'Songs from the Labyrinth', Sting reaches back across the centuries to interpret songs by John Dowland (1563-1626), one of the greatest composers of Elizabethan England. Dowland created some of the most potent melancholy in all of musical history; the deep emotions and dark beauty of songs like 'Flow, My Tears' or 'Come, Heavy Sleep' communicate themselves very clearly to a contemporary audience, and there's no cause to wonder at Sting's attraction to them. Part of this album's appeal is its simplicity: Sting's vocals are joined only by the exquisite lute playing of Edin Karamazov - who also solos on some of Dowland's meditative lute pieces - and are interspersed among some very brief spoken interludes from the composer's letters. Sting doesn't pretend to be a classical singer, but the eloquent melodies are intact, despite a gravelly grain and an occasional strain in his voice - something that actually turns out to be ideally expressive when he sings a line like \"Oh let me living die, till death do come,\" in the devastating closing song, 'In Darkness Let Me Dwell'. The only moments that feel really indebted to pop are Sting's multi-tracked vocal harmonies on 'Fine Knacks for Ladies' and a few other songs that momentarily bring the Beach Boys to mind. Yet as the album progresses, you appreciate more and more how much Sting's pop talents and his very personal approach allow him to penetrate and animate the inner emotions and meanings of Dowland's timeless music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Buffalo News by Jeff Miers\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's begging for it. An album of songs from Elizabethan composer John Dowland, performed solely by voice and lute? Is this supposed to deflate the man's image as pompous and self-important?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor many, 'Songs From the Labyrinth' will appear as Sting's \"Spinal Tap\" moment, his own personal rendition of that fictional band's lowering of a Stonehenge model onto their concert stage. This all makes great fodder for jokes at the expense of the artist formerly known as Gordon Sumner. \"Fetch me a fair wench and a flagon of mead!\" and all of that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut any even semi-scholarly approach to this album reveals it to be full of hidden charms and even (gasp!) a healthy sense of humor. That Sting's sense of humor rings in sympathy with that of a 16th century classical court composer casts no small amount of light on his status as misunderstood artist. The guy often seems too smart for his own good, or at least, for the good of his \"pop star\" self.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Songs From the Labyrinth' is the most nakedly musical, least commercial Sting recording since his first post-Police effort, 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles'. That album employed then-young jazz musicians Branford Marsalis, Kenny Kirkland and Darryl Jones in service of a new pop music based on jazz harmony and scathing improvisation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDowland's music is close to the exact opposite of this African-American-meets-pop hybrid - it's about the whitest music ever written, precisely because it was often composed to please the reigning sovereign of the day, and because its tonality and rhythms can't help but sound a bit \"skipping through the forest in tights and slippers\" to the modern ear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo \"get\" the dense 'Songs From the Labyrinth' requires serious investment, which likely means that the record will appeal only to serious Sting\/Police fans willing to make the required leap of faith, or trendy types who will relegate it to background music during wine and cheese parties. Either way, the record comes up smelling mostly like roses, though occasionally the stench of self-import is a bit thick.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting hooked up with one of the world's true lute virtuosos, Edin Karamazov, for the difficult task of embodying the man the singer calls \"the first alienated singer\/songwriter.\" Karamazov's playing is simply sublime, elevated, transcendent throughout the record. Mostly, Sting's singing - though he's admittedly a tourist in this classical world, albeit a convincing and talented one - is also reliably impressive. And Dowland's compositions are at turns raucous, bawdy, lyrical, and harmonically bewildering. There is much to be learned here, if you're willing to dig deep.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe opening tidbit 'Walsingham' reveals Karamazov's elegant, lyrical style immediately, and also sets the scene, which is more Shakespearean farce than modern pop. 'Can She Excuse My Wrongs' sounds like a Sting song in some ways, its lilting meter and perfect elocution not unlike something that might've appeared on 'Ten Summoner's Tales', minus the pop structure. A bit more than a minute into the piece, Sting astounds with a multi-tracked bit of vocal polyphony, straight-up 16th century church music that the man somehow makes sound contemporary - no small feat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe spoken-word interludes - excerpts from Dowland's letter to Queen Elizabeth I's Secretary of State Sir Robert Cecil - are well-intentioned but still a bit cloying.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDowland was in danger of punishment at the hands of the state for his dalliances with Catholicism while living in Italy, and his letter to Cecil finds him at once attempting to make plain his loyalty to Her Majesty, and shilling for a gig in her court.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting clearly finds this material humorous, touching, compelling, but the interjection of no fewer than seven spoken-word soliloquies makes 'Songs From the Labyrinth' feel like a formal night at the theater, rather than illuminating the warm, human composer Sting sees in Dowland.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRight around the album's mid-point, it fully takes off. 'Come Heavy Sleep' reveals the enchanting melodic and harmonic subtlety of Dowland's writing - this is probably the very stuff that appealed to Sting when he began studying Dowland's canon nearly 20 years back. He sings this piece beautifully, and makes the slippery chordal and melodic construction his own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat's ultimately what makes 'Songs From the Labyrinth' worthwhile - it breaks down the perceived barriers between what we consider modern and what we might label old-fashioned. There are flaws here, but on balance, Sting and Karamazov make Dowland's work relevant for 21st century ears.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, about that Police reunion, Sting...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Palm Beach Post by Sharon McDaniel\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe songs are priceless. The voice is, well, famous.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd if it takes the recognizable voice of rock star Sting to gets this music the exposure it deserves, so be it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile pop stars from Elvis Costello to Paul McCartney to Billy Joel have dabbled in classical forms before, no rocker has tried a full-length album of Renaissance music. But Sting says the melodies and words of Elizabethan composer and lutist John Dowland (1563-1626) have been \"gently haunting me\" for more than two decades.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe result is 'Songs From The Labyrinth', a mix of Dowland songs, spoken portions from his letters and lute playing from the Sarajevo musician Edin Karamazov. The disc was released last week on the Deutsche Grammophon label.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eListeners familiar with Renaissance music might balk at what the rocker admits is his \"unschooled tenor,\" and especially his overdubbing, where he expands mid-tune from soloist to small-town \"glee club.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToo bad the former Police-man didn't pour out all the passion and electricity he's known for in such hits as 'Roxanne' and 'Every Breath You Take'. Had he dug into these 11 Dowland songs as if they were the blues hits of 1590 - which of course they were - he would have used every aspect of his famous voice. That would obliterate the 400-year gap.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInstead, Sting handles most of the songs as gingerly as baby birds. The near-classical approach, while occasionally artful, waters down the songs' potential and the singer's strengths.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet in the personable, autobiographical program notes, Sting hits just the right balance. The reading, at times, is more compelling than the listening. Images of Dowland's handwritten letters and music manuscripts personalize the well-thought-out package.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the CD, Sting reads aloud from Dowland's letters, layering in another first-person narrative. Hearing the composer's words, alongside his music, both so revealing of his defeats and victories, builds a sympathetic profile.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDowland is still renowned as the greatest lute player of his time - think the Eric Clapton of 1590s guitar. He was also a prolific songwriter. Lutenist Karamazov handles the heavy work, but to his credit, Sting also plays the lute in one solo, plus a good - if stiff - duet with Karamazov.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's appreciation of the style is clearest in several of Dowland's \"Top 10,\" including 'The lowest trees have tops'. But the success is spotty. Outbursts of joy and vibrancy, even a bit of attitude, are short-lived in 'Can she excuse my wrongs'. 'Clear or cloudy' would be in the running if he didn't stomp it out as if by rote.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd he can be very cavalier about rhythm, especially the fiery accents that make a dance out of 'Wilt thou unkind thus reave me'. Other masterpieces were nearly unrecognizable: 'In darkness let me dwell', and 'Come heavy sleep', where at least his \"glee club\" sounded its best.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis musicianship is set on high beam in two works. 'Have you seen the bright lily grow' by Dowland contemporary Robert Johnson is an unqualified success. Musically and dramatically, Sting creates an intimacy he matches nowhere else. Pair that with Dowland's 'Come again', where his directness wins over the listener, and you can only wonder what he could do if he sounded as free on more tracks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Come again' even inspires Karamazov to be his most scintillating. His is a visceral sound, rugged and physical. You can practically hear the effort in the closely miked solo 'The Battle Galliard', where his rhythmic grunts are as clear as the notes. The down-to-earth sound is an ample, guiding arm on which Sting leans comfortably.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBolder than most crossover, Sting's Dowland project not only opens a modern window onto the Renaissance, it sheds rare insight into a fertile mind and expansive personality.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Press of Atlantic City by James Clark\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting can veer toward the pretentious, and recording Elizabethan music on the lute might fit the bill. But these arrangements evoke both sadness and light, while his honeyed-with-age vocals have never sounded better.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Boston Globe by Joan Anderman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe math teacher-turned-Police-man-turned-solo-pop craftsman is once again branching out, and this one's a doozy. Sting has teamed up with Sarajevo lutenist Edin Karamazov on a collection of 16th-century songs by the Elizabethan composer John Dowland. Such titles as 'The Most High and Mighty Christianus the Fourth, King of Denmark, His Galliard' and '...After my departure I caled to mynde our conference' are strangely suited to his midlife Stingness, who enunciates with mind-blowing precision on this Deutsche Grammophon release. Sting calls these ancient compositions 400-year-old pop songs. In that light, there are some sick vintage raps here, too, but Sting's flow is better suited to contemplation and courtship than booty shaking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Hartford Courant by Thomas Kintner\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has always dabbled outside the rock and pop realms, but a trip four centuries into the past is well beyond even his typically loose boundaries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith 'Songs from the Labyrinth', he journeys far afield from his recent forays into the light-listening mainstream to explore the music and life of Elizabethan composer John Dowland on a collection as sincere in its tribute as it is joyously free of its performer's typical commercial proclivities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting smartly adapts his model to fit the material rather than vice versa, adhering to a traditional approach as his lithe tenor settles earnestly into the spare and somber 'Flow, my tears'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith only the cleanly picked lute and archlute of Edin Karamazov for accompaniment on the set, Sting employs modern tools with a light touch, layering vocals into a four-part harmony alongside the plucky line of 'Fine knacks for ladies'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are no fiery lute solos nor potential singles to be found.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe project is played straight and without pretension, not so much for the masses as in service of a niche audience and fans sufficiently loyal to follow Sting into the past.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce there, he bridges songs with readings from a Dowland letter of 1595 to help contextualize songs that, although formal and firmly rooted in the past, turn out to have values, attitudes and sensibilities very much in keeping with the music produced by today's songsmiths.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155996053586,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_2a2e0a9e-23a6-4394-b549-0fb385fa59a4.jpg?v=1758315161"},{"product_id":"if-on-a-winter-s-night","title":"If On A Winter's Night...","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis fall, Sting will release a new album dedicated to his favourite season - Winter - a season which has inspired countless songwriters over the centuries and produced a wealth of music exploring all of its many guises.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf On a Winter's Night... presents an arc of songs that conjures the season of spirits, resulting in a haunting, spiritual and reflective musical journey. \"The theme of winter is rich in inspiration and material,\" comments Sting; \"by filtering all of these disparate styles into one album I hope we have created something refreshing and new.\" He continues, \"Our ancestors celebrated the paradox of light at the heart of the darkness, and the consequent miracle of rebirth and the regeneration of the seasons.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn collaboration with esteemed producer and arranger, Robert Sadin, \"If On a Winter's Night...\" features traditional music of the British Isles as its starting point. Sting and guest musicians interpret a stirring collection of songs, carols, and lullabies including The Snow it Melts the Soonest (traditional Newcastle ballad), Soul Cake (traditional English \"begging\" song) Gabriel's Message (14th century carol), Balulalow (lullaby by Peter Warlock) and Now Winter Comes Slowly (Henry Purcell).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo of Sting's own compositions are also featured on the album, Lullaby for an Anxious Child and The Hounds of Winter, which originally appeared on his previous release Mercury Falling, alongside Hurdy Gurdy Man, - a musical reworking and English translation (by Sting) of Der Leiermann from Schubert's classic winter song-cycle Winterreise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor this exploration of the themes and emotions of Winter, Sting is joined by friend and long time colleague, guitarist Dominic Miller. Additional guests include an ensemble of three remarkable musicians from Northern England and Scotland: Kathryn Tickell (fiddle and Northumbrian pipes) Julian Sutton (melodeon) and Mary MacMaster (metal string Scottish harp), along with Daniel Hope (violin), Vincent S?�gal (cello), Chris Botti and Ibrahim Maalouf, (trumpet), Cyro Baptista and Bijan Chemirani (percussion), the Webb Sisters (vocals) and Stile Antico (vocal ensemble). \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Australian\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCocking a snook at Bob Dylan's Christmas offering, Sting's festive fare eschews the conventional approach in favour of an altogether more catholic and sombre take on the season. Those to whom yuletide is anathema will find solace in his meditation on winter, with its soothing if somewhat scholarly, centuries-straddling mix of folk and classical songs, with world and jazz colouring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven his solo rendition of Cherry Tree Carol is more a spiritual than traditional Christmas song. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen only surfaces in Soul Cake as a counterpoint to the lyrics, with brass serving as the icing on top. Gratifyingly, Gordon Sumner gives full rein to his Geordie accent in the Northumberland folk ballad The Snow it Melts the Soonest and Christmas At Sea. Jazz saxophonist Kenny Garrett's scorching soprano solo and Jack DeJohnette's cultured drumming, on the other hand, elevate the traditional English \"begging\" song The Burning Babe, the words of 16th-century martyr Robert Southwell set to a Chris Wood tune, to a sublime level.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRegular Sting accompanist Kathryn Tickell's violin and Northumbrian pipes dovetail with the stile antico vocal ensemble on the translated 15th-century German carol Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming, providing a beguiling backdrop to Sting's thespy spoken-word passages. Bassam Saba's oud and ney and the percussion of Rhani Krija and Bijan Chemirani imbue There is No Rose of Such Virtue with Middle Eastern hue. The Hounds of Winter, from an earlier Sting album, is regurgitated in ballad form with bass clarinet, cello and melodeon backing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAmong the attractions of Sting's latest concept album, for this reviewer, is the allusion to older pagan traditions of the winter solstice. The singer has rarely sounded better, whether exploring the extremities of his albeit limited vocal range or lodged in more familiar register, or singing his own songs or pieces set to music by Henry Purcell, Franz Schubert and J. S. Bach. Say what you like about him - and he does seem to attract polar opinion - Sting is a serious musical adventurer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Newark Star Ledger\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo Sting's credit, he didn't make a tinsel-spinning holiday record like any pop star. This is a concept album on the darkly magical, contemplative aspects of winter. The folk-tinged acoustic arrangements are gorgeous, with the material ranging from medieval carols and Peter Warlock's beautiful hymn \"Balulalow\" to a superior remake of Sting's own \"Hounds of Winter.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis cover of Peter, Paul and Mary's \"Soul Cake,\" with its fiddle, brass and unaffected vocal, is infectious. That last bit is key, because the arch theatricality that can creep into Sting's singing ruins the Baroque songs. But his accordion-laced take on Schubert's \"The Hurdy-Gurdy Man\" raises a doleful shiver, and \"Cherry Tree Carol\" has a simple loveliness. This is one of Sting's most heartfelt solo efforts in ages.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Philadelphia Daily News by Jonathan Takiff\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSights are set especially high by Sting with \"If on a Winter's Night\" (Deutsche Grammophon, B). The Sting-meister digs into several centuries of music for this mix of old English carols, hymnlike wintry songs plus a few from his own song catalog, - with an apt, recurring theme that winter\/Christmas really can be the cruelest season of all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrue to his signature, the tunes are delicately seasoned with a swirl of folk, pop, classical and jazz flavors, and so subtly performed by the singer and all-acoustic band that you might take it for blissful chill music, instead of a fearsome freeze-out.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Times of India\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWinter, we're told, is Sting's favourite season. Here, the high priest of classy pop pays tribute to winter and to Christmas. He could have done it the way most artistes do, via hurried renditions of well-known carols, and sold a few \u003cbr\u003emillion copies... But that isn't Sting's way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere's his way: grab seven amazingly-talented musicians who play instruments varying from Northumbrian pipes to Celtic harps to good old trumpets, coop them all in a house near Florence (with his dog Compass) and weave musical magic using old songs, lullabies, carols, even classic poems. 'Gabriel's Message' kicks it off with the hushed plucking of harp strings, setting the mood as more brooding than ecstatic, though upbeat tracks like 'Soul Cake' lift it here and there. Sting's musical arrangements are spot on, mixing traditional tunes with new riffs. And the singing is darned good too; just hear Sting switch scales on 'There Is No Rose Of Such Virtue'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis album won't top charts or burn dance floors but it will be cherished as an artistic achievement. That, we suspect, is Sting's intent. PLAYLIST PICKS | The Snow It Melts The Fastest (Sting's searing vocals + minimal instrumentation = a haunting melody); Christmas At Sea (Sting's fascination for the sea - remember Soul Cages? - meets his love for winter in his adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's poem); The Burning Babe (pipes and violins mark Sting's version of a slightly morbid poem by 16th century Jesuit martyr Robert Southwell... The effect is magical)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Living North by Julian West\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Sting nears his 60th year, his physical fitness remains excellent, brought about by a personal desire to look and feel great and knowing that to perform well on stage, fitness and wellbeing are key components. His musical journey has also been a rollercoaster.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom jazz to gatecrashing punk with more than a hint of reggae, through rock to folk he has also swapped his guitar for a lute from time to time and the lyrics of 'Demolition Man' for the music of John Dowland. It's a remarkable mixture and the beauty of the North East in his latest deeply thoughtful work has provided much inspiration from his upbringing here. Initially, his record company suggested a Christmas record - but fearing the nuances of 'Frosty' :Rudolph' et al the Christmas focus was given a seasonal twist - that of winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's an inspiring work and for one who cannot call himself a fan yet loved some of the classic Police hits as well as some of the solo work - it's a real discovery, revealing not only some hugely talented musicians, but the next step of Sting's own journey, in which he researched sacred songs, classical songs, folk songs and secular songs. The end product is a haunting, emotional, spirited and spiritual work. The songs have an ambivalent quality and we explore different musical types, drawing some of them together. The songs are varied and melodic, haunting yet calming and clearly in some ways at least, reflective on his own Christmases and winters past. In so doing, he is also dealing with some of his own spirits, his parents, old friends and memories, whether it's his conscience, or his constant yearning to move forward yet also look back into the magical music of traditional folk songs, carols, lullabies and the renditions of Henry Purcell, the poetic words of Robert Louis Stevenson or the music of J S Bach.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome would say the audacity reflects an unbridled ego - others would pay homage to a hugely talented thinker with the voice of a rock star and the soul of a poet. It will be fascinating to see what the critics make of it - it is mournful melodic and magical. It's also varied and reflects well the depth and variety of the harshness of winter and Christmas lullabies, songs and tales.If you do have time to reflect this Christmas, sample 'If On A Winter's Night' - it might well raise your own spirits.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Age by Michael Dwyer\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe songwriting credit \"Bach, Sting\" is a gift to those who would paint the yogic Police man a pretentious prat, but there's no faulting the sincerity or realisation of this ethereal Christmas offering. Schubert, Praetorius, Dryden, Purcell, Robert Louis Stevenson and the ubiquitous \"traditional\" join a millennial super group of olde folk instruments and weird stories that merge the Christ legend with the pagan smoke of a mid-winter fire. Harps, pipes, bowed strings and hunting horns enhance a tonally mysterious and lyrically unsettling world of beggars, angels, burning babes and compellingly human biblical figures. Draw the blinds and you can almost hear the wolves howling in the snow.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Huffington Post\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe jig that is Sting's 'Soul Cake' reintroduces us to the traditional holiday perennial that Peter, Paul \u0026amp; Mary once immortalized with an insight into melancholy that the trio's brooding version never communicated. That's not surprising since almost all of the the music presented on 'If On A Winter's Night...' is as warm and loving as Bob Cratchitt's Christmas home. Hearing Sting and his entourage embrace mostly English folk traddies should make one wonder why he's never done this before. Filling like mead, its authenticity makes some of Sting's more calculated works seem thin, with even the drunken revisit of his original 'The Hounds Of Winter' and the touching 'Lullaby For An Anxious Child' - the latter co-written with the artist's long-term guitarist, Dominic Miller - rising above many of his recent recordings. Sting's occasional regional affectations and thick-throated vocals for the more classical pieces sound very comfortable on tracks such as 'Cold Song' and 'You Only Cross My Mind In Winter', and, overall, the artist's voice is tempered by an acoustic ensemble that includes Miller, harpist Mary Macmaster, cellist Vincent Ségal, bassist Ira Coleman, guitarist David Mansfield, fiddle-player Kathryn Tickel, and Julian Sutton on melodeon. In many ways, 'If On A Winter's Night...' is a return to Sting's genetic roots, and it's his most natural sounding release in years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from iTunes \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost performers looking to join in the seasonal music market sing well known Christmas Carols and familiar wintertime fare. Fittingly, Sting does not bow down to Santa Claus and wish everyone a holly, jolly Christmas, but rather finds solace in a more solemn approach. Sting's traditional are not the usual. Coupled with classical producer Robert Sadin, Sting puts his own serious delivery to the haunting crawl of 'Gabriel's Message', the sonorous snowcaps of the Newcastle, England traditional 'The Snow It Melts The Soonest' and the smoothly but sparsely rhythmic 15th Century Marian hymn 'There Is No Rose of Such Virtue'. For Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Christmas at Sea', Sting adapts a darker, deeper, throaty delivery. This is many miles north of anything he performed with The Police. Sting wrote three songs for the occasion: the surprisingly pop-like 'The Hounds of Winter' and co-writes on 'Lullaby For An Anxious Child' with Dominic Miller and the album's closer, 'You Only Cross My Mind In Winter' with music by J.S. Bach. Not your traditional album of egg-nogged cheer, but a thoughtful, well-executed piece of seasonal music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from St. Petersburg Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs rock fans well know, there are two kinds of Sting. There's sexy, swaggering Police Sting. Then there's lute-hugging Renaissance Festival Sting. If you're wondering which Sting shows up on this 15-tracker, let it be known that one song, 'The Burning Babe', is a poem by a 16th century English Jesuit martyr. Yikes, somebody hide the plastic party forks! This is bleak stuff, performed via harps and harmoniums and presumably recorded in a Gothic stone fortress of sadness. And yet Sting's definition of Christmas - \"a period of intense loneliness and alienation\" - makes these delicate shanties and carols mesmerizing and fresh. In a strange way, it might help you survive the holidays. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from People \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter getting his rock mojo back with the Police reunion, Sting, ever the Renaissance man, shifts to more esoteric pursuits. If on a Winter's Night ..., inspired by the Englishman's favorite season, features traditional music of the British Isles. Like 2006's Songs from the Labyrinth, the disc gives Sting a chance to show off his classical side. This is evocative mood music perfect for chilling out by the fireplace, especially during the holidays (although there are only fleeting references to Christmas). By the time it's all over, though, you may find yourself needing a jolt of the Police's Outlandos d'Amour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Boston Globe by Sarah Rodman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting relishes a bleak and beautiful season...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting eschews the conventional approach to holiday releases - slap dash versions of jingle bell-dressed carols and reverential hymns-with-strings - with this shivery homage to the season of icicles and introspection. In the liner notes he explains that the snowy season is his favorite, calling it \"both bleak and profoundly beautiful.\" He expertly captures that mood on this mix of traditional songs, lullabies, hymns, and a pair of originals. The ultra-tasteful arrangements trot the globe from Gaelic revelry to Middle Eastern rhythms. The upbeat, bluegrass-tinged \"Soul Cake\" offers pleasant Dickensian undertones in the poverty-stricken-yet-jolly lyrics. The melancholic \"Christmas at Sea\" finds Sting setting a Robert Louis Stevenson poem to windswept music. He recasts the midtempo pop song \"The Hounds of Winter\" from his \"Mercury Falling\" album with layers of bass clarinet, melodeon, and cello into a ballad of exquisite wistfulness. As is the simple voice and guitar arrangement of \"The Snow It Melts the Soonest,\" with Sting exploring a ragged part of his voice perfect for the tune's mournful tone. The disc absolutely veers into stuffy corners, thick with overemphasized, Sting-ian portent, notably on the mannered spoken word passages of \"Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming.\" And the more contemporary energy of a tune like \"The Burning Babe\" doesn't mesh as well with its throwback peers. But mostly, with its wintry hush and flurries of harmonies, the album evokes the title, a not unpleasant vision of contemplatively gazing out a window encrusted with frost in a thick Irish wool sweater drinking a steaming cup of cider. Essential: \"The Snow It Melts the Soonest\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Sunday Business Post (Ireland)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith the Police reunion now out of his system, the newly-bearded Sting has returned to the recording studio with a rather more personal project. If On A Winter's Night is an album of traditional British music inspired by his favourite season, made up of lullabies, carols and folk songs spanning five centuries. As an antidote to the ersatz jollity of Christmas, it works a treat - the prevailing mood is one of darkness and introspection, with poems by John Dryden and Robert Louis Stevenson lending it a suitably highbrow air. And while the inclusion of two of his own compositions confirms that Sting still has an irritatingly high opinion of himself, at least they're a lot more engaging than the dreary AOR he's so often peddled in the past. Probably his least Sting-like album ever - and, paradoxically, one of his best. ****\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Hollywood Reporter by Roger Friedman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll the tracks on \"If On A Winter's Night\" are exceptional, rethought Christmas-type tales that make you want to put on the CD, pour some wine, and get into the holiday mood. But this one, and 'Christmas at Sea', Sting's take on Robert Louis Stevenson, are examples of how this musician continues to grow and experiment successfully. Sting's intrepid musicianship, his willingness to explore and expand, is quite frankly missing from the current generation of \"rock stars.\" They should take a lesson from people like him, Paul Simon, and David Byrne. Last month, Sting and his band recorded 'If On A Winter's Night' live at Durham Cathedral in Britain. The DVD gets released on November 23rd, and three days later, on Thanksgiving, the whole concert plays on PBS's \"Great Performances\" across the country. Sting also turns up next Thursday at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame shows as the special guest of Stevie Wonder.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155996807250,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_3575ebb4-95bf-4758-bdbd-159f37faaad0.jpg?v=1758315183"},{"product_id":"symphonicities","title":"Symphonicities","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1.Next To You - Sting, Vocals; Jo Lawry, Backing Vocals; Rob Mathes, Piano; David Finck, Acoustic Bass; David Cossin, Percussion; Joe Bonadio, Percussion; Featuring the New York Chamber Consort (Lisa Kim, Concertmaster); Conducted by Rob Mathes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2.Englishman In New York - Sting, Vocals; Jo Lawry, Backing Vocals; Rob Mathes, Piano; David Finck, Acoustic Bass; Aaron Heick, Clarinet Solo; David Cossin, Percussion; Joe Bonadio, Percussion; Featuring the New York Chamber Consort (Lisa Kim, Concertmaster); Conducted by Rob Mathes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e3.Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - Sting, Vocals; Jo Lawry, Backing Vocals; Rob Mathes, Piano and Acoustic Guitar; David Finck, Acoustic Bass; David Cossin, Percussion; Featuring the London Players (Jacqueline Shave, Concertmaster); Conducted by Rob Mathes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e4.I Hung My Head - Sting, Vocals; Jo Lawry, Backing Vocals; Dominic Miller, Guitar; Ira Coleman, Bass; David Cossin, Percussion; Featuring The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra (Gerald Gregory, Concertmaster); Conducted by Steven Mercurio\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e5.You Will Be My Ain True Love - Sting, Vocals; Jo Lawry, Vocals; Dominic Miller, Guitar; Ira Coleman, Bass; David Cossin, Percussion; Featuring The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra (Gerald Gregory, Concertmaster); Conducted by Steven Mercurio\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e6.Roxanne - Sting, Vocals; Jo Lawry, Backing Vocals; Rob Mathes, Piano and Acoustic Guitar; David Finck, Acoustic Bass; David Cossin, Percussion; Featuring the London Players (Jacqueline Shave, Concertmaster); Conducted by Rob Mathes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e7.When We Dance - Sting, Vocals; Jo Lawry, Backing Vocals; Dominic Miller, Guitar; Ira Coleman, Bass; David Cossin, Percussion; Featuring The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra (Gerald Gregory, Concertmaster); Conducted by Steven Mercurio\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e8.End Of The Game - Sting, Vocals; Jo Lawry, Backing Vocals; Dominic Miller, Guitar; Ira Coleman, Bass; David Cossin, Percussion; Featuring The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra (Gerald Gregory, Concertmaster); Conducted by Steven Mercurio\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e9.I Burn For You - Sting, Vocals and Acoustic Guitar; Jo Lawry, Backing Vocals; David Cossin, Percussion Soloist; Joe Bonadio, Additional Percussion; Ben Witman, Loop Programming; Featuring the New York Chamber Consort (Lisa Kim, Concertmaster); Conducted by Rob Mathes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e10.We Work The Black Seam - Sting, Vocals; Jeff Kievit, Lead Trumpet; Jim Hines, James Delagarza, Dylan Schwab, Trumpets; Larry DiBello, Chad Yarborough, David Peel, Theo Primus, Horns; Birch Johnson, Dick Clark, Trombones; Jeff Nelson, Bass Trombones; Marcus Rojas, Tuba; Joe Bonadio, Percussion; Conducted by Rob Mathes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e11.She's Too Good For Me - Sting, Vocals and Acoustic Guitar; Dominic Miller, Electric Guitar; Jo Lawry, Vocals; Joe Bonadio, Percussion; Featuring the New York Chamber Consort (Lisa Kim, Concertmaster); Conducted by Rob Mathes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e12.The Pirate's Bride - Sting, Vocals; Jo Lawry, Backing Vocals; Joe Bonadio, Percussion; Featuring the New York Chamber Consort (Lisa Kim, Concertmaster); Conducted by Rob Mathes\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the Pittsburgh Tribune by Bob Karlovits\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's voice is well suited to many forms. It can move from the social conscience of 'We Work the Black Seam' to the emotion of 'Next to You.' His current album 'Symphonicities' shows how it can work with a chamber orchestra and with The Police. It is a collection 12 songs ranging from hits such as 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' to the not-as-popular 'The Pirate's Bride.' The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, the London Players and the New York Chamber Consort provide the backup in arrangements that tend to be right on the money, even if one or two take a little listening to accept. The brass of 'We Work the Black Seam,' for instance, has an appropriate power and 'Englishman in New York' is accurately bright, but 'Every Little Thing' seems a bit out of place and a little affected. He is on tour supporting this album, but, alas, no visit is scheduled here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Today online by Christopher Toh\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has tried out practically every genre in the musical universe, so an orchestral rework of his songs seems a natural thing to do. Possibly inspired by the fact that people liked his lute-ish renditions of 'Fields Of Gold' and 'Message In A Bottle', this is an album's worth of Police and solo material recreated with orchestras and classical ensembles. You know what? It works really well. 'I Hung My Head', for example, is given a gravitas not found in the original, making it a much bigger song than it was (although in my opinion, Johnny Cash's sombre version is probably still the best). Other tracks that score include a perkier reworking of 'Englishman In New York'; 'I Burn For You', which actually sounds less melodramatic than the original - yes, it's a good thing; 'We Work The Black Seam', as its looping riff is given an almost theatrical nuance - you can almost see this playing out in a musical or in a movie; and 'Roxanne', which considering how many different ways this song has been covered, offers a new emotional empathy - although it ends terribly. But while songs such as 'Next To You' and 'Every Little Thing Is Magic' seem to lose some of their magic in the reinterpretation, there are more high points here than there are low. Possibly one of his more satisfying latter day works.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Salt Lake Tribune by David Burger\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s new set of orchestral arrangements of Police and solo songs is the cleverly titled 'Symphonicities' - a play on Police’s 1983 'Synchronicity' - and features the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, with whom he is joining on a world tour. The 57-year-old’s warm, flexible voice is in fine form, and the best moments are when he takes a stab at reinventing classics such as 'Roxanne', where he adds further depth to an already complex song with a different vocal melody as well as Latin percussion. 'Every Little Thing She Does is Magic', on the other hand, isn’t served by a heavy-handed inclusion of woodwinds. But there are plenty of pleasures, from emotional, lush readings of 'When We Dance' and 'Next to You' and b-sides. It’s a satisfying album for symphony lovers, as well as all those who can appreciate elegant pop songcraft.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Los Angeles Times by Mikael Wood\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLeave it to Sting to join the current craze for big-band albums not with a set of standards or cool-hunting covers but with a collection of his own songs. Even during his early days with the Police, Sting carried himself with the assured air of someone whose artistic significance was a long-established fact; a couple of decades later, he gives the impression that a search for deeper, more worthwhile material simply yielded no results. Yet if Sting's confidence can sometimes come across as arrogance, it's also what makes 'Symphonicities' work: Here's a songwriter with enough belief in his creations to risk radically retooling them. Accompanied by London's Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra (with whom he's in the midst of a world tour), Sting reimagines 'Roxanne' as a lush Latin ballad and gives 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' a swelling Celtic thrust. Not everything on the 12-track disc is such a departure: 'Englishman in New York', for instance, sounds more or less like the original studio version, as does 'You Will Be My Ain True Love', the singer's Appalachia-inspired contribution to the film 'Cold Mountain'. For those selections, perhaps Sting concluded that perfection hardly needed improving.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Boston Globe by Sarah Rodman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn inveterate musical adventurer, Sting is no stranger to rearranging his catalog. Whether that’s meant acoustic reworkings, Spanish-language retrofits, or live improvisations, he fearlessly pushes his own songs around. So it was just a matter of time before the famously posh Brit would go the symphonic route. Certainly an orchestra is a big enough umbrella, but some of the songs - from both the Police and Sting’s solo career - definitely end up getting wet. Several tunes offer expected pleasures, including the crisp pluck lent to 'Englishman in New York' by a phalanx of string players. Also expected is the way that some tracks feel weighed down by the “serious’’ addition of an orchestra, as with “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic', which, although pretty, is sapped of a bit of its breeziness. The album’s biggest revelation is 'Roxanne'. That such an exhaustively played song could exude new nuances - more yearning and melancholy than demanding anger thanks to a gorgeously mournful cello solo - is impressive. One consistent element, however, is Sting’s vocals, which are as warm, elastic, and expressive as ever.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Montreal Gazette by Jordan Zivitzr\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was good reason to fear Sting's orchestral album. For one thing, it appears on the same label that issued his daring but deadly lute collection 'Songs from the Labyrinth' (2006) and last year's chin-stroking seasonal release 'If on a Winter's Night...' For another thing -well, it's Sting's orchestral album. So the arrangements on 'Symphonicities' come as a blessed relief. Instead of the ponderous interpretations many listeners may have dreaded, these are airy and, when appropriate, lively. The song selection is similarly inspired, avoiding most of the obvious choices. There's no 'Fields of Gold', no 'Every Breath You Take'. Rather, the album begins with a suitably energized treatment of the Police's 'Next to You'. Perhaps it's too suitable. In his amusingly orgasmic liner notes, Rolling Stone's Anthony DeCurtis claims these songs \"have not simply been rearranged, but fully reimagined in orchestral terms.\" Yet the majority of 'Symphonicities' 12 tracks sound exactly like you would expect them to, with strings and brass interpreting the familiar guitar and keyboard parts. This is a complaint regarding the arrangers' lack of adventure, not regarding execution. The version of Englishman in New York here is redundant, barely expanding on the original's elegance, but the tasteful crescendos in 'I Hung My Head' enhance the murder ballad's remorse, and 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' retains its loose-limbed celebration. The noticeable attempts to fully reimagine Sting's songs are less consistent. 'Roxanne' is preposterous - a passionless slow burn from the orchestra, backing Sting's lite-jazz croon. The result is comparable to Eric Clapton's unplugged 'Layla', sapping all desperation and heat from a song that demands both. By contrast, 'We Work the Black Seam' loses its '80s shackles and gains a rich brass arrangement that emphasizes the forlorn heart of the miners' lament. In at least this one instance, Sting has found not just a new interpretation, but a superior one. Even when 'Symphonicities' falls short of the source material, though, it may reward listeners who have been turned off by Sting's classical aspirations before. For the first time in a long time, his solo career seems more about honouring the song than honouring the ego.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Dallas Morning News by Mario Tarradell\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's symphonic turn is often brilliant... Sting still experiments. Merging pop and rock with classical isn't novel, but the Briton, a.k.a. Gordon Sumner, actually makes the usually sleepy combination intriguing, deserving of repeated listens. 'Symphonicities', the CD souvenir of his Symphonicity Tour, opens with brilliant reinventions of 'Next to You', 'Englishman in New York' and 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'. Backed by grand classical musicians, the songs gain - not lose - intensity and energy. Then the proceedings turn a bit esoteric. 'Roxanne' as a brooding ballad? 'We Work the Black Seam' as a dirge? Thought-provoking, but that'll take time to digest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The New York Daily News by Jim Farber\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's 'Symphonicities' finely balances old pop-rock tunes with Royal Philharmonic's classic sound - Sting's new album begins with a boo-boo so wounding, you wonder how it can possibly recover. \"Symphonicities\" means to re-imagine some of the star's best known songs with The Police, as well as those from his solo career, in collaboration with a full symphony orchestra (namely The Royal Philharmonic). But the disc's kick-off number - a take on the Police's brisk and choppy \"Next To You\" - stumbles into one of the deepest pot-holes for an orchestral\/pop hybrid. The arrangement makes the strings imititate a rock band rather than finding a way to reinvent it. The violins, violas and cellos hack away at the riff as if they were amped-up guitars, which only makes them sound weak and phoney by comparison. Happily, that's the project's only outright stumble. Cynics on the subject of Sting will surely be surprised by the CD's lack of pretention. For the most part, it avoids bloat or syrrup, instead finely balancing pop\/rock concerns with the classical kind. Along the way, some songs find fresh character. \"Roxanne\" employs darker chords than the original and, so, paints the central relationship between the narrator and the prostitute as more frought. \"I Hung My Head,\" already one of Sting's best, and least appreciated songs, finds even more guilt and gravity in the character through the anxious orchestrations. Mainly, though, the re-thinks emphasize what was already there. \"Englishman in New York\" seems more light and playful through the whimsical strings and wily woodwinds, while the delightful orchestrations in \"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic\" literalize the idea of finding endless pleasure in someone you're smitten with. Few of the melodies get a genuine shake-up, which explains why fans won't be shocked by anything they hear. For that, you have to look to the recent work of a Sting peer. Back in February, Peter Gabriel radically recast pop songs with classical arrangements on his CD \"Scratch My Back.\" He used the orchestra so inventively, they turned the pieces into psychologically potent art songs. (It probably helped that Gabriel left rock instruments behind entirely). By contrast, \"Symphonicities,\" presents rock and classical forms more as respectful collegues than as true friends. They collaborate peacefully, and likeably, without ever finding in each other any great fire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Toronto Star by Ben Rayner\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDon’t be fooled by the Mondrian-inspired CD case, classical label or the fact that Sting is marking Tuesday’s launch of this album by singing at the Metropolitan Opera. This is nothing more - or less - than the English pop-rock veteran plunging back into the gold mine of his Police-era output. He and some new friends reintroduce us to a dozen nuggets of musical magic borne of his imagination. Forget the Police; here, Sting sings with a symphony orchestra (with guitar and drums thrown in for good measure) in clever and tasteful new arrangements that, to my ear, often an improvement over the original. 'Roxanne' has never sounded so richly soulful, and 'The Pirate’s Bride' happily totes along a substantial sonic dowry; only the rocking-out 'Next to You' feels contrived. Sting himself is sounding more mellow, yet no less dramatically charged, than he did in the 20th century. Although the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra gets album billing, the New York Chamber Consort is the band on half the tracks. Top track: 'We Work the Black Seam', a coal-mining history lesson, now laced with a sneaky-spiky brass band-and-drum accompaniment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from American Noise by Preston Jones\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlthough 'Symphonicities' appears, on its surface, to be the sort of stunt a mid-career pop star would embrace as an excuse to tour, Sting has actually created a work that rewards examination. Other giants in his field have tried - and failed - to meld pop structure with classical forms (a couple guys named Paul McCartney and Billy Joel spring to mind), but where McCartney and Joel tried to create something brand new, Sting wisely retrofits his greatest successes as orchestral works - of a sort. On paper, 'Symphonicities' would seem a straightforward “re-imagining” of classics like 'Every Little Thing She Does is Magic' or 'Roxanne' with an emphasis on soaring strings. Sting doesn’t seem interested in simply placing his canon in a new context without getting his hands a little messy. He’s fully present throughout the album, sounding reinvigorated by the fresh context for these songs. Working with the Royal Philha­monic Concert Orchestra (conducted by Stephen Mercurio) and from arrangements by Mercurio, David Hartley and Rob Mathes, Sting reaches a satisfactory middle ground. The dozen tracks retain key elements of his most indelible works (Englishman in New York and She’s Too Good for Me) while push­ing the source material in compelling new directions. Often, the mood is more jazzy - befitting Sting’s roots in the polyglot-inspired Police and his later, pan-global solo output - than strictly starchy. The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra sounds remarkably loose and lively throughout 'Symphonicities', lending cuts like When We Dance a mournful yet luminous sensuality. In concert, Sting is known for drastically re-working the warhorses, almost to the point of impenetrability. His penchant for shaking up the standards is reined in here, although there are a few moments where his vocals threaten to skitter away from the orchestra. What 'Symphonicities' does best is allow listeners to appreciate Sting’s compositions anew. While certain tracks, like the Police singles or Eng­lishmen in New York”are plenty familiar, Symphonicities also provides lesser-known offerings, such as The End of the Game and We Work the Black Seam a chance to shine, possibly even inviting a dive into Sting’s often-underrated back catalog. The album pulls off an increasingly tricky accomplishment: burnishing an artist’s legacy without undermining previous works or seeming like a crass grab for dollars.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Times by Pete Paphides\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExplaining the impetus behind his latest album, 'Symphonicities', Sting says: \"I have always had n affinity for classical music... and still make a daily practice of playing selections from J.S. Bach... not that anyone would want to pay money to hear my efforts in this field.\" Such modesty was conspicuous by its absence when he recorded his 2006 lute opus 'Songs From The Labyrinth' or his 2005 'Twin Spirits' project, in which he read out the correspondence between Robert Schumann and his wife Clara over music by the German composer. Fearlessness is a term often bandied around in association with hipper artists - Lou Reed's tour de force of passive-aggressive petulance, 'Metal Machine Music'; MGMT's utter circumvention of melody on their new album - but Sting is blessed with a striking sort of fearlessness, too. To him, classical music presents the same tantalising set of challenges that the traffic intersection in Hampstead has for George Michael at 2am on a Sunday morning. And sure enough, just as George doesn't always crash his Range Rover into Snappy Snaps every time he ventures into Hampstead, some of the new orchestral arrangements of Sting's songs on 'Symphonicities' leave surprisingly little damage. On 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' the frantic showboating of the recorded version is supplanted by a treatment that complements the song's lovedrunk sentiments. And even if newly made-over 'Roxanne' no longer bristles with the grim desolation of Parisian backstreets, the fact is that this particular collision of pop and classical sensibilities could have been worse.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155996872786,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_fb9e327a-ad10-4eb5-8d0f-9b6e21484c39.jpg?v=1758315186"},{"product_id":"25-years","title":"25 YEARS","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'Sting: 25 Years', is the definitive box set collection slated for US release on September 27, 2011 (internationally September 26, 2011). Featuring three CDs comprised of 45 remastered tracks personally curated by Sting, a previously unreleased live concert DVD and a comprehensive hardcover book, this retrospective captures for the first time both the highlights and rarities of Sting’s enduring solo career.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis consummate collection contains selections spanning his entire solo catalog, from his 1985 debut album, 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles', to his latest release, Live in Berlin. Highlights include all of Sting’s top 40 hits as well as Grammy® winners 'Brand New Day', 'The Soul Cages', 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You', and 'Whenever I Say Your Name' featuring Mary J. Blige.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting: 25 Years was produced by Rob Mathes and Executive Produced by Sting’s longtime manager, Kathryn Schenker. The box set also contains nine songs remixed by Robert Orton and Steve Fitzmaurice exclusively for this collection.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRough, Raw \u0026amp; Unreleased: Live At Irving Plaza, the previously unreleased live concert DVD, features 10 tracks culled from newly unearthed raw performance footage filmed in New York City on the final night of Sting’s U.S. 'Broken Music' tour in 2005.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe discs are housed in a beautiful, lavish hardcover book containing intimate and rare photos from world renowned photographers, complete lyrics, personal commentary and a newly written introduction by Sting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRichly diverse in musical content and visually captivating, 'Sting: 25 Years' is a compelling tribute to the restless spirit of an artist who continues to evolve and explore new musical territory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Associated Press by Dolores Barclay \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's three-CD box set offers an intriguing portrait of the artist in his quarter-century quest to marry the many flavours of music. Bundling his early and later work together presents an excellent chance to really get a clear reading of how he has tweaked pop music and expanded its core. His early solo compositions after leaving the Police veered largely toward jazz and world beats, and his first CD, \"The Dream of the Blue Turtles\" featured an impressive roster of jazz players: Branford Marsalis, Kenny Kirkland, Omar Hakim and Darryl Jones. \"If You Love Somebody Set Them Free\" from that seminal 1985 album showcases Sting's flirtations for both jazz and rhythm and blues, while he revives the reggae that also influenced the Police in \"Love Is the Seventh Wave,\" with its infectious refrain: \"There is a deeper wave than this, rising in the land\/There is a deeper wave than this, listen to me, girl.\" World beats and jazz, of course, are offered up again and again over the years - \"Desert Rose,\" for example, from 1999's \"Brand New Day,\" where Sting's vocals with Cheb Mami, share Middle Eastern inflections. \"I Was Brought to My Senses,\" from 1996's \"Mercury Rising,\" reflects just a taste of the Scottish Highland in its opening before floating to smooth jazz riffs. Sting's musical explorations became even more interesting in 2003 with his \"Sacred Love\" album where Bach influenced \"Whenever I Say Your Name,\" a song that had Mary J.. Blige on vocals. And there are tunes from his recent works, \"Symphonicities,\" from 2010 and \"If on a Winter's Night...\" The boxed set comes with a nicely packaged book of writings and photos, and a DVD, and lyrics to each tune. Sting is an intelligent lyricist, which for some fans can be a turn-off. But like it or not, Sting's very complexities elevate his music, from the peppiness of \"Brand New Day\" to the edgy narrative \"I Hung My Head\" to the sweetness of \"When We Dance.\" Sting has truly given the gift of music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Corpus Christi Caller Times by Jesse De Leon\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen The Police released their first album, 'Outlandos D'Amour' in 1978, their punky pop sound was often augmented by reggae and ska rhythms. As the band progressed over the course of five years and just as many albums, they abandoned their white-boy-reggae fixation and bowed out with the musical sophistication that marked their swan song, 1983's 'Synchronicity'. During their time together, main songwriter Sting (aka Gordon Sumner), began to infuse his highly literate songs with touches of jazz. That influence has been a touchstone of his solo career. When he released 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' in 1985, he attracted just as much attention for his jazz-influenced direction as he did for being on his own for the first time. Amazingly, his career has lasted five times longer than his tenure with The Police and that milestone is appropriately marked with the release of '25' (A\u0026amp;M), a four-disc document of his solo work. Instead of retreading his solo tracks one by one, this impressive package offers a somewhat piecemeal account of Sting's musical meanderings that remains far from exhaustive. That brevity is actually a good thing, as tracks like 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free' and 'Fortress Around Your Heart' from his aforementioned debut album sound right at home when placed beside 'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You' and 'Fields of Gold' from 1993's 'Ten Summoner's Tales' and 'Desert Rose' from 1999's 'Brand New Day'. The fact that these songs fit together so well is a testament to Sting's masterful singing and playing and it aptly underscores the consistent quality of his quarter century's worth of work. The live tracks, 'I Burn for You' and 'Driven to Tears' from Bring on the Night are balanced by the more recent but nonetheless essential performances that comprise the accompanying DVD of songs from the last show of his Broken Music Tour in 2005. On this enjoyable visual chapter of the set, Sting breaks out some seldom performed Police tracks like 'Next To You' and 'Demolition Man' that he still delivers with considerable gusto. Fans who already have all of his albums may be disappointed at the lack of rarities, but '25' is an elegant testament to the fact that even though his Police days are way behind him, Sting's story as a solo artist is nothing short of arresting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Record Collector by Terry Staunton\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA rich mix of musical styles, plus a 2005 live DVD... Sometimes being the leader of the biggest band on the planet isn't enough, and the artists formerly known as Gordon Sumner has previously spoken about how he was frustrated by the musical limitations of The Police. Indeed, since embarking on a solo career a quarter of a century ago, Sting has avidly pursued a restless, occasionally schizophrenic path, as this box set testifies. The easy shorthand suggests Sting had designs on becoming a jazz artist, and that's borne out by his earlier albums on tracks such as 'Moon Over Bourbon Street' or 'We'll Be Together' (not to mention his live re-workings of his old band's 'Bring On The Night' and 'Driven To Tears'). But listen more carefully to the elaborate musical tapestry of 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You' or 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free' - probably two of the most complex songs to scale the singles chart. Even his more idiosyncratic projects have been presented with persuasive accessibility (a couple of songs from 2009's traditional Christmas album make the cut, though sadly nothing from his lute album three years earlier!). What's never been in doubt is Sting's ability to conjure up a heart-stopping emotional anthem, such as the truly beautiful 'Fields of Gold' or the tender poetry of 'When We Dance'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by Alan Light\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe guy has worked with everyone from Yo-Yo Ma to the Black Eyed Peas, from Miles Davis to Phil Collins, so a comprehensive Sting retrospective seems impossible. But over three CDs and one DVD, 25 Years tells a cohesive tale: the story of a career dedicated to constant renewal. Even on the hits, not every experiment worked (it's still unclear why there's a break beat in \"Englishman in New York\"). It's easy to forget the innovative focus on jazz that defined the first part of his solo career, or the muscular pop he nailed in the early 1990s. What shines throughout these 45 tracks is the unerring songcraft, and a voice that's lost none of its power over a quarter-century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155997331538,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_f925eef1-3856-40d1-b066-a004e3017d85.jpg?v=1758315199"},{"product_id":"the-best-of-25-years-us-version","title":"The Best of 25 Years (US Version)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCherrytree\/A\u0026amp;M Records\/Universal Music Group is pleased to announce Sting: The Best Of 25 Years, slated for release on October 18, 2011. Featuring 12 remastered tracks, including several remixes and newly unearthed live recordings, selections for this compilation represent a diverse cross section of Sting’s enduring solo career.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHighlights include the No. 1 hits “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” and “All This Time,” as well as Grammy® winners “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” and “Whenever I Say Your Name” featuring Mary J. Blige. The CD also includes a new mix of “Never Coming Home” as well as previously unreleased live versions of “Message In A Bottle,” “Demolition Man” and “Heavy Cloud No Rain” (full track listing included below).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting: The Best Of 25 Years was produced by Rob Mathes and Executive Produced by Sting’s longtime manager, Kathryn Schenker.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155997364306,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_d749016d-c447-458e-9eab-f2dd4a0df52e.jpg?v=1758315200"},{"product_id":"the-best-of-25-years-2cd-version","title":"The Best of 25 Years (2CD Version)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCherrytree\/A\u0026amp;M Records\/Universal Music Group is pleased to announce Sting: The Best Of 25 Years, slated for release on October 17, 2011. Available as a single-disc containing 13 remastered tracks as well as a double-disc comprised of 31 remastered songs, both featuring several remixes and newly unearthed live recordings, these compilations represent a diverse cross-section of Sting’s enduring solo career.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHighlights include the No. 1 hits “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” and “All This Time,” as well as Grammy® winners “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” and “Whenever I Say Your Name” featuring Mary J. Blige. The CDs also include a new mix of “Never Coming Home” as well as previously unreleased live versions of “Message In A Bottle,” “Demolition Man” and “Heavy Cloud No Rain” (full track listing included below).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting: The Best Of 25 Years was produced by Rob Mathes and Executive Produced by Sting’s longtime manager, Kathryn Schenker.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155997397074,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_6b14740d-036c-499f-bc67-4e461dec752d.jpg?v=1758315200"},{"product_id":"the-last-ship-standard-vinyl-editions","title":"The Last Ship (standard \u0026 vinyl editions)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"You can't use 30 songs in a musical theatre production. It doesn't need it. So I have a lot of excess songs. And that process is interesting because every song will fight for its life; every couplet fights for its life; every verse fights for its life; every refrain, every bridge. Unless it's moving the story forward, moving the narrative forward, they get rid of it. And that's kind of cruel and painful if you've spent a lot of time writing a song and crafting a song.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There were no clues in my environment that you leave that environment and fare well and be successful. My parents didn't really understand what my dreams were, they just thought I was crazy, because I had just given up a job with a pension and the security, in their eyes. My dad really didn't understand till the end of his days what the hell I was doing. He though that I should have had a proper job. Maybe he was right. I wanted to take a risk and be a star. I don't know where I got the confidence from. I just got lucky.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Associated Press\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A good song can last for three minutes and you're just expressing one emotion. You can't have that in the theater. The narrative needs to be advanced as the song is being sung.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Associated Press\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I used the dialect that I was raised in. I only ever use it now when I threaten people or when I get really angry. My kids would always know I was serious when I start speaking in the weird voice. They're like, 'Uh-oh, he's speaking in that weird voice, he must mean it.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Associated Press\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's set in my home town.my earliest memory is of a massive ship, we built the greatest, biggest ships ever constructed from planet Earth at the end of my street. I would watch these things grow and I used to wonder if I was gonna have to end up there. I took up music, realised that was a way to escape. Now I have this huge passion and urge, to go back and try and figure out what it was that I was born into because it was quite a surreal landscape and a very powerful and symbolic one, so as an artist it is your duty to return, at least in a creative way and give that place honour.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, CNN\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I wanted... the music to reflect the musical richness of the culture in the North East which was very rich. It has an original Northumbrian music, kind of Celtic. The history of Northumbrian music is very rich. In the 19th century there was a massive Scottish immigration and then a huge Irish immigration so I was brought up in an Irish community, a Catholic community and so that music added to the texture and . of course rock n roll. so this music reflects all of those influences. There is not much rock n roll in it. It's a mixture of folk music and a tip of the hat to musical theatre.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, CNN\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's a kind of paradox writing about other people but then really ending up writing about yourself and your own conflicted feelings about where you come from. But obviously there are elements of me in it - not least the name. I mean, I chose the name Gideon unconsciously, and it's very close to the name I was given - although no one ever calls me that... I'm hiding in plain sight here. He is an exile, he's very ambivalent about where he comes from. He comes back under duress. And yet he finds himself in the spirit of community, in actually belonging. So yeah, there's something of me there. Not entirely. But there's something of me in all of these characters.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Irish Independent\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If you are being truthful when you write, all of that just comes out. It's like a stream of consciousness. Like being on Freud's couch. It just comes out when you are telling a story. Which is probably the value of story. It allows us to understand ourselves, our history. I've come from a family of disappointed romantic love and I think that's one of the things I'm sorting out. My parents' marriage was a nightmare and I think that's what I'm excavating. Which is not exactly comfortable.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eSting, Irish Independent\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'd been wondering whether I'd lost the mojo. But it turns out I just needed to stop writing about me. Once I said, 'OK, I'm gonna tell somebody else's story,' I freed up and the songs poured out in a very quick way. You need to be on input some of the time, to have something to say before you say it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Los Angeles Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was writing songs for other characters than me, other sensibilities than mine, a different viewpoint and so all of that pent-up stuff, all of those crafts I'd developed as a songwriter, I was suddenly free to explore without much thinking, actually. It just kind of came out as a kind of Tourette's, a kind of projectile vomiting. It just came out, very quickly.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The New York Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The history of pop singers going into this field is littered with corpses. Every line fights for its life. Every couplet, every verse, every song, every character is constantly fighting for its life, even now. I'd write a song which I thought was fantastic - a Grammy-winning song! - and they'd say: ‘No, that's not in the play. It's not advancing the narrative. It's just expressing an emotion, and the narrative is static for three, four minutes. You can't afford that length of time.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The New York Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't think I'm romanticising very much what I experienced as a child of that community I was brought up in. It was incredibly hard and dangerous work. Actually most of the men who worked there ****ing hated it. And yet they had this enormous pride about what they built - this palpable example of their handiwork. So there's this constant ambiguity about the shipyards. They were awful, awful places, and yet they produced the biggest ships in the world, and the whole town was proud of those things.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The demise of the shipyard became a sort of useful metaphor for the demise of my parents. It had a kind of theatrical mood, but there wasn't a narrative - it was just a mood piece. I decided to have a go at trying to make a story out of it. And I read a story about some shipyard workers in Gdansk in Poland who built their own ship. I just loved that. I thought it was a really wacko, Homeric idea. And I thought:  I'll weld that idea to my town.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The Soul Cages is a strange record, probably my least understood or accepted record, but it has a rolling constituency of the recently bereaved. I get a lot of letters from people who say this record gives them some solace. But then I began to think: I wonder if there's a story that we could tell, that would use The Soul Cages as their starting point and have a narrative, with characters. And this thing coincided with a very dry period for me as a songwriter. You know, I hadn't written songs in about eight years, either because I'd lost the juice or I wasn't inspired or I was afraid... I don't know. I make my living as a songwriter so it's kind of worrying when that well runs dry. And as soon as I began to think of writing for other people, for other voices, for other characters, from other viewpoints apart from my own, this stuff started to flow - because I wasn't in the way any more.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was born and raised in Wallsend. It's never been a pretty place. It's a tough place. Nonetheless, I am fiercely proud of it, of being from Wallsend. The ships they built were the biggest ships ever built in the world and yet there was always an ambiguity. It was a tough life those men led. A lot of them hated the yards, but they were fiercely proud of the ships they built with their hands. I lived in Gerald Street, one of those streets leading down to Swan Hunter. That memory of the ship at the end of the street is emblazoned on my memory bank. I’d stand on the pavement and wave my Union Flag as the Queen Mother came down the street in her Rolls-Royce. She actually looked at me. I swear she did. She noticed me.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You know Wallsend has had the heart taken out of it. It used to have a coal mine and it had a shipyard. That was all we had and there’s nothing now. There’s are big holes where both things were. At the same time, Newcastle is kind of thriving. It’s a big shopping centre, a big party town and a big university town. But North Tyneside is still depressed and it deserves better, frankly.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sun\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It was an extraordinary environment to be brought up in. It was such a surreal landscape. These ships would literally blot out the sky. Then to watch a ship launch was a kind of apocalyptic event. You’d never see anything else that size, and the noise of it. The pride in the town was immense. The ships were the largest vessels ever constructed on the planet. The work was incredibly hard, dangerous and unpleasant, yet the workers had something palpable, ‘I did that with my hands’. I think we lack that a bit today. What do we build? What do we make? Obviously the whole community was connected to it. My great grandfather was a North Sea pilot. My grandfather was a shipwright and my father was an engineer in the big engineering works nearby. There were all kinds of master mariners in our family tree going way back.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sun\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“My father would always tell me to go to sea. We’d go to church on a Sunday and he’d take me down to the quayside to see the boats and he would say, ‘Go to sea. See the world’. I did get a seamen’s card but as a musician on a P\u0026amp;O liner. It wasn’t quite what he had in mind.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sun\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I've written far more songs than would be needed in a musical - about 30 of them. What to do with those other songs? Either they weren't advancing the narrative, or the characters they were written for have evolved into something else. So why don't I present the songs in a sort of revue and bring the audience into that process? Also, by singing them you learn a great deal about how the arrangements need to be finished.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Wall Street Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm very keen to write earworms, things that will be catchy and will get people to leave the theatre singing. I've done that in my pop career, but at the same time I didn't want to do a rock musical. I wanted to honour the regional music of the place I come from and the tradition of musical theatre. My education wasn't just rock 'n' roll. It was the complete canon of Rodgers and Hammerstein and \"My Fair Lady\" and \"West Side Story.\" As a kid I ate those records up.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Wall Street Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All About Jazz\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuch like his fellow colleague, musician Peter Gabriel, British singer and songwriter Sting has spent the past decade, since his last album with original material Sacred Love (A\u0026amp;M, 2003) in endless touring, reissues, cover albums and recording past material with a philharmonic orchestra. Far from being inactive or lazy, during that time he also reunited his band Police twice—once for the induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 and for a lucrative world tour in 2007\/08. By his own admission, after the understated and plastic Sacred Music he had been facing a writer's block and had lost interest in writing original material, and the songs on The Last Ship are the first to arrive after a long period of drought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese songs were written for a musical to be premiered in 2014 and that is based on the shipbuilding community of Wallsend in the Northeast of England, where Sting was born and raised. The idea for the play and its symbolism was taken from his album Soul Cages where he first explored it. The Soul Cages, (A\u0026amp;M, 1991) which is one of Sting's finest records, was a thematic song cycle about his hometown, a shipyard town, and the death of his father. The symbolism of the shipyards and its demise had become a metaphor for mortality. He would revisit the memories from that period from his life again in his brilliant memoir Broken Music. The liner notes of The Last Ship read that it is a tale of \"slow death and redundancy of the shipyard that had loomed over my young life and the streets I played in morphed into a grim metaphor for the baleful demise of my parents.\" And when he introduced the idea of making a musical about shipbuilders to a Broadway producer, he was encouraged to try it, and in return that opened the ideas of creativity and desire for writing new songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe play's plot, for which Sting has spent three years working, is a homecoming story set during the decline of the shipbuilding industry in England and the narrative centres on labour strife and family in working class Britain. The central characters are a ship worker father and his rebellious son. And when the story's wandering protagonist returns home after 14 years abroad, he finds the shipyard's future in jeopardy and his youthful picture of the place irrevocably changed. The songs on The Last Ship brim and sparkle with lyrical ideas and ambition where Sting's poetic elegance reaches far and away places that others don't get close to. Musically, the songs are a cross between show tunes and British folk traditions, as the album is more close to the ruminative and tender nature of If on a Winter's Night (Deutsche Grammophon, 2009) than the plastic soul of Sacred Love. Sting is a seasoned song-smith with tunes that are replete with ear-worm melodies. The arrangements are simple and sparse, everything lightly touched, with only swells of strings, piano and other instrumental colours buoying up the guitar and his lush voice. The songs are liquid and amorphous, prone to shape-shifting, rarely offering up an obvious verse and chorus symmetry, or easy interpretation. Rather than writing introspective songs from his viewpoint, this time he wrote the songs from a third person characters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithin this cycle of songs there are many highlights. \"And Yet,\" is a playful number that is sang from a perspective of a sailor returning home wondering about a woman he left behind when he left the port while \"Practical Arrangement\" is a tender and unusual ballad that tells a story of an older man that tries to persuade a single young mother that they would make good housemates. The reprise version of this song is sang in a beautiful duet with Australian jazz singer Jo Lawry. \"What Have We Got\" is a boisterous shanty and a wonderful duet with singer Jimmy Nails. Other collaborations include guest vocals from singers Becky Unthank and Brian Johnson of AC\/DC.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith The Last Ship, Sting joins in a list of artists from the world of pop music that aim for theatre stages where some have found great success and some have not. These songs where he explores the rich heritage of his past, reveal an artist in complete control of his arsenal. Sting is a rare musician whose artistry provides just the right amount of ballast to keep a ship as big as this record buoyant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All Music Guide by Stephen Thomas Erlewine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's an open secret that Sting's interest in songwriting waned after 2003's Sacred Love, an undistinguished collection of mature pop that passed with barely a ripple despite winning a Grammy for its Mary J. Blige duet \"Whenever I Say Your Name.\" Sting spent the next decade wandering - writing classical albums for lute, recording the frostiest Christmas album in memory, rearranging his old hits for symphony, then finally, inevitably, reuniting the Police - before finding inspiration within the confines of a musical. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Last Ship tells the tale of a British shipyard in the '80s, one laid low by changing times, so there's naturally an elegiac undertow to Sting's originals, a sensibility underscored by his decision to ground nearly all these songs in the folk of the British Isles. Dockworkers in the '80s may not have been singing folk songs, but the genre is elastic, allowing for single-spotlight soliloquies along with rousing all-cast showcases, like the boisterous \"What Have We Got?\" Also, by having the bones of his songs belong to folk, Sting can put together a credible album of his own, as the songs from The Last Ship feel intimate in a way he's rarely attempted in his career. He brings in a few guests - Jimmy Nail and Becky Unthank show up on the standard edition, AC\/DC's Brian Johnson, a rock \u0026amp; roll dockworker if there ever was one, shows up on the deluxe - but the focus is entirely on the songwriter. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOccasionally, Sting's desire to inhabit roles within the musical is a little too strong - not long into the album he adopts either a Scottish or Irish brogue, elsewhere he affects a workingman's vernacular, all the while sounding like nobody else but the posh Gordon Sumner - but his songs are precise and cannily crafted, bearing the work of a songwriter who is intent on sculpting every line and every melodic progression. Unlike Sacred Love, The Last Ship isn't listless; even when the album is quiet - which it often is - Sting is engaged, relishing the different characters that inhabit his musical and seizing the challenge of writing in the longform. It's easy to sling arrows at The Last Ship - there is a whiff of condescension to some of the blue-collar anthems, the air is often haughty (\"The Night the Pugilist Learned How to Dance\") - but this is Sting's tightest collection of songs in ages, and they all play off each other, adding up to a cohesive whole that is surely one of his best latter-day records. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Consequence Of Sound by Tony Hardy\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen you achieve a certain stature in music, it comes with full permission to indulge. Sting’s The Last Ship, his first album of original material in 10 years, is a curious indulgence, focusing on the decline and fall of the shipbuilding industry in North East England. However worthy, it’s a highly limited theme, one somewhat surprisingly doubling as a stage play of the same name destined for Broadway. Childhood memories and personal reflections can of course inform broader truths, but it would seem just as odd if a production charting the demise of Detroit’s auto industry were to open in, say, Glasgow. How close the play will follow this soundtrack remains to be seen, but the record is steeped in theatricality from the start.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven that the U.S. struggled to understand Cheryl Cole on The X-Factor, it will be interesting to hear what the American market makes of Sting’s exaggerated Geordie accent on this collection of songs. The title track opens with the traditional rhythms of Tyneside folk, but lyrically goes beyond scene-setting. Arguably it is the album’s pivotal song, as it concerns the final ship built on the famous Swan Hunters shipyard, the very one that cast a shadow over the young Gordon Sumner’s family home, the one that made such a big impression on him. The singer’s semi-autobiographical rejection of following his father into the shipbuilding trade in “Dead Man’s Boots” is delivered with genuine passion, but from then on theatrical artifice takes over.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNonetheless, there are a couple of standouts that you can easily visualize working on stage. The simple confessional of “Practical Arrangement” is pure Sondheim, while Sting’s bawdy duet with fellow Geordie Jimmy Nail on the shanty “What Have We Got” provides a raucous set piece. Less successful is the “Ballad Of The Great Eastern”, whose rhymes evoke the lyric school of Rick Wakeman. The best is saved for the end, with “So To Speak”. Sting’s shipyard worker at the end of his life gives a graphically eloquent last testimony before he is joined by the brittle and beautiful tones of Becky Unthank, whose female perspective also puts a break on over-sentimentality. It ends with a glorious resolution of two notes teased from Northumbrian pipes, so perfect and final that the reprise of “The Last Ship” seems redundant. Such honest moments make this album a worthwhile, if not fully rounded experience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the Montreal Gazette\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor his first full album of original material in a decade, Sting cherry-picks from 40 songs about the demise of Newcastle’s shipbuilding industry, which he hopes to present as a Broadway musical next year. Most surprisingly, the man whose solo work has so often proved difficult to love seems more than up to the task.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven out of their narrative context, many of the song-stories resonate easily and the best of them are even poignant. But the robust melodies are the real draw: mixing Celtic instrumentation and show-tune structures, most of them quickly latch onto your memory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis unrelenting use of a Geordie accent might cause a few eyes to roll, but on the whole, Sting finally seems to have the wind at his back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from New York Daily News by Jim Farber\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's new CD, with songs based on his life, is a powerful opening act for material that's headed to Broadway\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting isn’t himself these days. For his latest solo CD, he doesn’t sing in his own voice, opting instead for newly theatrical enunciations, harder accents and a range of pitches. Also, he isn’t singing from his point of view, but in the guise of various characters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll this makes sense given the CD’s true mission: “The Last Ship” serves as a trial balloon and tease for a full musical by the same name, which producers will bring to Broadway in the fall of 2014. Here the star gets to play all the roles (save two cameos from vocal guests).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI know what Sting-o-phobes are thinking: “Another reach by a pretentious prat.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn fact, “The Last Ship” has an intelligence, beauty and pitch-black wit that makes it both a worthy solo project and a solid blueprint for something to be fleshed out later on stage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIronically, this assemblage of character portraits winds up making more of a personal statement than Sting has issued in a decade. It doesn’t hurt that it’s his first CD of original material since 2003’s muted attempt at a soul CD, “Sacred Love.” Here, he’s writing about his youth in the ’50s, growing up in the dying days of the shipbuilding industry that once defined his hometown of Wallsend in North England.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAccordingly, much of the music borrows from Celtic sea chanteys, theatricalized by an orchestra. At the same time, it glides through European waltzes and adds a few pop flourishes that recall Sting tunes of old. Given its acoustic core and dire subject matter, it’s an incredibly intimate and downbeat work for a musical. If staged as is, it would make “Once” look like “Oklahoma!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt probably won’t be presented that way. But this spare form lets listeners appreciate the essential beauty of the tunes and the richness of Sting’s poetry. The lyrics to “Practical Arrangement” have a conversational realism that’s nearly Sondheimian. While the star’s more literary writing in a pop context can seem self-conscious, here it’s right at home. He captures both the hardness of the shipping life and the fatalism of the characters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe cameos come from Becky Unthank, who recalls the ghostly flutter of Brit-trad; Sandy Denny, and Jimmy Nail, who provides one of the disc’s few potential show-stoppers. Even here the subject is rough. But in these smart, subtle songs, there’s a certain somber grandeur.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the Pittsburgh Tribune by Bob Karlovits\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom his days with the Police to the present, Sting consistently has created music that reflects his consistent encounter with life and its challenges. “The Last Ship” is a collection of new songs that create allegories for life, love, growth, rejection and alienation. The songs sometimes drift into a strong Celtic flavor but all have the recognizable shape and sound of his work. Orchestrated for a small group with fiddles, strings, pipes and a variety of keyboards, the songs include the title track, “August Winds” and “Ballad of the Great Eastern” that all deal with his upbringing in a ship-building town. But perhaps the best song on the album is “Practical Arrangement,” a look at a sensible plan for an domestic agreement. That song has such poetic beauty it almost demands a film or a play to go with it. In the liner notes, Sting bemoans his lack of writing in the past few years. If this album is the product of that layoff, he has done nothing wrong.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Pop Matters by Kevin Catchpole\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting the pop star is gone, but something equally interesting has taken his place\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith the release of The Last Ship, many fans may wonder if Sting the pop singer has returned. The answer comes quickly with a resounding “No, but I haven’t forgotten all I learned while I wore that hat.” Since Sacred Love, Sting has worn many hats - but ever since then, he has strayed far from the mantle of Sting the pop singer. Whether it was the cerebral, brooding holiday album he released with If on a Winter’s Night or the Dowland reworkings assisted by Edin Karamazov, his body of work was varied and interesting indeed, if not as accessible as previously. There is a layer of accessibility that comes back on this release, as this album plays out like a long-after-the-fact sequel or companion piece to Sting’s underrated 1991 work, The Soul Cages. Listeners looking for soaring classics like “If I Ever Lose my Faith in You” might be disappointed - but that disappointment gives way to a rich reward for those willing to look.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs musicals go, this one has its upbeat moments - even if they are often shot through with a sense of gloom, which is to be expected, considering the subject matter. While The Soul Cages was a moving elegy to his father and a brief touchpoint on the struggles of being a shipbuilder in Britain as the industry began to decline, this album takes those touchpoints and blows them wide open. Not surprisingly, it does this with muted, relaxed tones - all the while staying grounded in folk music. Given the sounds he dabbled with on Songs of the Labyrinth, it is possible to see that album as a practice run for this disc - even if it is less lute-centric.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOpening up with the title track, snatches of uilleann pipes dart into view, then back out again, painting an eerie picture of a spirit locked in an endless cycle - hard labor is done, a new ship is built, it sails away, and the cycle starts again. Some have panned the thick brogue he adopts on this track - but truthfully, it’s nice to hear Sting emote with his voice in a manner outside of his comfort zone. Even though his pop albums may have featured skillful singing, at times he sounded too much the same from album to album. Oddly enough, the lush yet ethereal instrumentation calls to mind the style from two of Sting’s past works - once more a throwback to The Soul Cages, but bearing the still-more-funereal vibe of his less-successful Mercury Falling. This is the sort of fusion that only works if done well, and here it most definitely is.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a fine stage-setter, the more stripped-down “Dead Man’s Boots” is equal parts father urging his son to take up the family calling and a son deciding to say the hell with it all. It’s one of the more harsh moments to be had in this story, but it’s a natural moment in this sort of story, and Sting sells it with a flourish not often heard when putting such thoughts to music. The narrative skips ahead a bit jarringly on the third track; “And Then” and its ode to the free-wandering-spirit kind of life can clash at times with old-school Sting musings of “Why would she wait for me?” - a feeling that sets in during the latter half of the album with tracks like “I Love Her But She Loves Someone Else”. In songs like these, we not only get to hear about the actions of the wandering spirit, we get to hear the consequences as well - a combination which makes for a far more complete picture - and coming as it does in the second half of the album, it flows more naturally with the story - at least as can be discerned by the disc. The play itself may yet spin this piece of the tale more naturally - which is difficult to say absent a viewing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch latter-half regret seems a bit surprising to the ear, considering the “Wandering spirit finds his clever side” ramble of “The Night the Pugilist Learned to Dance”. It suggests very much a glimpse of the protagonist learning some valuable lessons in courtship, and yet those lessons seem learned too late later on in the course of the story - too late to make the “Practical arrangement” Sting sings of midway through work, certainly. Tracks like these might suggest a bit of fleeting happiness, but all that happiness ends up dashed in the end. Elsewhere, there are pleasant sounds of quiet reflection in the protagonist’s journeys like “August Winds” and “Ballad of the Great Eastern”; the latter is the track that most nakedly recalls the sound, mood and tone of “The Soul Cages”. This quiet reflection gives way to what is sure to be one of the stage show’s rousing set pieces, “What Have We Got?”, which finds Sting in traditional Irish-stomper mode - definitely a long way from his comfort zone of echoing, atmospheric soundscapes, but one that suits the story - and the rest of the album - quite well. It plays neatly to the fatalistic bent of the story - offering a cornucopia of details of life working in the shipyards, a few of them very pleasant, but at the same time bringing a firm sense of “Well, it’s a life.” Plus, when the music is this upbeat, it sends off a strong message of learning to make the best of what you have, even if what you have isn’t the most appealing thing to the untrained ears and eyes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting the pop singer is clearly not returning any time soon - but for better or worse, he manages to shine onThe Last Ship. It is an ode to simpler times, an homage to his family history - and indeed, the history of shipbuilders in general. More importantly, it manages to take all he has learned since his days in the Police, and spins a tale that is by turns riveting, exciting, and heart-wrenchingly sad - but given the source of this material, also unflinchingly real. If Sting the pop star is something the music world will never see again, then the newly and unflinchingly honest tone to his music is a fine thing to experience in the here and now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by Anthony DeCurtis\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Last Ship is Sting's first album of new material he wrote himself in a decade, and it continues his effort to find fresh ways to connect with his audience. It's a collection of songs for an original play about the destruction of the shipping industry in Newcastle, the English port city where he grew up, as well as a meditation on mortality, community and fatherhood. The ballad \"I Love Her but She Loves Someone Else\" evokes the erotic despair that he has always found seductive, and even with orchestration the arrangements are spare and haunting. The play won't open until next year, so for now all the drama in these songs is internal, and all the more riveting for that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the Star Ledger by Tris McCall\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause no rock star wears his erudition any prouder, Americans tend to think of Sting as a toff. Actually, the songwriter was born in Britain’s working-class north. He’s from the shipbuilding Tyneside, and he’s turned his early memories of hardscrabble living and broken families into a musical that’ll land on Broadway next year. \"The Last Ship\" is an album of songs written for the show, and besides two guest appearances from Northumberland folksingers Becky Unthank and Jimmy Nail, Sting sings the whole thing himself in various tortured brogues. That takes some getting used to. But once you do, \"The Last Ship\" plays like a loving chronicle of a part of the U.K. that few Americans bother to visit. The wordy storytelling songs conjure a definite sense of place: \"Dead Man’s Boots\" is a conversation between a hardworking father on his docks and a rebellious son, \"Ballad of the Great Eastern\" tells the tale of the real-life shipbuilder Isambard Brunel, and \"Practical Arrangement\" confronts love in hard times. While the arrangements are more Broadway than rock ’n’ roll, this is nothing we haven’t heard from Sting before. Anybody who loved the more theatrical side of his \"The Dream of the Blue Turtles\" solo disc - \"Children’s Crusade,\" say, or \"Moon Over Bourbon Street\"- will be right at home here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from That Mag by Jane Roser\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReleased today by Cherrytree\/Interscope\/A\u0026amp;M Records, Sting’s 11th studio album and his first full length recording of original material in 10 years, is a different avenue for the 16-time Grammy winner. The Last Ship is basically the soundtrack to the play by the same name that Sting has been working on for the past three years and makes it’s debut on Broadway next year. The play and the subsequent album were inspired by Sting’s childhood memories of growing up near the shipyards of Wallsend, England. The shipbuilding industry in the town collapsed in the 1980s when the shipyard closed. As the U.K.’s Daily Record‘s Annie Brown recalls ‘[Margaret] Thatcher swept like a wrecking ball through the mines, the steel industry, the car factories, shipbuilding and engineering and oversaw the demise of the communities which had built their livelihood around them.” Think of Sting as the Springsteen of England and this album is his “Death To My Hometown”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeaturing regional guest musicians, including Brian Johnson of AC\/DC, Jimmy Nail, folk group The Unthanks and Kathryn Tickell who plays fiddle and small pipes not only on this album, but on previous Sting recordings, the album is folky in it’s feeling with a slight Celtic tinge. The songs tell of love and family lost, the lyrics are heartfelt and intricate poems, reminding me slightly of 1993's Ten Summoner’s Tales.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Practical Arrangement” sounds a bit like a Broadway play, which I suppose was intentional. “I’m not promising the moon. I’m not promising a rainbow. Just a practical solution to a solitary life.” It wouldn’t have been my choice as an early YouTube release, but it’s what his label decided upon. “And Yet” is better. The lyrics are more delicate and relate able.”This town has a strange magnetic pull, like a homing signal in your skull and you sail by the stars in the hemisphere, wondering how in the hell did you end up here.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting is a born storyteller and like James Bond, nobody does it better.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155997528146,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_40e43704-8b42-4d00-9b34-99af327e340f.jpg?v=1758315204"},{"product_id":"the-last-ship-2-disc-deluxe-version","title":"The Last Ship (2-disc deluxe version)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"You can't use 30 songs in a musical theatre production. It doesn't need it. So I have a lot of excess songs. And that process is interesting because every song will fight for its life; every couplet fights for its life; every verse fights for its life; every refrain, every bridge. Unless it's moving the story forward, moving the narrative forward, they get rid of it. And that's kind of cruel and painful if you've spent a lot of time writing a song and crafting a song.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There were no clues in my environment that you leave that environment and fare well and be successful. My parents didn't really understand what my dreams were, they just thought I was crazy, because I had just given up a job with a pension and the security, in their eyes. My dad really didn't understand till the end of his days what the hell I was doing. He though that I should have had a proper job. Maybe he was right. I wanted to take a risk and be a star. I don't know where I got the confidence from. I just got lucky.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Associated Press\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A good song can last for three minutes and you're just expressing one emotion. You can't have that in the theater. The narrative needs to be advanced as the song is being sung.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Associated Press\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I used the dialect that I was raised in. I only ever use it now when I threaten people or when I get really angry. My kids would always know I was serious when I start speaking in the weird voice. They're like, 'Uh-oh, he's speaking in that weird voice, he must mean it.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Associated Press\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's set in my home town.my earliest memory is of a massive ship, we built the greatest, biggest ships ever constructed from planet Earth at the end of my street. I would watch these things grow and I used to wonder if I was gonna have to end up there. I took up music, realised that was a way to escape. Now I have this huge passion and urge, to go back and try and figure out what it was that I was born into because it was quite a surreal landscape and a very powerful and symbolic one, so as an artist it is your duty to return, at least in a creative way and give that place honour.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, CNN\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I wanted... the music to reflect the musical richness of the culture in the North East which was very rich. It has an original Northumbrian music, kind of Celtic. The history of Northumbrian music is very rich. In the 19th century there was a massive Scottish immigration and then a huge Irish immigration so I was brought up in an Irish community, a Catholic community and so that music added to the texture and . of course rock n roll. so this music reflects all of those influences. There is not much rock n roll in it. It's a mixture of folk music and a tip of the hat to musical theatre.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, CNN\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's a kind of paradox writing about other people but then really ending up writing about yourself and your own conflicted feelings about where you come from. But obviously there are elements of me in it - not least the name. I mean, I chose the name Gideon unconsciously, and it's very close to the name I was given - although no one ever calls me that... I'm hiding in plain sight here. He is an exile, he's very ambivalent about where he comes from. He comes back under duress. And yet he finds himself in the spirit of community, in actually belonging. So yeah, there's something of me there. Not entirely. But there's something of me in all of these characters.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Irish Independent\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If you are being truthful when you write, all of that just comes out. It's like a stream of consciousness. Like being on Freud's couch. It just comes out when you are telling a story. Which is probably the value of story. It allows us to understand ourselves, our history. I've come from a family of disappointed romantic love and I think that's one of the things I'm sorting out. My parents' marriage was a nightmare and I think that's what I'm excavating. Which is not exactly comfortable.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eSting, Irish Independent\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'd been wondering whether I'd lost the mojo. But it turns out I just needed to stop writing about me. Once I said, 'OK, I'm gonna tell somebody else's story,' I freed up and the songs poured out in a very quick way. You need to be on input some of the time, to have something to say before you say it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Los Angeles Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was writing songs for other characters than me, other sensibilities than mine, a different viewpoint and so all of that pent-up stuff, all of those crafts I'd developed as a songwriter, I was suddenly free to explore without much thinking, actually. It just kind of came out as a kind of Tourette's, a kind of projectile vomiting. It just came out, very quickly.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The New York Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The history of pop singers going into this field is littered with corpses. Every line fights for its life. Every couplet, every verse, every song, every character is constantly fighting for its life, even now. I'd write a song which I thought was fantastic - a Grammy-winning song! - and they'd say: ‘No, that's not in the play. It's not advancing the narrative. It's just expressing an emotion, and the narrative is static for three, four minutes. You can't afford that length of time.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The New York Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't think I'm romanticising very much what I experienced as a child of that community I was brought up in. It was incredibly hard and dangerous work. Actually most of the men who worked there ****ing hated it. And yet they had this enormous pride about what they built - this palpable example of their handiwork. So there's this constant ambiguity about the shipyards. They were awful, awful places, and yet they produced the biggest ships in the world, and the whole town was proud of those things.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The demise of the shipyard became a sort of useful metaphor for the demise of my parents. It had a kind of theatrical mood, but there wasn't a narrative - it was just a mood piece. I decided to have a go at trying to make a story out of it. And I read a story about some shipyard workers in Gdansk in Poland who built their own ship. I just loved that. I thought it was a really wacko, Homeric idea. And I thought:  I'll weld that idea to my town.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The Soul Cages is a strange record, probably my least understood or accepted record, but it has a rolling constituency of the recently bereaved. I get a lot of letters from people who say this record gives them some solace. But then I began to think: I wonder if there's a story that we could tell, that would use The Soul Cages as their starting point and have a narrative, with characters. And this thing coincided with a very dry period for me as a songwriter. You know, I hadn't written songs in about eight years, either because I'd lost the juice or I wasn't inspired or I was afraid... I don't know. I make my living as a songwriter so it's kind of worrying when that well runs dry. And as soon as I began to think of writing for other people, for other voices, for other characters, from other viewpoints apart from my own, this stuff started to flow - because I wasn't in the way any more.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was born and raised in Wallsend. It's never been a pretty place. It's a tough place. Nonetheless, I am fiercely proud of it, of being from Wallsend. The ships they built were the biggest ships ever built in the world and yet there was always an ambiguity. It was a tough life those men led. A lot of them hated the yards, but they were fiercely proud of the ships they built with their hands. I lived in Gerald Street, one of those streets leading down to Swan Hunter. That memory of the ship at the end of the street is emblazoned on my memory bank. I’d stand on the pavement and wave my Union Flag as the Queen Mother came down the street in her Rolls-Royce. She actually looked at me. I swear she did. She noticed me.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You know Wallsend has had the heart taken out of it. It used to have a coal mine and it had a shipyard. That was all we had and there’s nothing now. There’s are big holes where both things were. At the same time, Newcastle is kind of thriving. It’s a big shopping centre, a big party town and a big university town. But North Tyneside is still depressed and it deserves better, frankly.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sun\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It was an extraordinary environment to be brought up in. It was such a surreal landscape. These ships would literally blot out the sky. Then to watch a ship launch was a kind of apocalyptic event. You’d never see anything else that size, and the noise of it. The pride in the town was immense. The ships were the largest vessels ever constructed on the planet. The work was incredibly hard, dangerous and unpleasant, yet the workers had something palpable, ‘I did that with my hands’. I think we lack that a bit today. What do we build? What do we make? Obviously the whole community was connected to it. My great grandfather was a North Sea pilot. My grandfather was a shipwright and my father was an engineer in the big engineering works nearby. There were all kinds of master mariners in our family tree going way back.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sun\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“My father would always tell me to go to sea. We’d go to church on a Sunday and he’d take me down to the quayside to see the boats and he would say, ‘Go to sea. See the world’. I did get a seamen’s card but as a musician on a P\u0026amp;O liner. It wasn’t quite what he had in mind.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sun\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I've written far more songs than would be needed in a musical - about 30 of them. What to do with those other songs? Either they weren't advancing the narrative, or the characters they were written for have evolved into something else. So why don't I present the songs in a sort of revue and bring the audience into that process? Also, by singing them you learn a great deal about how the arrangements need to be finished.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Wall Street Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm very keen to write earworms, things that will be catchy and will get people to leave the theatre singing. I've done that in my pop career, but at the same time I didn't want to do a rock musical. I wanted to honour the regional music of the place I come from and the tradition of musical theatre. My education wasn't just rock 'n' roll. It was the complete canon of Rodgers and Hammerstein and \"My Fair Lady\" and \"West Side Story.\" As a kid I ate those records up.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Wall Street Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All About Jazz\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuch like his fellow colleague, musician Peter Gabriel, British singer and songwriter Sting has spent the past decade, since his last album with original material Sacred Love (A\u0026amp;M, 2003) in endless touring, reissues, cover albums and recording past material with a philharmonic orchestra. Far from being inactive or lazy, during that time he also reunited his band Police twice—once for the induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 and for a lucrative world tour in 2007\/08. By his own admission, after the understated and plastic Sacred Music he had been facing a writer's block and had lost interest in writing original material, and the songs on The Last Ship are the first to arrive after a long period of drought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese songs were written for a musical to be premiered in 2014 and that is based on the shipbuilding community of Wallsend in the Northeast of England, where Sting was born and raised. The idea for the play and its symbolism was taken from his album Soul Cages where he first explored it. The Soul Cages, (A\u0026amp;M, 1991) which is one of Sting's finest records, was a thematic song cycle about his hometown, a shipyard town, and the death of his father. The symbolism of the shipyards and its demise had become a metaphor for mortality. He would revisit the memories from that period from his life again in his brilliant memoir Broken Music. The liner notes of The Last Ship read that it is a tale of \"slow death and redundancy of the shipyard that had loomed over my young life and the streets I played in morphed into a grim metaphor for the baleful demise of my parents.\" And when he introduced the idea of making a musical about shipbuilders to a Broadway producer, he was encouraged to try it, and in return that opened the ideas of creativity and desire for writing new songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe play's plot, for which Sting has spent three years working, is a homecoming story set during the decline of the shipbuilding industry in England and the narrative centres on labour strife and family in working class Britain. The central characters are a ship worker father and his rebellious son. And when the story's wandering protagonist returns home after 14 years abroad, he finds the shipyard's future in jeopardy and his youthful picture of the place irrevocably changed. The songs on The Last Ship brim and sparkle with lyrical ideas and ambition where Sting's poetic elegance reaches far and away places that others don't get close to. Musically, the songs are a cross between show tunes and British folk traditions, as the album is more close to the ruminative and tender nature of If on a Winter's Night (Deutsche Grammophon, 2009) than the plastic soul of Sacred Love. Sting is a seasoned song-smith with tunes that are replete with ear-worm melodies. The arrangements are simple and sparse, everything lightly touched, with only swells of strings, piano and other instrumental colours buoying up the guitar and his lush voice. The songs are liquid and amorphous, prone to shape-shifting, rarely offering up an obvious verse and chorus symmetry, or easy interpretation. Rather than writing introspective songs from his viewpoint, this time he wrote the songs from a third person characters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithin this cycle of songs there are many highlights. \"And Yet,\" is a playful number that is sang from a perspective of a sailor returning home wondering about a woman he left behind when he left the port while \"Practical Arrangement\" is a tender and unusual ballad that tells a story of an older man that tries to persuade a single young mother that they would make good housemates. The reprise version of this song is sang in a beautiful duet with Australian jazz singer Jo Lawry. \"What Have We Got\" is a boisterous shanty and a wonderful duet with singer Jimmy Nails. Other collaborations include guest vocals from singers Becky Unthank and Brian Johnson of AC\/DC.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith The Last Ship, Sting joins in a list of artists from the world of pop music that aim for theatre stages where some have found great success and some have not. These songs where he explores the rich heritage of his past, reveal an artist in complete control of his arsenal. Sting is a rare musician whose artistry provides just the right amount of ballast to keep a ship as big as this record buoyant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All Music Guide by Stephen Thomas Erlewine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's an open secret that Sting's interest in songwriting waned after 2003's Sacred Love, an undistinguished collection of mature pop that passed with barely a ripple despite winning a Grammy for its Mary J. Blige duet \"Whenever I Say Your Name.\" Sting spent the next decade wandering - writing classical albums for lute, recording the frostiest Christmas album in memory, rearranging his old hits for symphony, then finally, inevitably, reuniting the Police - before finding inspiration within the confines of a musical. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Last Ship tells the tale of a British shipyard in the '80s, one laid low by changing times, so there's naturally an elegiac undertow to Sting's originals, a sensibility underscored by his decision to ground nearly all these songs in the folk of the British Isles. Dockworkers in the '80s may not have been singing folk songs, but the genre is elastic, allowing for single-spotlight soliloquies along with rousing all-cast showcases, like the boisterous \"What Have We Got?\" Also, by having the bones of his songs belong to folk, Sting can put together a credible album of his own, as the songs from The Last Ship feel intimate in a way he's rarely attempted in his career. He brings in a few guests - Jimmy Nail and Becky Unthank show up on the standard edition, AC\/DC's Brian Johnson, a rock \u0026amp; roll dockworker if there ever was one, shows up on the deluxe - but the focus is entirely on the songwriter. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOccasionally, Sting's desire to inhabit roles within the musical is a little too strong - not long into the album he adopts either a Scottish or Irish brogue, elsewhere he affects a workingman's vernacular, all the while sounding like nobody else but the posh Gordon Sumner - but his songs are precise and cannily crafted, bearing the work of a songwriter who is intent on sculpting every line and every melodic progression. Unlike Sacred Love, The Last Ship isn't listless; even when the album is quiet - which it often is - Sting is engaged, relishing the different characters that inhabit his musical and seizing the challenge of writing in the longform. It's easy to sling arrows at The Last Ship - there is a whiff of condescension to some of the blue-collar anthems, the air is often haughty (\"The Night the Pugilist Learned How to Dance\") - but this is Sting's tightest collection of songs in ages, and they all play off each other, adding up to a cohesive whole that is surely one of his best latter-day records. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Consequence Of Sound by Tony Hardy\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen you achieve a certain stature in music, it comes with full permission to indulge. Sting’s The Last Ship, his first album of original material in 10 years, is a curious indulgence, focusing on the decline and fall of the shipbuilding industry in North East England. However worthy, it’s a highly limited theme, one somewhat surprisingly doubling as a stage play of the same name destined for Broadway. Childhood memories and personal reflections can of course inform broader truths, but it would seem just as odd if a production charting the demise of Detroit’s auto industry were to open in, say, Glasgow. How close the play will follow this soundtrack remains to be seen, but the record is steeped in theatricality from the start.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven that the U.S. struggled to understand Cheryl Cole on The X-Factor, it will be interesting to hear what the American market makes of Sting’s exaggerated Geordie accent on this collection of songs. The title track opens with the traditional rhythms of Tyneside folk, but lyrically goes beyond scene-setting. Arguably it is the album’s pivotal song, as it concerns the final ship built on the famous Swan Hunters shipyard, the very one that cast a shadow over the young Gordon Sumner’s family home, the one that made such a big impression on him. The singer’s semi-autobiographical rejection of following his father into the shipbuilding trade in “Dead Man’s Boots” is delivered with genuine passion, but from then on theatrical artifice takes over.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNonetheless, there are a couple of standouts that you can easily visualize working on stage. The simple confessional of “Practical Arrangement” is pure Sondheim, while Sting’s bawdy duet with fellow Geordie Jimmy Nail on the shanty “What Have We Got” provides a raucous set piece. Less successful is the “Ballad Of The Great Eastern”, whose rhymes evoke the lyric school of Rick Wakeman. The best is saved for the end, with “So To Speak”. Sting’s shipyard worker at the end of his life gives a graphically eloquent last testimony before he is joined by the brittle and beautiful tones of Becky Unthank, whose female perspective also puts a break on over-sentimentality. It ends with a glorious resolution of two notes teased from Northumbrian pipes, so perfect and final that the reprise of “The Last Ship” seems redundant. Such honest moments make this album a worthwhile, if not fully rounded experience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the Montreal Gazette\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor his first full album of original material in a decade, Sting cherry-picks from 40 songs about the demise of Newcastle’s shipbuilding industry, which he hopes to present as a Broadway musical next year. Most surprisingly, the man whose solo work has so often proved difficult to love seems more than up to the task.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven out of their narrative context, many of the song-stories resonate easily and the best of them are even poignant. But the robust melodies are the real draw: mixing Celtic instrumentation and show-tune structures, most of them quickly latch onto your memory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis unrelenting use of a Geordie accent might cause a few eyes to roll, but on the whole, Sting finally seems to have the wind at his back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from New York Daily News by Jim Farber\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's new CD, with songs based on his life, is a powerful opening act for material that's headed to Broadway\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting isn’t himself these days. For his latest solo CD, he doesn’t sing in his own voice, opting instead for newly theatrical enunciations, harder accents and a range of pitches. Also, he isn’t singing from his point of view, but in the guise of various characters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll this makes sense given the CD’s true mission: “The Last Ship” serves as a trial balloon and tease for a full musical by the same name, which producers will bring to Broadway in the fall of 2014. Here the star gets to play all the roles (save two cameos from vocal guests).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI know what Sting-o-phobes are thinking: “Another reach by a pretentious prat.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn fact, “The Last Ship” has an intelligence, beauty and pitch-black wit that makes it both a worthy solo project and a solid blueprint for something to be fleshed out later on stage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIronically, this assemblage of character portraits winds up making more of a personal statement than Sting has issued in a decade. It doesn’t hurt that it’s his first CD of original material since 2003’s muted attempt at a soul CD, “Sacred Love.” Here, he’s writing about his youth in the ’50s, growing up in the dying days of the shipbuilding industry that once defined his hometown of Wallsend in North England.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAccordingly, much of the music borrows from Celtic sea chanteys, theatricalized by an orchestra. At the same time, it glides through European waltzes and adds a few pop flourishes that recall Sting tunes of old. Given its acoustic core and dire subject matter, it’s an incredibly intimate and downbeat work for a musical. If staged as is, it would make “Once” look like “Oklahoma!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt probably won’t be presented that way. But this spare form lets listeners appreciate the essential beauty of the tunes and the richness of Sting’s poetry. The lyrics to “Practical Arrangement” have a conversational realism that’s nearly Sondheimian. While the star’s more literary writing in a pop context can seem self-conscious, here it’s right at home. He captures both the hardness of the shipping life and the fatalism of the characters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe cameos come from Becky Unthank, who recalls the ghostly flutter of Brit-trad; Sandy Denny, and Jimmy Nail, who provides one of the disc’s few potential show-stoppers. Even here the subject is rough. But in these smart, subtle songs, there’s a certain somber grandeur.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the Pittsburgh Tribune by Bob Karlovits\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom his days with the Police to the present, Sting consistently has created music that reflects his consistent encounter with life and its challenges. “The Last Ship” is a collection of new songs that create allegories for life, love, growth, rejection and alienation. The songs sometimes drift into a strong Celtic flavor but all have the recognizable shape and sound of his work. Orchestrated for a small group with fiddles, strings, pipes and a variety of keyboards, the songs include the title track, “August Winds” and “Ballad of the Great Eastern” that all deal with his upbringing in a ship-building town. But perhaps the best song on the album is “Practical Arrangement,” a look at a sensible plan for an domestic agreement. That song has such poetic beauty it almost demands a film or a play to go with it. In the liner notes, Sting bemoans his lack of writing in the past few years. If this album is the product of that layoff, he has done nothing wrong.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Pop Matters by Kevin Catchpole\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting the pop star is gone, but something equally interesting has taken his place\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith the release of The Last Ship, many fans may wonder if Sting the pop singer has returned. The answer comes quickly with a resounding “No, but I haven’t forgotten all I learned while I wore that hat.” Since Sacred Love, Sting has worn many hats - but ever since then, he has strayed far from the mantle of Sting the pop singer. Whether it was the cerebral, brooding holiday album he released with If on a Winter’s Night or the Dowland reworkings assisted by Edin Karamazov, his body of work was varied and interesting indeed, if not as accessible as previously. There is a layer of accessibility that comes back on this release, as this album plays out like a long-after-the-fact sequel or companion piece to Sting’s underrated 1991 work, The Soul Cages. Listeners looking for soaring classics like “If I Ever Lose my Faith in You” might be disappointed - but that disappointment gives way to a rich reward for those willing to look.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs musicals go, this one has its upbeat moments - even if they are often shot through with a sense of gloom, which is to be expected, considering the subject matter. While The Soul Cages was a moving elegy to his father and a brief touchpoint on the struggles of being a shipbuilder in Britain as the industry began to decline, this album takes those touchpoints and blows them wide open. Not surprisingly, it does this with muted, relaxed tones - all the while staying grounded in folk music. Given the sounds he dabbled with on Songs of the Labyrinth, it is possible to see that album as a practice run for this disc - even if it is less lute-centric.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOpening up with the title track, snatches of uilleann pipes dart into view, then back out again, painting an eerie picture of a spirit locked in an endless cycle - hard labor is done, a new ship is built, it sails away, and the cycle starts again. Some have panned the thick brogue he adopts on this track - but truthfully, it’s nice to hear Sting emote with his voice in a manner outside of his comfort zone. Even though his pop albums may have featured skillful singing, at times he sounded too much the same from album to album. Oddly enough, the lush yet ethereal instrumentation calls to mind the style from two of Sting’s past works - once more a throwback to The Soul Cages, but bearing the still-more-funereal vibe of his less-successful Mercury Falling. This is the sort of fusion that only works if done well, and here it most definitely is.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a fine stage-setter, the more stripped-down “Dead Man’s Boots” is equal parts father urging his son to take up the family calling and a son deciding to say the hell with it all. It’s one of the more harsh moments to be had in this story, but it’s a natural moment in this sort of story, and Sting sells it with a flourish not often heard when putting such thoughts to music. The narrative skips ahead a bit jarringly on the third track; “And Then” and its ode to the free-wandering-spirit kind of life can clash at times with old-school Sting musings of “Why would she wait for me?” - a feeling that sets in during the latter half of the album with tracks like “I Love Her But She Loves Someone Else”. In songs like these, we not only get to hear about the actions of the wandering spirit, we get to hear the consequences as well - a combination which makes for a far more complete picture - and coming as it does in the second half of the album, it flows more naturally with the story - at least as can be discerned by the disc. The play itself may yet spin this piece of the tale more naturally - which is difficult to say absent a viewing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch latter-half regret seems a bit surprising to the ear, considering the “Wandering spirit finds his clever side” ramble of “The Night the Pugilist Learned to Dance”. It suggests very much a glimpse of the protagonist learning some valuable lessons in courtship, and yet those lessons seem learned too late later on in the course of the story - too late to make the “Practical arrangement” Sting sings of midway through work, certainly. Tracks like these might suggest a bit of fleeting happiness, but all that happiness ends up dashed in the end. Elsewhere, there are pleasant sounds of quiet reflection in the protagonist’s journeys like “August Winds” and “Ballad of the Great Eastern”; the latter is the track that most nakedly recalls the sound, mood and tone of “The Soul Cages”. This quiet reflection gives way to what is sure to be one of the stage show’s rousing set pieces, “What Have We Got?”, which finds Sting in traditional Irish-stomper mode - definitely a long way from his comfort zone of echoing, atmospheric soundscapes, but one that suits the story - and the rest of the album - quite well. It plays neatly to the fatalistic bent of the story - offering a cornucopia of details of life working in the shipyards, a few of them very pleasant, but at the same time bringing a firm sense of “Well, it’s a life.” Plus, when the music is this upbeat, it sends off a strong message of learning to make the best of what you have, even if what you have isn’t the most appealing thing to the untrained ears and eyes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting the pop singer is clearly not returning any time soon - but for better or worse, he manages to shine onThe Last Ship. It is an ode to simpler times, an homage to his family history - and indeed, the history of shipbuilders in general. More importantly, it manages to take all he has learned since his days in the Police, and spins a tale that is by turns riveting, exciting, and heart-wrenchingly sad - but given the source of this material, also unflinchingly real. If Sting the pop star is something the music world will never see again, then the newly and unflinchingly honest tone to his music is a fine thing to experience in the here and now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by Anthony DeCurtis\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Last Ship is Sting's first album of new material he wrote himself in a decade, and it continues his effort to find fresh ways to connect with his audience. It's a collection of songs for an original play about the destruction of the shipping industry in Newcastle, the English port city where he grew up, as well as a meditation on mortality, community and fatherhood. The ballad \"I Love Her but She Loves Someone Else\" evokes the erotic despair that he has always found seductive, and even with orchestration the arrangements are spare and haunting. The play won't open until next year, so for now all the drama in these songs is internal, and all the more riveting for that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the Star Ledger by Tris McCall\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause no rock star wears his erudition any prouder, Americans tend to think of Sting as a toff. Actually, the songwriter was born in Britain’s working-class north. He’s from the shipbuilding Tyneside, and he’s turned his early memories of hardscrabble living and broken families into a musical that’ll land on Broadway next year. \"The Last Ship\" is an album of songs written for the show, and besides two guest appearances from Northumberland folksingers Becky Unthank and Jimmy Nail, Sting sings the whole thing himself in various tortured brogues. That takes some getting used to. But once you do, \"The Last Ship\" plays like a loving chronicle of a part of the U.K. that few Americans bother to visit. The wordy storytelling songs conjure a definite sense of place: \"Dead Man’s Boots\" is a conversation between a hardworking father on his docks and a rebellious son, \"Ballad of the Great Eastern\" tells the tale of the real-life shipbuilder Isambard Brunel, and \"Practical Arrangement\" confronts love in hard times. While the arrangements are more Broadway than rock ’n’ roll, this is nothing we haven’t heard from Sting before. Anybody who loved the more theatrical side of his \"The Dream of the Blue Turtles\" solo disc - \"Children’s Crusade,\" say, or \"Moon Over Bourbon Street\"- will be right at home here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from That Mag by Jane Roser\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReleased today by Cherrytree\/Interscope\/A\u0026amp;M Records, Sting’s 11th studio album and his first full length recording of original material in 10 years, is a different avenue for the 16-time Grammy winner. The Last Ship is basically the soundtrack to the play by the same name that Sting has been working on for the past three years and makes it’s debut on Broadway next year. The play and the subsequent album were inspired by Sting’s childhood memories of growing up near the shipyards of Wallsend, England. The shipbuilding industry in the town collapsed in the 1980s when the shipyard closed. As the U.K.’s Daily Record‘s Annie Brown recalls ‘[Margaret] Thatcher swept like a wrecking ball through the mines, the steel industry, the car factories, shipbuilding and engineering and oversaw the demise of the communities which had built their livelihood around them.” Think of Sting as the Springsteen of England and this album is his “Death To My Hometown”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeaturing regional guest musicians, including Brian Johnson of AC\/DC, Jimmy Nail, folk group The Unthanks and Kathryn Tickell who plays fiddle and small pipes not only on this album, but on previous Sting recordings, the album is folky in it’s feeling with a slight Celtic tinge. The songs tell of love and family lost, the lyrics are heartfelt and intricate poems, reminding me slightly of 1993's Ten Summoner’s Tales.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Practical Arrangement” sounds a bit like a Broadway play, which I suppose was intentional. “I’m not promising the moon. I’m not promising a rainbow. Just a practical solution to a solitary life.” It wouldn’t have been my choice as an early YouTube release, but it’s what his label decided upon. “And Yet” is better. The lyrics are more delicate and relate able.”This town has a strange magnetic pull, like a homing signal in your skull and you sail by the stars in the hemisphere, wondering how in the hell did you end up here.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting is a born storyteller and like James Bond, nobody does it better.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155997560914,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_e1c5f87b-201d-4de2-adde-f140d8a4f33a.jpg?v=1758315209"},{"product_id":"the-last-ship-super-deluxe-package","title":"The Last Ship (super deluxe package)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"You can't use 30 songs in a musical theatre production. It doesn't need it. So I have a lot of excess songs. And that process is interesting because every song will fight for its life; every couplet fights for its life; every verse fights for its life; every refrain, every bridge. Unless it's moving the story forward, moving the narrative forward, they get rid of it. And that's kind of cruel and painful if you've spent a lot of time writing a song and crafting a song.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There were no clues in my environment that you leave that environment and fare well and be successful. My parents didn't really understand what my dreams were, they just thought I was crazy, because I had just given up a job with a pension and the security, in their eyes. My dad really didn't understand till the end of his days what the hell I was doing. He though that I should have had a proper job. Maybe he was right. I wanted to take a risk and be a star. I don't know where I got the confidence from. I just got lucky.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Associated Press\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A good song can last for three minutes and you're just expressing one emotion. You can't have that in the theater. The narrative needs to be advanced as the song is being sung.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Associated Press\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I used the dialect that I was raised in. I only ever use it now when I threaten people or when I get really angry. My kids would always know I was serious when I start speaking in the weird voice. They're like, 'Uh-oh, he's speaking in that weird voice, he must mean it.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Associated Press\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's set in my home town.my earliest memory is of a massive ship, we built the greatest, biggest ships ever constructed from planet Earth at the end of my street. I would watch these things grow and I used to wonder if I was gonna have to end up there. I took up music, realised that was a way to escape. Now I have this huge passion and urge, to go back and try and figure out what it was that I was born into because it was quite a surreal landscape and a very powerful and symbolic one, so as an artist it is your duty to return, at least in a creative way and give that place honour.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, CNN\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I wanted... the music to reflect the musical richness of the culture in the North East which was very rich. It has an original Northumbrian music, kind of Celtic. The history of Northumbrian music is very rich. In the 19th century there was a massive Scottish immigration and then a huge Irish immigration so I was brought up in an Irish community, a Catholic community and so that music added to the texture and . of course rock n roll. so this music reflects all of those influences. There is not much rock n roll in it. It's a mixture of folk music and a tip of the hat to musical theatre.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, CNN\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's a kind of paradox writing about other people but then really ending up writing about yourself and your own conflicted feelings about where you come from. But obviously there are elements of me in it - not least the name. I mean, I chose the name Gideon unconsciously, and it's very close to the name I was given - although no one ever calls me that... I'm hiding in plain sight here. He is an exile, he's very ambivalent about where he comes from. He comes back under duress. And yet he finds himself in the spirit of community, in actually belonging. So yeah, there's something of me there. Not entirely. But there's something of me in all of these characters.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Irish Independent\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If you are being truthful when you write, all of that just comes out. It's like a stream of consciousness. Like being on Freud's couch. It just comes out when you are telling a story. Which is probably the value of story. It allows us to understand ourselves, our history. I've come from a family of disappointed romantic love and I think that's one of the things I'm sorting out. My parents' marriage was a nightmare and I think that's what I'm excavating. Which is not exactly comfortable.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eSting, Irish Independent\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'd been wondering whether I'd lost the mojo. But it turns out I just needed to stop writing about me. Once I said, 'OK, I'm gonna tell somebody else's story,' I freed up and the songs poured out in a very quick way. You need to be on input some of the time, to have something to say before you say it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Los Angeles Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was writing songs for other characters than me, other sensibilities than mine, a different viewpoint and so all of that pent-up stuff, all of those crafts I'd developed as a songwriter, I was suddenly free to explore without much thinking, actually. It just kind of came out as a kind of Tourette's, a kind of projectile vomiting. It just came out, very quickly.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The New York Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The history of pop singers going into this field is littered with corpses. Every line fights for its life. Every couplet, every verse, every song, every character is constantly fighting for its life, even now. I'd write a song which I thought was fantastic - a Grammy-winning song! - and they'd say: ‘No, that's not in the play. It's not advancing the narrative. It's just expressing an emotion, and the narrative is static for three, four minutes. You can't afford that length of time.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The New York Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I don't think I'm romanticising very much what I experienced as a child of that community I was brought up in. It was incredibly hard and dangerous work. Actually most of the men who worked there ****ing hated it. And yet they had this enormous pride about what they built - this palpable example of their handiwork. So there's this constant ambiguity about the shipyards. They were awful, awful places, and yet they produced the biggest ships in the world, and the whole town was proud of those things.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The demise of the shipyard became a sort of useful metaphor for the demise of my parents. It had a kind of theatrical mood, but there wasn't a narrative - it was just a mood piece. I decided to have a go at trying to make a story out of it. And I read a story about some shipyard workers in Gdansk in Poland who built their own ship. I just loved that. I thought it was a really wacko, Homeric idea. And I thought:  I'll weld that idea to my town.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The Soul Cages is a strange record, probably my least understood or accepted record, but it has a rolling constituency of the recently bereaved. I get a lot of letters from people who say this record gives them some solace. But then I began to think: I wonder if there's a story that we could tell, that would use The Soul Cages as their starting point and have a narrative, with characters. And this thing coincided with a very dry period for me as a songwriter. You know, I hadn't written songs in about eight years, either because I'd lost the juice or I wasn't inspired or I was afraid... I don't know. I make my living as a songwriter so it's kind of worrying when that well runs dry. And as soon as I began to think of writing for other people, for other voices, for other characters, from other viewpoints apart from my own, this stuff started to flow - because I wasn't in the way any more.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I was born and raised in Wallsend. It's never been a pretty place. It's a tough place. Nonetheless, I am fiercely proud of it, of being from Wallsend. The ships they built were the biggest ships ever built in the world and yet there was always an ambiguity. It was a tough life those men led. A lot of them hated the yards, but they were fiercely proud of the ships they built with their hands. I lived in Gerald Street, one of those streets leading down to Swan Hunter. That memory of the ship at the end of the street is emblazoned on my memory bank. I’d stand on the pavement and wave my Union Flag as the Queen Mother came down the street in her Rolls-Royce. She actually looked at me. I swear she did. She noticed me.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You know Wallsend has had the heart taken out of it. It used to have a coal mine and it had a shipyard. That was all we had and there’s nothing now. There’s are big holes where both things were. At the same time, Newcastle is kind of thriving. It’s a big shopping centre, a big party town and a big university town. But North Tyneside is still depressed and it deserves better, frankly.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sun\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It was an extraordinary environment to be brought up in. It was such a surreal landscape. These ships would literally blot out the sky. Then to watch a ship launch was a kind of apocalyptic event. You’d never see anything else that size, and the noise of it. The pride in the town was immense. The ships were the largest vessels ever constructed on the planet. The work was incredibly hard, dangerous and unpleasant, yet the workers had something palpable, ‘I did that with my hands’. I think we lack that a bit today. What do we build? What do we make? Obviously the whole community was connected to it. My great grandfather was a North Sea pilot. My grandfather was a shipwright and my father was an engineer in the big engineering works nearby. There were all kinds of master mariners in our family tree going way back.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sun\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“My father would always tell me to go to sea. We’d go to church on a Sunday and he’d take me down to the quayside to see the boats and he would say, ‘Go to sea. See the world’. I did get a seamen’s card but as a musician on a P\u0026amp;O liner. It wasn’t quite what he had in mind.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Sun\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I've written far more songs than would be needed in a musical - about 30 of them. What to do with those other songs? Either they weren't advancing the narrative, or the characters they were written for have evolved into something else. So why don't I present the songs in a sort of revue and bring the audience into that process? Also, by singing them you learn a great deal about how the arrangements need to be finished.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Wall Street Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm very keen to write earworms, things that will be catchy and will get people to leave the theatre singing. I've done that in my pop career, but at the same time I didn't want to do a rock musical. I wanted to honour the regional music of the place I come from and the tradition of musical theatre. My education wasn't just rock 'n' roll. It was the complete canon of Rodgers and Hammerstein and \"My Fair Lady\" and \"West Side Story.\" As a kid I ate those records up.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, The Wall Street Journal\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e \u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All About Jazz\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuch like his fellow colleague, musician Peter Gabriel, British singer and songwriter Sting has spent the past decade, since his last album with original material Sacred Love (A\u0026amp;M, 2003) in endless touring, reissues, cover albums and recording past material with a philharmonic orchestra. Far from being inactive or lazy, during that time he also reunited his band Police twice—once for the induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 and for a lucrative world tour in 2007\/08. By his own admission, after the understated and plastic Sacred Music he had been facing a writer's block and had lost interest in writing original material, and the songs on The Last Ship are the first to arrive after a long period of drought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese songs were written for a musical to be premiered in 2014 and that is based on the shipbuilding community of Wallsend in the Northeast of England, where Sting was born and raised. The idea for the play and its symbolism was taken from his album Soul Cages where he first explored it. The Soul Cages, (A\u0026amp;M, 1991) which is one of Sting's finest records, was a thematic song cycle about his hometown, a shipyard town, and the death of his father. The symbolism of the shipyards and its demise had become a metaphor for mortality. He would revisit the memories from that period from his life again in his brilliant memoir Broken Music. The liner notes of The Last Ship read that it is a tale of \"slow death and redundancy of the shipyard that had loomed over my young life and the streets I played in morphed into a grim metaphor for the baleful demise of my parents.\" And when he introduced the idea of making a musical about shipbuilders to a Broadway producer, he was encouraged to try it, and in return that opened the ideas of creativity and desire for writing new songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe play's plot, for which Sting has spent three years working, is a homecoming story set during the decline of the shipbuilding industry in England and the narrative centres on labour strife and family in working class Britain. The central characters are a ship worker father and his rebellious son. And when the story's wandering protagonist returns home after 14 years abroad, he finds the shipyard's future in jeopardy and his youthful picture of the place irrevocably changed. The songs on The Last Ship brim and sparkle with lyrical ideas and ambition where Sting's poetic elegance reaches far and away places that others don't get close to. Musically, the songs are a cross between show tunes and British folk traditions, as the album is more close to the ruminative and tender nature of If on a Winter's Night (Deutsche Grammophon, 2009) than the plastic soul of Sacred Love. Sting is a seasoned song-smith with tunes that are replete with ear-worm melodies. The arrangements are simple and sparse, everything lightly touched, with only swells of strings, piano and other instrumental colours buoying up the guitar and his lush voice. The songs are liquid and amorphous, prone to shape-shifting, rarely offering up an obvious verse and chorus symmetry, or easy interpretation. Rather than writing introspective songs from his viewpoint, this time he wrote the songs from a third person characters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithin this cycle of songs there are many highlights. \"And Yet,\" is a playful number that is sang from a perspective of a sailor returning home wondering about a woman he left behind when he left the port while \"Practical Arrangement\" is a tender and unusual ballad that tells a story of an older man that tries to persuade a single young mother that they would make good housemates. The reprise version of this song is sang in a beautiful duet with Australian jazz singer Jo Lawry. \"What Have We Got\" is a boisterous shanty and a wonderful duet with singer Jimmy Nails. Other collaborations include guest vocals from singers Becky Unthank and Brian Johnson of AC\/DC.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith The Last Ship, Sting joins in a list of artists from the world of pop music that aim for theatre stages where some have found great success and some have not. These songs where he explores the rich heritage of his past, reveal an artist in complete control of his arsenal. Sting is a rare musician whose artistry provides just the right amount of ballast to keep a ship as big as this record buoyant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All Music Guide by Stephen Thomas Erlewine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's an open secret that Sting's interest in songwriting waned after 2003's Sacred Love, an undistinguished collection of mature pop that passed with barely a ripple despite winning a Grammy for its Mary J. Blige duet \"Whenever I Say Your Name.\" Sting spent the next decade wandering - writing classical albums for lute, recording the frostiest Christmas album in memory, rearranging his old hits for symphony, then finally, inevitably, reuniting the Police - before finding inspiration within the confines of a musical. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Last Ship tells the tale of a British shipyard in the '80s, one laid low by changing times, so there's naturally an elegiac undertow to Sting's originals, a sensibility underscored by his decision to ground nearly all these songs in the folk of the British Isles. Dockworkers in the '80s may not have been singing folk songs, but the genre is elastic, allowing for single-spotlight soliloquies along with rousing all-cast showcases, like the boisterous \"What Have We Got?\" Also, by having the bones of his songs belong to folk, Sting can put together a credible album of his own, as the songs from The Last Ship feel intimate in a way he's rarely attempted in his career. He brings in a few guests - Jimmy Nail and Becky Unthank show up on the standard edition, AC\/DC's Brian Johnson, a rock \u0026amp; roll dockworker if there ever was one, shows up on the deluxe - but the focus is entirely on the songwriter. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOccasionally, Sting's desire to inhabit roles within the musical is a little too strong - not long into the album he adopts either a Scottish or Irish brogue, elsewhere he affects a workingman's vernacular, all the while sounding like nobody else but the posh Gordon Sumner - but his songs are precise and cannily crafted, bearing the work of a songwriter who is intent on sculpting every line and every melodic progression. Unlike Sacred Love, The Last Ship isn't listless; even when the album is quiet - which it often is - Sting is engaged, relishing the different characters that inhabit his musical and seizing the challenge of writing in the longform. It's easy to sling arrows at The Last Ship - there is a whiff of condescension to some of the blue-collar anthems, the air is often haughty (\"The Night the Pugilist Learned How to Dance\") - but this is Sting's tightest collection of songs in ages, and they all play off each other, adding up to a cohesive whole that is surely one of his best latter-day records. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Consequence Of Sound by Tony Hardy\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen you achieve a certain stature in music, it comes with full permission to indulge. Sting’s The Last Ship, his first album of original material in 10 years, is a curious indulgence, focusing on the decline and fall of the shipbuilding industry in North East England. However worthy, it’s a highly limited theme, one somewhat surprisingly doubling as a stage play of the same name destined for Broadway. Childhood memories and personal reflections can of course inform broader truths, but it would seem just as odd if a production charting the demise of Detroit’s auto industry were to open in, say, Glasgow. How close the play will follow this soundtrack remains to be seen, but the record is steeped in theatricality from the start.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven that the U.S. struggled to understand Cheryl Cole on The X-Factor, it will be interesting to hear what the American market makes of Sting’s exaggerated Geordie accent on this collection of songs. The title track opens with the traditional rhythms of Tyneside folk, but lyrically goes beyond scene-setting. Arguably it is the album’s pivotal song, as it concerns the final ship built on the famous Swan Hunters shipyard, the very one that cast a shadow over the young Gordon Sumner’s family home, the one that made such a big impression on him. The singer’s semi-autobiographical rejection of following his father into the shipbuilding trade in “Dead Man’s Boots” is delivered with genuine passion, but from then on theatrical artifice takes over.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNonetheless, there are a couple of standouts that you can easily visualize working on stage. The simple confessional of “Practical Arrangement” is pure Sondheim, while Sting’s bawdy duet with fellow Geordie Jimmy Nail on the shanty “What Have We Got” provides a raucous set piece. Less successful is the “Ballad Of The Great Eastern”, whose rhymes evoke the lyric school of Rick Wakeman. The best is saved for the end, with “So To Speak”. Sting’s shipyard worker at the end of his life gives a graphically eloquent last testimony before he is joined by the brittle and beautiful tones of Becky Unthank, whose female perspective also puts a break on over-sentimentality. It ends with a glorious resolution of two notes teased from Northumbrian pipes, so perfect and final that the reprise of “The Last Ship” seems redundant. Such honest moments make this album a worthwhile, if not fully rounded experience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the Montreal Gazette\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor his first full album of original material in a decade, Sting cherry-picks from 40 songs about the demise of Newcastle’s shipbuilding industry, which he hopes to present as a Broadway musical next year. Most surprisingly, the man whose solo work has so often proved difficult to love seems more than up to the task.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven out of their narrative context, many of the song-stories resonate easily and the best of them are even poignant. But the robust melodies are the real draw: mixing Celtic instrumentation and show-tune structures, most of them quickly latch onto your memory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis unrelenting use of a Geordie accent might cause a few eyes to roll, but on the whole, Sting finally seems to have the wind at his back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from New York Daily News by Jim Farber\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's new CD, with songs based on his life, is a powerful opening act for material that's headed to Broadway\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting isn’t himself these days. For his latest solo CD, he doesn’t sing in his own voice, opting instead for newly theatrical enunciations, harder accents and a range of pitches. Also, he isn’t singing from his point of view, but in the guise of various characters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll this makes sense given the CD’s true mission: “The Last Ship” serves as a trial balloon and tease for a full musical by the same name, which producers will bring to Broadway in the fall of 2014. Here the star gets to play all the roles (save two cameos from vocal guests).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI know what Sting-o-phobes are thinking: “Another reach by a pretentious prat.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn fact, “The Last Ship” has an intelligence, beauty and pitch-black wit that makes it both a worthy solo project and a solid blueprint for something to be fleshed out later on stage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIronically, this assemblage of character portraits winds up making more of a personal statement than Sting has issued in a decade. It doesn’t hurt that it’s his first CD of original material since 2003’s muted attempt at a soul CD, “Sacred Love.” Here, he’s writing about his youth in the ’50s, growing up in the dying days of the shipbuilding industry that once defined his hometown of Wallsend in North England.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAccordingly, much of the music borrows from Celtic sea chanteys, theatricalized by an orchestra. At the same time, it glides through European waltzes and adds a few pop flourishes that recall Sting tunes of old. Given its acoustic core and dire subject matter, it’s an incredibly intimate and downbeat work for a musical. If staged as is, it would make “Once” look like “Oklahoma!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt probably won’t be presented that way. But this spare form lets listeners appreciate the essential beauty of the tunes and the richness of Sting’s poetry. The lyrics to “Practical Arrangement” have a conversational realism that’s nearly Sondheimian. While the star’s more literary writing in a pop context can seem self-conscious, here it’s right at home. He captures both the hardness of the shipping life and the fatalism of the characters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe cameos come from Becky Unthank, who recalls the ghostly flutter of Brit-trad; Sandy Denny, and Jimmy Nail, who provides one of the disc’s few potential show-stoppers. Even here the subject is rough. But in these smart, subtle songs, there’s a certain somber grandeur.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the Pittsburgh Tribune by Bob Karlovits\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom his days with the Police to the present, Sting consistently has created music that reflects his consistent encounter with life and its challenges. “The Last Ship” is a collection of new songs that create allegories for life, love, growth, rejection and alienation. The songs sometimes drift into a strong Celtic flavor but all have the recognizable shape and sound of his work. Orchestrated for a small group with fiddles, strings, pipes and a variety of keyboards, the songs include the title track, “August Winds” and “Ballad of the Great Eastern” that all deal with his upbringing in a ship-building town. But perhaps the best song on the album is “Practical Arrangement,” a look at a sensible plan for an domestic agreement. That song has such poetic beauty it almost demands a film or a play to go with it. In the liner notes, Sting bemoans his lack of writing in the past few years. If this album is the product of that layoff, he has done nothing wrong.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Pop Matters by Kevin Catchpole\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting the pop star is gone, but something equally interesting has taken his place\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith the release of The Last Ship, many fans may wonder if Sting the pop singer has returned. The answer comes quickly with a resounding “No, but I haven’t forgotten all I learned while I wore that hat.” Since Sacred Love, Sting has worn many hats - but ever since then, he has strayed far from the mantle of Sting the pop singer. Whether it was the cerebral, brooding holiday album he released with If on a Winter’s Night or the Dowland reworkings assisted by Edin Karamazov, his body of work was varied and interesting indeed, if not as accessible as previously. There is a layer of accessibility that comes back on this release, as this album plays out like a long-after-the-fact sequel or companion piece to Sting’s underrated 1991 work, The Soul Cages. Listeners looking for soaring classics like “If I Ever Lose my Faith in You” might be disappointed - but that disappointment gives way to a rich reward for those willing to look.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs musicals go, this one has its upbeat moments - even if they are often shot through with a sense of gloom, which is to be expected, considering the subject matter. While The Soul Cages was a moving elegy to his father and a brief touchpoint on the struggles of being a shipbuilder in Britain as the industry began to decline, this album takes those touchpoints and blows them wide open. Not surprisingly, it does this with muted, relaxed tones - all the while staying grounded in folk music. Given the sounds he dabbled with on Songs of the Labyrinth, it is possible to see that album as a practice run for this disc - even if it is less lute-centric.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOpening up with the title track, snatches of uilleann pipes dart into view, then back out again, painting an eerie picture of a spirit locked in an endless cycle - hard labor is done, a new ship is built, it sails away, and the cycle starts again. Some have panned the thick brogue he adopts on this track - but truthfully, it’s nice to hear Sting emote with his voice in a manner outside of his comfort zone. Even though his pop albums may have featured skillful singing, at times he sounded too much the same from album to album. Oddly enough, the lush yet ethereal instrumentation calls to mind the style from two of Sting’s past works - once more a throwback to The Soul Cages, but bearing the still-more-funereal vibe of his less-successful Mercury Falling. This is the sort of fusion that only works if done well, and here it most definitely is.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a fine stage-setter, the more stripped-down “Dead Man’s Boots” is equal parts father urging his son to take up the family calling and a son deciding to say the hell with it all. It’s one of the more harsh moments to be had in this story, but it’s a natural moment in this sort of story, and Sting sells it with a flourish not often heard when putting such thoughts to music. The narrative skips ahead a bit jarringly on the third track; “And Then” and its ode to the free-wandering-spirit kind of life can clash at times with old-school Sting musings of “Why would she wait for me?” - a feeling that sets in during the latter half of the album with tracks like “I Love Her But She Loves Someone Else”. In songs like these, we not only get to hear about the actions of the wandering spirit, we get to hear the consequences as well - a combination which makes for a far more complete picture - and coming as it does in the second half of the album, it flows more naturally with the story - at least as can be discerned by the disc. The play itself may yet spin this piece of the tale more naturally - which is difficult to say absent a viewing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch latter-half regret seems a bit surprising to the ear, considering the “Wandering spirit finds his clever side” ramble of “The Night the Pugilist Learned to Dance”. It suggests very much a glimpse of the protagonist learning some valuable lessons in courtship, and yet those lessons seem learned too late later on in the course of the story - too late to make the “Practical arrangement” Sting sings of midway through work, certainly. Tracks like these might suggest a bit of fleeting happiness, but all that happiness ends up dashed in the end. Elsewhere, there are pleasant sounds of quiet reflection in the protagonist’s journeys like “August Winds” and “Ballad of the Great Eastern”; the latter is the track that most nakedly recalls the sound, mood and tone of “The Soul Cages”. This quiet reflection gives way to what is sure to be one of the stage show’s rousing set pieces, “What Have We Got?”, which finds Sting in traditional Irish-stomper mode - definitely a long way from his comfort zone of echoing, atmospheric soundscapes, but one that suits the story - and the rest of the album - quite well. It plays neatly to the fatalistic bent of the story - offering a cornucopia of details of life working in the shipyards, a few of them very pleasant, but at the same time bringing a firm sense of “Well, it’s a life.” Plus, when the music is this upbeat, it sends off a strong message of learning to make the best of what you have, even if what you have isn’t the most appealing thing to the untrained ears and eyes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting the pop singer is clearly not returning any time soon - but for better or worse, he manages to shine onThe Last Ship. It is an ode to simpler times, an homage to his family history - and indeed, the history of shipbuilders in general. More importantly, it manages to take all he has learned since his days in the Police, and spins a tale that is by turns riveting, exciting, and heart-wrenchingly sad - but given the source of this material, also unflinchingly real. If Sting the pop star is something the music world will never see again, then the newly and unflinchingly honest tone to his music is a fine thing to experience in the here and now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by Anthony DeCurtis\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Last Ship is Sting's first album of new material he wrote himself in a decade, and it continues his effort to find fresh ways to connect with his audience. It's a collection of songs for an original play about the destruction of the shipping industry in Newcastle, the English port city where he grew up, as well as a meditation on mortality, community and fatherhood. The ballad \"I Love Her but She Loves Someone Else\" evokes the erotic despair that he has always found seductive, and even with orchestration the arrangements are spare and haunting. The play won't open until next year, so for now all the drama in these songs is internal, and all the more riveting for that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from the Star Ledger by Tris McCall\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause no rock star wears his erudition any prouder, Americans tend to think of Sting as a toff. Actually, the songwriter was born in Britain’s working-class north. He’s from the shipbuilding Tyneside, and he’s turned his early memories of hardscrabble living and broken families into a musical that’ll land on Broadway next year. \"The Last Ship\" is an album of songs written for the show, and besides two guest appearances from Northumberland folksingers Becky Unthank and Jimmy Nail, Sting sings the whole thing himself in various tortured brogues. That takes some getting used to. But once you do, \"The Last Ship\" plays like a loving chronicle of a part of the U.K. that few Americans bother to visit. The wordy storytelling songs conjure a definite sense of place: \"Dead Man’s Boots\" is a conversation between a hardworking father on his docks and a rebellious son, \"Ballad of the Great Eastern\" tells the tale of the real-life shipbuilder Isambard Brunel, and \"Practical Arrangement\" confronts love in hard times. While the arrangements are more Broadway than rock ’n’ roll, this is nothing we haven’t heard from Sting before. Anybody who loved the more theatrical side of his \"The Dream of the Blue Turtles\" solo disc - \"Children’s Crusade,\" say, or \"Moon Over Bourbon Street\"- will be right at home here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from That Mag by Jane Roser\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReleased today by Cherrytree\/Interscope\/A\u0026amp;M Records, Sting’s 11th studio album and his first full length recording of original material in 10 years, is a different avenue for the 16-time Grammy winner. The Last Ship is basically the soundtrack to the play by the same name that Sting has been working on for the past three years and makes it’s debut on Broadway next year. The play and the subsequent album were inspired by Sting’s childhood memories of growing up near the shipyards of Wallsend, England. The shipbuilding industry in the town collapsed in the 1980s when the shipyard closed. As the U.K.’s Daily Record‘s Annie Brown recalls ‘[Margaret] Thatcher swept like a wrecking ball through the mines, the steel industry, the car factories, shipbuilding and engineering and oversaw the demise of the communities which had built their livelihood around them.” Think of Sting as the Springsteen of England and this album is his “Death To My Hometown”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeaturing regional guest musicians, including Brian Johnson of AC\/DC, Jimmy Nail, folk group The Unthanks and Kathryn Tickell who plays fiddle and small pipes not only on this album, but on previous Sting recordings, the album is folky in it’s feeling with a slight Celtic tinge. The songs tell of love and family lost, the lyrics are heartfelt and intricate poems, reminding me slightly of 1993's Ten Summoner’s Tales.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Practical Arrangement” sounds a bit like a Broadway play, which I suppose was intentional. “I’m not promising the moon. I’m not promising a rainbow. Just a practical solution to a solitary life.” It wouldn’t have been my choice as an early YouTube release, but it’s what his label decided upon. “And Yet” is better. The lyrics are more delicate and relate able.”This town has a strange magnetic pull, like a homing signal in your skull and you sail by the stars in the hemisphere, wondering how in the hell did you end up here.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting is a born storyteller and like James Bond, nobody does it better.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155997593682,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_1e3ec8b1-f7c4-4314-b432-36104c9d4ef9.jpg?v=1758315209"},{"product_id":"the-last-ship-original-broadway-cast-recording","title":"The Last Ship (Original Broadway Cast Recording)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTHE LAST SHIP - the new musical with music and lyrics by 16-time Grammy Award-winner Sting and book by Tony Award-winner John Logan and Pulitzer Prize-winner Brian Yorkey opened on Broadway on October 26 with overwhelming praise for its emotionally powerful score. On December 16, Universal Music Classics will release the Original Broadway Cast Album for THE LAST SHIP, produced by the Emmy-Award winning and multi-Grammy-nominated producer Rob Mathes. The play is directed by Tony Award-winner Joe Mantello and choreographed by Olivier Award-winner Steven Hoggett, with musical direction, orchestrations and arrangements also by Rob Mathes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the fall of 2013, Sting introduced some of the selections heard in the musical on his own album of the same name, The Last Ship, released on Cherrytree\/Interscope\/A\u0026amp;M Records. The new Broadway Cast Album will include some of those original compositions performed by the acclaimed Broadway cast, as well as selections exclusively written and recorded for the stage production. Highlights include the title track \"The Last Ship,\" show favorites \"We’ve Got Now’t Else\" and \"If You Ever See Me Talking to a Sailor\" plus \"When We Dance,\" a beloved song from Sting’s catalog. The Original Broadway Cast Recording will also include two versions of the stirring ballad \"What Say You, Meg?\"- one sung by the character Arthur Millburn and one recorded by Sting which will appear as a bonus track, available exclusively on the cast album for the first time anywhere.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE LAST SHIP - which marks Sting's debut as a Broadway composer - is set in the English seaside town of Wallsend, a close-knit community where life has always revolved around the local shipyard and the hardworking men construct magnificent vessels with tremendous pride. But Gideon Fletcher dreams of a different future. He sets out to travel the world, leaving his life and his love behind. When Gideon returns home many years later, he finds the shipyard's future in grave danger and his childhood sweetheart engaged to someone else. This love triangle ignites just as the men and women of Wallsend take their future into their own hands and build a towering representation of the shared dream that defines their existence. And in the end Gideon comes to understand that he had indeed left behind more than he could have ever imagined.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE LAST SHIP is inspired by the Wallsend community where Sting was born and raised and people's homes were often houses that existed in the shadows of the massive vessels in the shipyards. THE LAST SHIP also reflects real-life incidents, including a history-making 'work-in' at a Scottish shipyard in the 70's, and a recent project in Poland for which a priest commandeered supplies and financial support so a group of laymen could not only have work, but also reclaim their pride and dignity by assembling a ship meant to sail the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe principal cast of THE LAST SHIP includes Michael Esper, Rachel Tucker, Jimmy Nail, Fred Applegate, Aaron Lazar, Sally Ann Triplett and Collin Kelly-Sordelet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE LAST SHIP ensemble includes: Eric Anderson, Ethan Applegate, Craig Bennett, Dawn Cantwell, Jeremy Davis, Bradley Dean, Alyssa DiPalma, Colby Foytik, David Michael Garry, Timothy Gulan, Shawna M. Hamic, Rich Hebert, Leah Hocking, Todd A. Horman, Sarah Hunt, Jamie Jackson, Sean Jenness, Drew McVety, Johnny Newcomb, Matthew Stocke, Cullen R. Titmus and Jeremy Woodard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE LAST SHIP is produced on Broadway by Jeffrey Seller, Kathryn Schenker, Kevin McCollum, Sander Jacobs, James L. Nederlander, Roy Furman, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155997823058,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/400_f61806f6-63d2-410a-a805-80eac2269e00.jpg?v=1758315215"},{"product_id":"sting-the-studio-collection","title":"Sting - The Studio Collection","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Studio Collection includes eight essential A\u0026amp;M Records albums across eleven LPs – The Dream Of The Blue Turtles (1985), ...Nothing Like The Sun (1987) (double LP), The Soul Cages (1991), Ten Summoner’s Tales (1993), Mercury Falling (1996), Brand New Day (1999) (double LP), Sacred Love (2003) (double LP) and The Last Ship (2013) – with both Brand New Day and Sacred Love available on vinyl for the first time ever. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll of the included LPs appear in exact replicas of the original artwork presented in an exceptional slipcase package, with brand new vinyl masters cut at the legendary Abbey Road studios to ensure exceptional audio quality. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eContained within The Studio Collection are some of the most iconic albums and songs of all time, including numerous GRAMMY® Award-winning tracks as well as a plethora of multi-platinum, platinum and gold worldwide awards. Beginning with Sting’s first solo album, the revelatory The Dream Of The Blue Turtles from 1985 – featuring the cream of America's young jazz musicians in a politically-charged set – through 2013’s The Last Ship, exploring the central themes of homecoming and self-discovery in the North East of England, The Studio Collection showcases Sting’s meticulous songwriting, evocative storytelling, and continual innovation in a groundbreaking mix of musical genres and styles that have continually evolved throughout his remarkable career to date. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom perennial favourites 'Englishman In New York', 'If I Ever Lose My Faith In You', 'Fields Of Gold', 'Seven Days' and 'Shape of My Heart', to the political 'We Work The Black Seam' and 'Russians', the gospel-tinged 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot' and 'Fill Her Up', the bossa nova 'La Belle Dame Sans Regrets' and 'Big Lie Small World', through to the French hip hop of 'Perfect Love...Gone Wrong' and the arabesque 'Desert Rose', The Studio Collection combines the full breadth and power of Sting, the composer, singer, activist and timeless songwriter, on high-quality heavyweight vinyl.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998117970,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/discstudiocollection1469525616_640.jpg?v=1758315228"},{"product_id":"57th-9th-2","title":"57th \u0026 9th","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"'Inshallah' is a beautiful word from the Arabic language which is kind of resignation - it's God's will, it shall be - or it's a word that describes some sort of hope, courage. I don't know what the political solution is but I think if there is a solution, it has to be rooted in empathy - for the victims of the war that's going on in Syria at the moment for example, the victims of poverty in Africa, and perhaps in the future the victims of global warming.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'AFP', 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The first song on the new record is called \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You.\" It sounds romantic at first. But the song is actually about creativity, specifically: about writing. Like an artist or author has a blank slate in front of them every day. It's like snow: There are no clues as to what lies beneath. Is there a road or simply a path? Is there an animal or a muse? And if it is a muse, is it a romantic or a spiritual muse? We don't know. We writers face this problem every day. Yet we indulge the obsession of wanting to express ourselves with words.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Stuttgarter-Nachrichten, 01\/2017\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The songs are not about New York. I call them ‘ten short stories’. They deal with various issues, some of them more serious, some not so. It’s a tribute to New York without me singing directly over New York.” Everyone knows, “I’m an ‘Englishman In New York”!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For the last ten years, my music has been a bit esoteric so people will think I’m doing something like that again. But I want to surprise you. And I’m always happy when I see happy faces who hear rock’n’roll. This record is very direct, simple and the songs are rather short. My old DNA from times with The Police can be seen in it – provided with a new feeling.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An intrinsic part of a musician’s life is to create the wow factor, which comes down to the instruments as well as what your songs say. For example, in recent years, I have made records that had a more esoteric touch simply for the fact that a theme caught my attention and I was curious to learn new things. Perhaps people assume that I will continue doing the same, which they may or may not like. But I was clear that with this album I wanted to do something new and surprise people with something different. I wanted the public to hear something from me that they were not anticipating. Certainly, I could have also surprised them with an electronic music record. This album was something spontaneous, recorded very quickly and done with friends. Every day, I went to the studio in New York where I met with my guys and we would work. When I got back home I would try to give more shape to what we had done, find a story and turn it into song. For me, the experience was to enjoy myself.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The first song called \"I Can’t Stop Thinking About You\" is a song about obsession. It’s really about a writer who sits in front of a blank sheet that looks like a snowy field. Your job as a writer is to write something and dig to find something – a muse, an idea and something to inspire you. The dilemma for any writer is to find inspiration. Music for me flows much faster and I get it in a more natural way, but the inspiration to write the lyrics of the song comes from a much more mysterious place that I really do not understand, but I know if I have patience and discipline it will come. In a way, I want to find myself in a somewhat uncomfortable situation because my life, as you can imagine, is very privileged. Where I live in New York, I have a terrace and during winter when it is freezing cold, below zero degrees, I lock myself out with my paper, my pen and my music and do not enter the house until the song is finished. It is a way of inspiring me and forcing myself to write. I did this for many days. I was terribly cold and so my first song refers to that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If we consider the surprise factor, the most different one is “Petrolhead” because it is very rock and roll. I think it will surprise people. On the other hand there is another one that I think is very sensitive which is “Heading South on the Great North Road,” which is a bit where I come from and why I went in search of a better life. In this sense it is related to another song called “Inshallah” that relatively speaking is also about people – refugees – seeking a better life. I think all people in some way are refugees. Not at the level of the people of Syria, obviously, because they are in imminent danger, but in the sense that no matter where you live, your ancestors always come from elsewhere. We must bear this in mind. The flow of refugees may change in the future; perhaps we will have to seek refuge and hope that others will accept us and will not put obstacles in our way. I'm not trying to give it any kind of political solution, but it is something that must be treated gently and not as something abstract that does not affect us. We have to think of a face, a family and not just in numbers. I have no answer but we have to solve it because it will not go away. The reasons for migration are now mainly due to war and poverty, but soon climate change will also affect it so it is important to get to work and together try to fix it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The thrust of it is rock’n’roll, but all my [musical] DNA is in there. There’s some folk music, some thoughtful, quiet moments. My whole thing is surprise. If I’ve been making esoteric albums for the past 10 years, then people expect that I’ll do that again. But the main thing was, 'Hey, let’s have some energy’. It’s not a lute album.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Glenn Frey, Lemmy, David [Bowie], Prince, Alan Rickman. We had dinner with him a few weeks before. Alan invited Trudie and I specifically to say goodbye to us, but without saying goodbye. His wife told us later - he came to New York and had dinner every night with his close friends. We called him on New Year’s Day - we heard he was in a hospice. He said, 'Oh, I’m fine, I just had a blood change.’ He was dead two weeks later. When a generation’s cultural icons die, it shocks us. The childlike part of us believes they’re immortal. And when you’re a man of a certain age and you’ve lived most of your life already, you think, 'Wow, this is real.’?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I got my musicians in the studio in Hell’s Kitchen in New York and said, ‘I have no idea what we’re doing. Let’s play musical ping pong.’ I needed to make decisions very hard and fast and very quickly and stick by those decisions. But it gave the record a character that it wouldn’t have otherwise had.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"For the last decade or so, I’ve been making what you might call esoteric records where I was only following my curiosity. There was no commercial agenda. Then I thought, ‘What should I surprise people with now?’ And it came to me, a rock ’n’ roll record, or at least the thrust of it being rock ’n’ roll. That could get people saying, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that.’ And that’s what the reaction has been. I think it’s already successful in that regard. People can recognize my entire music DNA on this record – from the beginning until now. It’s all me. I’m a gadfly. I want to do as many different things as I can. Some people have one furrow and they dig deep and I respect them for that, but I like to mulch around.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There was no overriding concept to this album. In fact it was made without any pre-planning at all. I went into the studio with literally no ideas of what it would be except that it would take a short amount of time... Every day, I took something home with me on the walk back to my house. I would ask the song to tell me a story and the next day I’d turn up with a song. Day by day this grew. But there’s no overarching theme or concept.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I normally go in the studio with a great deal of preparation. This time, I just booked the studio and brought my cohorts who have worked with me for almost three decades: Dominic Miller on guitar, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. And I said, “Guys, let’s just play musical Ping-Pong.” An idea will go around in a circle, and a song will materialize, or at least the semblance of a song. I then structure it, give it a shape, and then take that shape home and ask that song what it’s telling me. Who is the character singing this? What’s the mood, what’s the narrative? And then I’d play a trick on myself. I’d lock myself out of my apartment, on the terrace in the cold, and not come in until I’d finished a lyric. I had a cup of coffee and a coat. It was one of those things to put myself out of my comfort zone in order to trick the muse into playing ball with me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Although it’s about a rock star, and of course I’ve been a rock star, “50,000” is not really me. It’s a character that seems to be singing through me and looking back on his career and, in reflection, finding philosophy. There are a lot of people like me at my age, still making rock ’n’ roll, having that rather singular experience of being in front of all those people and feeling empowered, and the hubris of that. And the psychological danger of it, too. And then coming out the other side and asking: “What did that mean? Are you, in fact, a god? Are you godlike?” No, you’re not. You’re very very human, and very mortal. It’s hard to express how unique that feeling is. Not many of us have stood up on those stages in front of 50,000; 100,000; a quarter of a million; in my case, half a million people out there. That can be a very heady and confusing experience. You need a certain perspective on it, to say, “This is fun, but it’s an illusion.” If you do that, then you’ll survive it. Otherwise, no, you’ll become the victim of it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I set out to complete the whole thing in three months at the most. I hadn't prepared anything. I simply went into the studio with my musicians and said, 'Let's play.' What emerged were ten musical short stories that have a very powerful quality. One part of the album is very rock 'n' roll and energetic. The other part is more contemplative and quiet. The album is a bit like me. I'm both.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I have a pool of musicians I enjoy working with. There are so many different tones on this record. That's why I need diverse musicians. They're my friends. They know how I work and what I need from them. They trust me enough to go into the studio with me without any preparation. And there we play a kind of musical ping-pong. I throw something to them. They throw it back. They know how to respond to what I do. And the music grows richer with each exchange. It becomes more complicated and interesting. We improvise, even though we don't play jazz. We trust, love, and respect each other. The music is a result of this relationship. We're a team—like in football.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" has different layers. You can understand the piece as a passionate love song. But it's also about the process of songwriting, the passionate search for inspiration. As a composer, I'm confronted every morning with a blank sheet of paper. Completely empty. Like a field covered in snow. And I have no idea where the thing I'm looking for is, or what it is. A story? A character? A path? A romantic muse? A spiritual muse?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The daily commute to the studio also helped. While I was running, I thought about my ideas. Running stimulates my creativity. It's like a very rhythmic meditation. Running through New York is also very stimulating because it's a very dramatic city. The architecture. The people. The traffic. The noise. I stopped at the traffic light at the same intersection of 57th Street and 9th Ave every day. You have to pay close attention there, otherwise you'll get run over by taxis. While I waited, I gave myself over to my thoughts.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jim Foley was working as a photojournalist in Syria and was captured by ISIS. He was held captive for many months. Then they murdered him and broadcast the beheading online. I saw a film about him. All his friends said he was the one who kept them all sane. He was the one who got them extra food and blankets. He was the one the guards tortured. And in the end, he was the one whose throat was slit. Luckily, they didn't show the execution in the film. When you watch the film, you fall in love with this extraordinary man. I had his family's words in my head — how much they all missed him. I imagined that the family always had an empty chair at the table for him - as if he could walk in at any moment. This became the song Empty Chair. Later, I found out that his friends at their local bar actually always kept a chair free for Jim.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One Fine Day is my ironic response to the global warming crisis. I pray every day that the climate sceptics who claim climate change is a hoax are right. And that all the scientific evidence for it turns out to be false. They're paid by the coal industry and the oil companies. The English poet William Blake said something great: 'A man who persists in his folly will become wise.' If the fool pushes his folly to the extreme, he will become wise. I hope it won't be too late by then.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In 'Petrol Head,' I play a truck driver. He's a macho guy who only thinks about sex and religion. That's not me, of course. Apart from the religion. It's a funny song. In the middle, I quote William Blake from the hymn Jerusalem: 'Bring me my chariot of fire. Bring me my chariot of fire.' It's pretty raw. I enjoy singing it. I'm slipping into the role of someone else who has nothing to do with me. I don't drive a truck. Okay, I did it once, but that was a long time ago. Maybe it's a secret part of me after all. I enjoy this role, anyway.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm convinced that if you structure music correctly, it tells you a story. It then has a narrative thread, an abstract narrative thread. And my job is just to figure out what the music is trying to say. In the case of Petrol Head it was clear that it was about driving. At some point, it became clear: Here's someone driving a huge truck through the American desert. That's the story. I don't really understand it. It's very strange how songs sometimes come to you. You absorb them. They're in the air.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Down, Down Down is about the end of a relationship. Luckily, it's not my relationship. But I have enough life experience to write about it. My heart has been broken. I've left someone. I've broken other people's hearts. I've had all these experiences and can revisit the corresponding emotions at any time. I don't have to relive them. I don't want to. It's also a song about depression, where you sink into the abyss. It's a terrible illness that I don't suffer from. But I know enough people affected by it to write something sensible about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All About Jazz by Nenad Georgievski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003eThroughout his long and illustrious career, Sting has enjoyed an enviable set of circumstances. Not only does he have total artistic freedom but he has been accompanied by elite musicians and has a devoted, global fan base. In return, that has yielded many artistic triumphs as he explored almost every genre known to man. He has been eclectic in his choice of inspiration which is filtered through an ever expansive musical worldview. That incorporates all kinds of sounds and music from pop and jazz to classical, medieval and world music. His new album 57th \u0026amp;9th reveals a restless and uncompromising creative spirit that makes music that still pulses with life and vigour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, 57th \u0026amp;9th is predominantly painted with the primal colours of rock music: rollicking drums, fizzing guitars and fluid bass lines. The first several songs roar straight out of the box. It's been a while since he sounded this energized and unfettered. Producer (and Sting's manager) Martin Kierszenbaum's sparse and raw production is a welcome change of pace for Sting whose previous work often slipped into the quiet, hushed and comfortable. The energy is tough and lean and he has never sounded this raw, urgent, and edgy since his early days with his band The Police. Sonically, this record does not break any drastically new sonic frontiers for him but these kinds of fast-paced rockier songs have been heard only occasionally on his records with \"After the Rain Has Fallen\" from Brand New Day (A\u0026amp;M, 1999) \"All This Time\" Soul Cages, ( A\u0026amp;M, 1991) as examples. The music is driven by a working band of many years and also welcomes other guests to make this recording special. While they rock and sound urgent they don't just bash it away. A band of this calibre is capable of stirring up wild grooves, but here they respond sensitively to Sting's vocal lines, dynamics and conjuring varying dynamics within the songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost importantly, 57th \u0026amp; 9th is dominated by outstanding songwriting. It is another masterclass in the potential potency of lyrics, melodies, and performance from an enduring songwriting master. At heart, Sting is an unequivocally a soul singer and musician. He always sings with great conviction, always drawing you in the story, like having a conversation with an old friend of yours. In contrast to his previous output, the autobiographical and reflective The Last Ship, (A\u0026amp;M, 2013) Sting is utterly engaged in the present, dealing with subjects such as social injustice and the horrors of refugees (\"Inshallah\"), pondering about climate change and environmental issues (\"One Fine Day\") or contemplating the passing of colleagues and close friends such as singers David Bowie, Prince or actor Alan Rickman (\"50.000\") .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe quality of each song is consistently good with peaks and valleys in between. \"If You Can't Love Me\" is one of the many finest moments here. It is a tender mid-tempo ballad offered with the no-nonsense conviction that reveals love may be beyond the measurement of the rational. It's a love song that is achingly sincere without being invasive. The album closes, gorgeously, with a hushed ballad \"Empty Chair\" that deals with the subject of a loss. It's a song written for Jim: The James Foley Story, a documentary about a US journalist that was publicly executed by terrorists in Syria. The tone of the song is delicate and graceful. Sting's voice barely raises throughout, yet he manages to convey more emotion than ever before.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e57th \u0026amp; 9th is a master course in songwriting. Sting has created timeless songs that feel organic, heartfelt and important now, but which will sound as magnificent in the decades to come as they sound today. \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by Jon Dolan\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSting Makes a Surprise Return to Rock \u0026amp; Roll - A darkly impassioned LP full of loud guitars, politics and visions of mortality...\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s been ages since Sting even seemed to conceive of himself as a rock artist, which is why his straight-ahead new LP is so surprising: 57th \u0026amp; 9th is a no-lute zone. You’d have to go all the way back to “Born in the 50’s,” from the very first Police album, to hear him sing over guitars as rough as the ones on the lonely-horn-dog anthem “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” or the no-frills driving banger “Petrol Head.” The highlight “50,000” offers a clue to this newfound urgency; over guitarist Dominic Miller’s dark chords, Sting pays tribute to Prince, recalling ecstatic stadium shows, then flashes to a bathroom-mirror vision of his own mortality: “These lines of stress, one bloodshot eye\/The unhealthy pallor of a troubled ghost.” Desperation also comes through on “One Fine Day,” a delicate plea for climate sanity, and the Middle East-tinged refugee’s prayer “Inshallah.” Elsewhere, he offers a kind of travelogue through his own musical past, from the Chaucer-y balladry of “Heading South on the Great North Road” to “If You  Can’t Love Me,” a mordantly Kafkaesque echo of the jazz rock Sting made in the Eighties. Even if the album gets more ponderous as his concerns deepen, it’s nice to see the king of pain flex a little. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Los Angeles Times by Mikael Wood\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn '57th \u0026amp; 9th,' Sting urgently shares what's on his mind...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2013, Sting sat for an hour or so interview in a small dressing room at what was then Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe veteran English musician was in town talking up “The Last Ship,” an album of songs from a musical he’d composed that was headed to Broadway, and in the course of the conversation Sting made it clear he no longer had much interest in writing the kind of first-person pop tunes that made him a star.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA year later, “The Last Ship” opened in New York — and then closed after three months, a victim of poor ticket sales that even Sting himself couldn’t save by joining the show’s cast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven that turn of events, it may be fair to greet the singer’s new project, “57th \u0026amp; 9th,” with suspicion. Released this month, it’s a collection of — hey, wait a minute — first-person pop tunes, similar in structure to those he created with the Police before he turned his attention to the lute (on 2006’s widely mocked “Songs From the Labyrinth”) and the theater.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot only that, but Sting, 65, is promoting the record in precisely the manner he appeared to have lost his taste for. On Sunday night he’ll perform along with Ariana Grande and Shawn Mendes on the American Music Awards, and next week he’s set to play during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere’s the thing, though: “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is good. Really good. Far from a craven about-face, it might be Sting’s best set of songs since the early ’90s — not a retreat into nostalgia but a shrewd adaptation of a familiar form.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s title reflects its genesis. At a studio near the corner of 57th Street and 9th Avenue in New York, Sting corralled guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta - musicians he’s played with for decades - and got to work banging out songs free of any overarching concept.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sound is taut, scruffy, even punky, full of snarling guitars and hurtling tempos; Sting’s melodies are sturdy but straightforward, as though he’d worked them out while singing live with the band, pushing his voice to be heard above the din.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet the twist is that he didn’t take this throwback approach as an excuse to revisit old times or themes. These are songs about what’s on Sting’s mind right now: war, politics, the environment - and the challenge of songwriting itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe last is the topic at the heart of the sexual metaphor in “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” in which he’s a guy driven mad by his desire to find the right words. “One Fine Day” argues for awareness of climate change, first by appealing to the listener’s emotion (“Three penguins and a bear got drowned”), then with full-on alarm bells (“We must do something quick or die”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn “50,000” Sting ponders the inordinate number of rock and pop stars who’ve died in 2016, which sounds like a miserable idea but actually provides some fascinating insight into what amounts to a professional dilemma.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We tweet our anecdotes, our commentary \/ Or we sing his songs in some sad \u003cbr\u003etribute,” he sings, not weepy at all, “While the tabloids are holding a story of kiss and tell \/ That he’s no longer able to deny or refute.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven when Sting does look back to his youth - as in “Heading South on the Great North Road,” set in his hometown of Newcastle - he opens up the scope of the song, in this case to draw a parallel with the current refugee crisis in Europe. He invokes that situation again in “Inshallah,” with its “sad boats” and “anxious eyes.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDoes the vivid writing and playing on “57th \u0026amp; 9th” guarantee the album will find the mass audience that eluded “The Last Ship”? Hardly. Few who see Sting on the AMAs this weekend are likely to download (or even stream) the record. And few of those who’d enjoy the record as much as I do are likely to watch the AMAs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, hey, if the album bombs and Sting again reverses himself in some way, I won’t automatically doubt him next time. He’s earned the right to change his mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Entertainment Weekly by Nolan Feeney\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith 16 Grammys to his name and spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Sting long ago earned the right to do whatever he wants. And in recent years, the former Police frontman has been exercising that power freely: His last few albums have included the music from his Tony-nominated musical (2013’s The Last Ship), classical reinterpretations of his greatest hits (2010’s Symphonicities), traditional holiday music (2009’s If on a Winter’s Night…), and his infamous batch of lute songs (2006’s Songs from the Labyrinth).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s twelfth LP, 57th \u0026amp; 9th, named for the New York City intersection he traversed every day on the way to the studio, marks his first rock release in more than a decade — and it proves that years of passion projects haven’t dulled his songwriting instincts. That’s partly thanks to a loose and unfussy recording process that saw Sting write on the spot with a tight team of musicians, including members of his touring band and Tex-Mex group the Last Bandoleros, with whom he shares management; there’s a lean muscle powering songs like the hooky opener “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You.” But it’s also because Sting doesn’t hold anything back when it comes to his feelings about the state of the world, whether he’s poking fun at climate-change skeptics (the urgent “One Fine Day”) or empathizing with European refugees (“Inshallah”). Sting is hardly the first artist this year to write about pressing social social issues, but he writes plainly yet poetically about them - a style that keeps his messages from feeling heavy-handed or self-important. Here, he’s just an elder statesman speaking from the heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sounds of 57th range from folksy acoustic numbers to epic stadium-fillers, but the record’s most poignant tunes have stories of loss and mourning in common. The quiet album closer, “The Empty Chair,” was written from the perspective of journalist James Foley, who was killed by ISIS in 2014, and it might be one of the most heart-wrenching songs Sting has ever written - good luck not getting choked up as he sings about keeping a place for Foley at the family dinner table. On “50,000,” which was inspired by the deaths of David Bowie, Prince, and Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, Sting confronts his own mortality and the mythologizing powers of fame by admitting he’s “still believing that old lie… rock stars don’t ever die, they only fade away.” Looking enviably fit at age 65, Sting doesn’t seem in danger of the former anytime soon; and with records as robust as this one, he doesn’t have to worry about the latter, either.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Post by Scott Stroud\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting rocks out again with a familiar sound...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first single on Sting’s new album, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” sounds like the love child of Police classics “I’ll Be Watching You” and “Can’t Stand Losing You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are the achy lyrics of the former, which holds up well but has more of a stalker vibe than it seemed to the first time around. And there’s the driving bass line of the latter, the style of playing that made Sting’s former band one of the best of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“57th and 9th” as a whole sounds a lot like Sting’s old stuff, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s musically incredible and lyrically wiser, though it also veers into self-importance at times - just as the old stuff did.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike a lot of aging rockers living on past glory, Sting’s return to rock ‘n’ roll from other projects seems driven more by a desire to return to something he loves than the need to make a buck. There’s a payoff for waiting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded in a period of weeks, the album has spontaneity but also a rawness. He could have scrubbed a few clichés from the lyrics - the sands of time on one song, old rockers never die (they just fade away) on another - but the pulsating rush that was the hallmark of Sting’s early work makes up for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA man who knows how to rock this well can be forgiven. It is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arts Desk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRock veteran swaps lotus position for a trip down memory lane...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven now, Sting's reputation as one of rock's most earnest men looms large. His last two projects consisted of a Broadway musical about Newcastle's ship industry and a \"symphonic\" retrospective of his greatest hits. Before that it was saving bees and Elizabethan madrigals with a Bosnian lutenist. Now, however, the singer promises something lighter. 57th and 9th has been heralded as the return of \"Sting the rock star\". Could it really be the tantric one is returning to the sound he created in the early Eighties? \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first signs of familiarity come from the guitar and drums. Here Dominic Miller and Vinnie Colaiuta faithfully recreate the textures and rhythms of Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland from The Police. Throw in Mr Sumner's unmistakable ear for melody and many of the results could pass for Police outtakes and B-sides. \"Petrol Head\" has echoes of \"Synchronicity II\"; \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" and \"50,000\" evoke the band's earlier work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's lyrics, though, are heavier. \"Inshallah\" is a pleasantly thoughtful meditation of the plight of Syrian refugees; \"One Fine Day\", about climate change, is decidedly clunky. No matter how weighty the lyrics, any po-facedness is largely offset by the nostalgic charm of hearing that iconic tenor back in its rightful setting. What might once have felt irritating now seems strangely cosy and reassuring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e57th and 9ths finest three minutes are \"Pretty Young Soldier\" a rather lovely interpretation of the folk story about a girl who dresses as a boy soldier to get her man. The worst track is \"Down Down Down\", so bland it virtually doesn't exist. Yet, while the presence of such fillers make 57th and 9th short of classic, the contents do mainly live up to the cover image - the artist looking significantly younger and cheekier than the grizzled yoga veteran we've become used to. A pleasant enough reminder, then, of the old days.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from ABC News by Allan Raible\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's Latest Album Is His Best Since 1996...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePut quite simply, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is Sting’s best album since 1996’s under-rated “Mercury Falling.” I’ve wanted Sting to explore his rock side again for a very long time. While this isn’t a pure rock record, there are some appealing, crunchy moments on here. “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” effectively recalls his work with The Police and provides him with his biggest hit-contender in a long time. The same goes with “50,000” which was written in tribute to David Bowie and Prince and would fit decently next to a classic like “King Of Pain.” On “Petrol Head,” Sting works a blues-rock vein that is surprisingly tough. With a different arrangement, you could imagine it working similar territory as “Demolition Man.” On the deluxe edition he even delivers a live, slightly bluesy version of the early Police highlight “Next To You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s tempting to call this album a return to Sting’s punk roots, but if you go further in the playlist, there are also some strong ballads. The second half of the record is strikingly quiet when compared to the first.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis isn’t quite the powerhouse album it could have been but it’s a very strong reminder that Sting is indeed one of pop’s finer master-craftsmen. To many, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” showcases the return of the version of Sting that has been missing for some time. After years of wandering and experimentation, it is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” This is most definitely among Sting’s best solo singles to date. It’s an eye-opening return to form of the grandest kind and proof that he still has a hungry side. This track is insistent and infectious in all the best ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“50,000” This is a ballad of sorts but it still balances a feeling of sadness with a spiky, building energy. Again, this is another strong tune with a lot of potential.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Heading South On The Great North Road” This track from the album’s quieter half shows Sting’s classically-minded side delivering a tune that sounds like a traditional folk song for the ages. While this more literary side in this case probably won’t lead to radio spins, it still shows Sting at his songwriting best.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998150738,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/album11472662245_640.jpg?v=1758315229"},{"product_id":"57th-9th-3","title":"57th \u0026 9th","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"'Inshallah' is a beautiful word from the Arabic language which is kind of resignation - it's God's will, it shall be - or it's a word that describes some sort of hope, courage. I don't know what the political solution is but I think if there is a solution, it has to be rooted in empathy - for the victims of the war that's going on in Syria at the moment for example, the victims of poverty in Africa, and perhaps in the future the victims of global warming.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'AFP', 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The first song on the new record is called \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You.\" It sounds romantic at first. But the song is actually about creativity, specifically: about writing. Like an artist or author has a blank slate in front of them every day. It's like snow: There are no clues as to what lies beneath. Is there a road or simply a path? Is there an animal or a muse? And if it is a muse, is it a romantic or a spiritual muse? We don't know. We writers face this problem every day. Yet we indulge the obsession of wanting to express ourselves with words.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Stuttgarter-Nachrichten, 01\/2017\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The songs are not about New York. I call them ‘ten short stories’. They deal with various issues, some of them more serious, some not so. It’s a tribute to New York without me singing directly over New York.” Everyone knows, “I’m an ‘Englishman In New York”!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For the last ten years, my music has been a bit esoteric so people will think I’m doing something like that again. But I want to surprise you. And I’m always happy when I see happy faces who hear rock’n’roll. This record is very direct, simple and the songs are rather short. My old DNA from times with The Police can be seen in it – provided with a new feeling.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An intrinsic part of a musician’s life is to create the wow factor, which comes down to the instruments as well as what your songs say. For example, in recent years, I have made records that had a more esoteric touch simply for the fact that a theme caught my attention and I was curious to learn new things. Perhaps people assume that I will continue doing the same, which they may or may not like. But I was clear that with this album I wanted to do something new and surprise people with something different. I wanted the public to hear something from me that they were not anticipating. Certainly, I could have also surprised them with an electronic music record. This album was something spontaneous, recorded very quickly and done with friends. Every day, I went to the studio in New York where I met with my guys and we would work. When I got back home I would try to give more shape to what we had done, find a story and turn it into song. For me, the experience was to enjoy myself.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The first song called \"I Can’t Stop Thinking About You\" is a song about obsession. It’s really about a writer who sits in front of a blank sheet that looks like a snowy field. Your job as a writer is to write something and dig to find something – a muse, an idea and something to inspire you. The dilemma for any writer is to find inspiration. Music for me flows much faster and I get it in a more natural way, but the inspiration to write the lyrics of the song comes from a much more mysterious place that I really do not understand, but I know if I have patience and discipline it will come. In a way, I want to find myself in a somewhat uncomfortable situation because my life, as you can imagine, is very privileged. Where I live in New York, I have a terrace and during winter when it is freezing cold, below zero degrees, I lock myself out with my paper, my pen and my music and do not enter the house until the song is finished. It is a way of inspiring me and forcing myself to write. I did this for many days. I was terribly cold and so my first song refers to that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If we consider the surprise factor, the most different one is “Petrolhead” because it is very rock and roll. I think it will surprise people. On the other hand there is another one that I think is very sensitive which is “Heading South on the Great North Road,” which is a bit where I come from and why I went in search of a better life. In this sense it is related to another song called “Inshallah” that relatively speaking is also about people – refugees – seeking a better life. I think all people in some way are refugees. Not at the level of the people of Syria, obviously, because they are in imminent danger, but in the sense that no matter where you live, your ancestors always come from elsewhere. We must bear this in mind. The flow of refugees may change in the future; perhaps we will have to seek refuge and hope that others will accept us and will not put obstacles in our way. I'm not trying to give it any kind of political solution, but it is something that must be treated gently and not as something abstract that does not affect us. We have to think of a face, a family and not just in numbers. I have no answer but we have to solve it because it will not go away. The reasons for migration are now mainly due to war and poverty, but soon climate change will also affect it so it is important to get to work and together try to fix it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The thrust of it is rock’n’roll, but all my [musical] DNA is in there. There’s some folk music, some thoughtful, quiet moments. My whole thing is surprise. If I’ve been making esoteric albums for the past 10 years, then people expect that I’ll do that again. But the main thing was, 'Hey, let’s have some energy’. It’s not a lute album.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Glenn Frey, Lemmy, David [Bowie], Prince, Alan Rickman. We had dinner with him a few weeks before. Alan invited Trudie and I specifically to say goodbye to us, but without saying goodbye. His wife told us later - he came to New York and had dinner every night with his close friends. We called him on New Year’s Day - we heard he was in a hospice. He said, 'Oh, I’m fine, I just had a blood change.’ He was dead two weeks later. When a generation’s cultural icons die, it shocks us. The childlike part of us believes they’re immortal. And when you’re a man of a certain age and you’ve lived most of your life already, you think, 'Wow, this is real.’?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I got my musicians in the studio in Hell’s Kitchen in New York and said, ‘I have no idea what we’re doing. Let’s play musical ping pong.’ I needed to make decisions very hard and fast and very quickly and stick by those decisions. But it gave the record a character that it wouldn’t have otherwise had.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"For the last decade or so, I’ve been making what you might call esoteric records where I was only following my curiosity. There was no commercial agenda. Then I thought, ‘What should I surprise people with now?’ And it came to me, a rock ’n’ roll record, or at least the thrust of it being rock ’n’ roll. That could get people saying, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that.’ And that’s what the reaction has been. I think it’s already successful in that regard. People can recognize my entire music DNA on this record – from the beginning until now. It’s all me. I’m a gadfly. I want to do as many different things as I can. Some people have one furrow and they dig deep and I respect them for that, but I like to mulch around.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There was no overriding concept to this album. In fact it was made without any pre-planning at all. I went into the studio with literally no ideas of what it would be except that it would take a short amount of time... Every day, I took something home with me on the walk back to my house. I would ask the song to tell me a story and the next day I’d turn up with a song. Day by day this grew. But there’s no overarching theme or concept.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I normally go in the studio with a great deal of preparation. This time, I just booked the studio and brought my cohorts who have worked with me for almost three decades: Dominic Miller on guitar, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. And I said, “Guys, let’s just play musical Ping-Pong.” An idea will go around in a circle, and a song will materialize, or at least the semblance of a song. I then structure it, give it a shape, and then take that shape home and ask that song what it’s telling me. Who is the character singing this? What’s the mood, what’s the narrative? And then I’d play a trick on myself. I’d lock myself out of my apartment, on the terrace in the cold, and not come in until I’d finished a lyric. I had a cup of coffee and a coat. It was one of those things to put myself out of my comfort zone in order to trick the muse into playing ball with me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Although it’s about a rock star, and of course I’ve been a rock star, “50,000” is not really me. It’s a character that seems to be singing through me and looking back on his career and, in reflection, finding philosophy. There are a lot of people like me at my age, still making rock ’n’ roll, having that rather singular experience of being in front of all those people and feeling empowered, and the hubris of that. And the psychological danger of it, too. And then coming out the other side and asking: “What did that mean? Are you, in fact, a god? Are you godlike?” No, you’re not. You’re very very human, and very mortal. It’s hard to express how unique that feeling is. Not many of us have stood up on those stages in front of 50,000; 100,000; a quarter of a million; in my case, half a million people out there. That can be a very heady and confusing experience. You need a certain perspective on it, to say, “This is fun, but it’s an illusion.” If you do that, then you’ll survive it. Otherwise, no, you’ll become the victim of it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I set out to complete the whole thing in three months at the most. I hadn't prepared anything. I simply went into the studio with my musicians and said, 'Let's play.' What emerged were ten musical short stories that have a very powerful quality. One part of the album is very rock 'n' roll and energetic. The other part is more contemplative and quiet. The album is a bit like me. I'm both.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I have a pool of musicians I enjoy working with. There are so many different tones on this record. That's why I need diverse musicians. They're my friends. They know how I work and what I need from them. They trust me enough to go into the studio with me without any preparation. And there we play a kind of musical ping-pong. I throw something to them. They throw it back. They know how to respond to what I do. And the music grows richer with each exchange. It becomes more complicated and interesting. We improvise, even though we don't play jazz. We trust, love, and respect each other. The music is a result of this relationship. We're a team—like in football.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" has different layers. You can understand the piece as a passionate love song. But it's also about the process of songwriting, the passionate search for inspiration. As a composer, I'm confronted every morning with a blank sheet of paper. Completely empty. Like a field covered in snow. And I have no idea where the thing I'm looking for is, or what it is. A story? A character? A path? A romantic muse? A spiritual muse?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The daily commute to the studio also helped. While I was running, I thought about my ideas. Running stimulates my creativity. It's like a very rhythmic meditation. Running through New York is also very stimulating because it's a very dramatic city. The architecture. The people. The traffic. The noise. I stopped at the traffic light at the same intersection of 57th Street and 9th Ave every day. You have to pay close attention there, otherwise you'll get run over by taxis. While I waited, I gave myself over to my thoughts.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jim Foley was working as a photojournalist in Syria and was captured by ISIS. He was held captive for many months. Then they murdered him and broadcast the beheading online. I saw a film about him. All his friends said he was the one who kept them all sane. He was the one who got them extra food and blankets. He was the one the guards tortured. And in the end, he was the one whose throat was slit. Luckily, they didn't show the execution in the film. When you watch the film, you fall in love with this extraordinary man. I had his family's words in my head — how much they all missed him. I imagined that the family always had an empty chair at the table for him - as if he could walk in at any moment. This became the song Empty Chair. Later, I found out that his friends at their local bar actually always kept a chair free for Jim.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One Fine Day is my ironic response to the global warming crisis. I pray every day that the climate sceptics who claim climate change is a hoax are right. And that all the scientific evidence for it turns out to be false. They're paid by the coal industry and the oil companies. The English poet William Blake said something great: 'A man who persists in his folly will become wise.' If the fool pushes his folly to the extreme, he will become wise. I hope it won't be too late by then.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In 'Petrol Head,' I play a truck driver. He's a macho guy who only thinks about sex and religion. That's not me, of course. Apart from the religion. It's a funny song. In the middle, I quote William Blake from the hymn Jerusalem: 'Bring me my chariot of fire. Bring me my chariot of fire.' It's pretty raw. I enjoy singing it. I'm slipping into the role of someone else who has nothing to do with me. I don't drive a truck. Okay, I did it once, but that was a long time ago. Maybe it's a secret part of me after all. I enjoy this role, anyway.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm convinced that if you structure music correctly, it tells you a story. It then has a narrative thread, an abstract narrative thread. And my job is just to figure out what the music is trying to say. In the case of Petrol Head it was clear that it was about driving. At some point, it became clear: Here's someone driving a huge truck through the American desert. That's the story. I don't really understand it. It's very strange how songs sometimes come to you. You absorb them. They're in the air.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Down, Down Down is about the end of a relationship. Luckily, it's not my relationship. But I have enough life experience to write about it. My heart has been broken. I've left someone. I've broken other people's hearts. I've had all these experiences and can revisit the corresponding emotions at any time. I don't have to relive them. I don't want to. It's also a song about depression, where you sink into the abyss. It's a terrible illness that I don't suffer from. But I know enough people affected by it to write something sensible about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All About Jazz by Nenad Georgievski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003eThroughout his long and illustrious career, Sting has enjoyed an enviable set of circumstances. Not only does he have total artistic freedom but he has been accompanied by elite musicians and has a devoted, global fan base. In return, that has yielded many artistic triumphs as he explored almost every genre known to man. He has been eclectic in his choice of inspiration which is filtered through an ever expansive musical worldview. That incorporates all kinds of sounds and music from pop and jazz to classical, medieval and world music. His new album 57th \u0026amp;9th reveals a restless and uncompromising creative spirit that makes music that still pulses with life and vigour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, 57th \u0026amp;9th is predominantly painted with the primal colours of rock music: rollicking drums, fizzing guitars and fluid bass lines. The first several songs roar straight out of the box. It's been a while since he sounded this energized and unfettered. Producer (and Sting's manager) Martin Kierszenbaum's sparse and raw production is a welcome change of pace for Sting whose previous work often slipped into the quiet, hushed and comfortable. The energy is tough and lean and he has never sounded this raw, urgent, and edgy since his early days with his band The Police. Sonically, this record does not break any drastically new sonic frontiers for him but these kinds of fast-paced rockier songs have been heard only occasionally on his records with \"After the Rain Has Fallen\" from Brand New Day (A\u0026amp;M, 1999) \"All This Time\" Soul Cages, ( A\u0026amp;M, 1991) as examples. The music is driven by a working band of many years and also welcomes other guests to make this recording special. While they rock and sound urgent they don't just bash it away. A band of this calibre is capable of stirring up wild grooves, but here they respond sensitively to Sting's vocal lines, dynamics and conjuring varying dynamics within the songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost importantly, 57th \u0026amp; 9th is dominated by outstanding songwriting. It is another masterclass in the potential potency of lyrics, melodies, and performance from an enduring songwriting master. At heart, Sting is an unequivocally a soul singer and musician. He always sings with great conviction, always drawing you in the story, like having a conversation with an old friend of yours. In contrast to his previous output, the autobiographical and reflective The Last Ship, (A\u0026amp;M, 2013) Sting is utterly engaged in the present, dealing with subjects such as social injustice and the horrors of refugees (\"Inshallah\"), pondering about climate change and environmental issues (\"One Fine Day\") or contemplating the passing of colleagues and close friends such as singers David Bowie, Prince or actor Alan Rickman (\"50.000\") .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe quality of each song is consistently good with peaks and valleys in between. \"If You Can't Love Me\" is one of the many finest moments here. It is a tender mid-tempo ballad offered with the no-nonsense conviction that reveals love may be beyond the measurement of the rational. It's a love song that is achingly sincere without being invasive. The album closes, gorgeously, with a hushed ballad \"Empty Chair\" that deals with the subject of a loss. It's a song written for Jim: The James Foley Story, a documentary about a US journalist that was publicly executed by terrorists in Syria. The tone of the song is delicate and graceful. Sting's voice barely raises throughout, yet he manages to convey more emotion than ever before.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e57th \u0026amp; 9th is a master course in songwriting. Sting has created timeless songs that feel organic, heartfelt and important now, but which will sound as magnificent in the decades to come as they sound today. \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by Jon Dolan\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSting Makes a Surprise Return to Rock \u0026amp; Roll - A darkly impassioned LP full of loud guitars, politics and visions of mortality...\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s been ages since Sting even seemed to conceive of himself as a rock artist, which is why his straight-ahead new LP is so surprising: 57th \u0026amp; 9th is a no-lute zone. You’d have to go all the way back to “Born in the 50’s,” from the very first Police album, to hear him sing over guitars as rough as the ones on the lonely-horn-dog anthem “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” or the no-frills driving banger “Petrol Head.” The highlight “50,000” offers a clue to this newfound urgency; over guitarist Dominic Miller’s dark chords, Sting pays tribute to Prince, recalling ecstatic stadium shows, then flashes to a bathroom-mirror vision of his own mortality: “These lines of stress, one bloodshot eye\/The unhealthy pallor of a troubled ghost.” Desperation also comes through on “One Fine Day,” a delicate plea for climate sanity, and the Middle East-tinged refugee’s prayer “Inshallah.” Elsewhere, he offers a kind of travelogue through his own musical past, from the Chaucer-y balladry of “Heading South on the Great North Road” to “If You  Can’t Love Me,” a mordantly Kafkaesque echo of the jazz rock Sting made in the Eighties. Even if the album gets more ponderous as his concerns deepen, it’s nice to see the king of pain flex a little. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Los Angeles Times by Mikael Wood\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn '57th \u0026amp; 9th,' Sting urgently shares what's on his mind...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2013, Sting sat for an hour or so interview in a small dressing room at what was then Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe veteran English musician was in town talking up “The Last Ship,” an album of songs from a musical he’d composed that was headed to Broadway, and in the course of the conversation Sting made it clear he no longer had much interest in writing the kind of first-person pop tunes that made him a star.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA year later, “The Last Ship” opened in New York — and then closed after three months, a victim of poor ticket sales that even Sting himself couldn’t save by joining the show’s cast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven that turn of events, it may be fair to greet the singer’s new project, “57th \u0026amp; 9th,” with suspicion. Released this month, it’s a collection of — hey, wait a minute — first-person pop tunes, similar in structure to those he created with the Police before he turned his attention to the lute (on 2006’s widely mocked “Songs From the Labyrinth”) and the theater.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot only that, but Sting, 65, is promoting the record in precisely the manner he appeared to have lost his taste for. On Sunday night he’ll perform along with Ariana Grande and Shawn Mendes on the American Music Awards, and next week he’s set to play during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere’s the thing, though: “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is good. Really good. Far from a craven about-face, it might be Sting’s best set of songs since the early ’90s — not a retreat into nostalgia but a shrewd adaptation of a familiar form.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s title reflects its genesis. At a studio near the corner of 57th Street and 9th Avenue in New York, Sting corralled guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta - musicians he’s played with for decades - and got to work banging out songs free of any overarching concept.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sound is taut, scruffy, even punky, full of snarling guitars and hurtling tempos; Sting’s melodies are sturdy but straightforward, as though he’d worked them out while singing live with the band, pushing his voice to be heard above the din.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet the twist is that he didn’t take this throwback approach as an excuse to revisit old times or themes. These are songs about what’s on Sting’s mind right now: war, politics, the environment - and the challenge of songwriting itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe last is the topic at the heart of the sexual metaphor in “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” in which he’s a guy driven mad by his desire to find the right words. “One Fine Day” argues for awareness of climate change, first by appealing to the listener’s emotion (“Three penguins and a bear got drowned”), then with full-on alarm bells (“We must do something quick or die”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn “50,000” Sting ponders the inordinate number of rock and pop stars who’ve died in 2016, which sounds like a miserable idea but actually provides some fascinating insight into what amounts to a professional dilemma.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We tweet our anecdotes, our commentary \/ Or we sing his songs in some sad \u003cbr\u003etribute,” he sings, not weepy at all, “While the tabloids are holding a story of kiss and tell \/ That he’s no longer able to deny or refute.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven when Sting does look back to his youth - as in “Heading South on the Great North Road,” set in his hometown of Newcastle - he opens up the scope of the song, in this case to draw a parallel with the current refugee crisis in Europe. He invokes that situation again in “Inshallah,” with its “sad boats” and “anxious eyes.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDoes the vivid writing and playing on “57th \u0026amp; 9th” guarantee the album will find the mass audience that eluded “The Last Ship”? Hardly. Few who see Sting on the AMAs this weekend are likely to download (or even stream) the record. And few of those who’d enjoy the record as much as I do are likely to watch the AMAs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, hey, if the album bombs and Sting again reverses himself in some way, I won’t automatically doubt him next time. He’s earned the right to change his mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Entertainment Weekly by Nolan Feeney\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith 16 Grammys to his name and spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Sting long ago earned the right to do whatever he wants. And in recent years, the former Police frontman has been exercising that power freely: His last few albums have included the music from his Tony-nominated musical (2013’s The Last Ship), classical reinterpretations of his greatest hits (2010’s Symphonicities), traditional holiday music (2009’s If on a Winter’s Night…), and his infamous batch of lute songs (2006’s Songs from the Labyrinth).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s twelfth LP, 57th \u0026amp; 9th, named for the New York City intersection he traversed every day on the way to the studio, marks his first rock release in more than a decade — and it proves that years of passion projects haven’t dulled his songwriting instincts. That’s partly thanks to a loose and unfussy recording process that saw Sting write on the spot with a tight team of musicians, including members of his touring band and Tex-Mex group the Last Bandoleros, with whom he shares management; there’s a lean muscle powering songs like the hooky opener “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You.” But it’s also because Sting doesn’t hold anything back when it comes to his feelings about the state of the world, whether he’s poking fun at climate-change skeptics (the urgent “One Fine Day”) or empathizing with European refugees (“Inshallah”). Sting is hardly the first artist this year to write about pressing social social issues, but he writes plainly yet poetically about them - a style that keeps his messages from feeling heavy-handed or self-important. Here, he’s just an elder statesman speaking from the heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sounds of 57th range from folksy acoustic numbers to epic stadium-fillers, but the record’s most poignant tunes have stories of loss and mourning in common. The quiet album closer, “The Empty Chair,” was written from the perspective of journalist James Foley, who was killed by ISIS in 2014, and it might be one of the most heart-wrenching songs Sting has ever written - good luck not getting choked up as he sings about keeping a place for Foley at the family dinner table. On “50,000,” which was inspired by the deaths of David Bowie, Prince, and Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, Sting confronts his own mortality and the mythologizing powers of fame by admitting he’s “still believing that old lie… rock stars don’t ever die, they only fade away.” Looking enviably fit at age 65, Sting doesn’t seem in danger of the former anytime soon; and with records as robust as this one, he doesn’t have to worry about the latter, either.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Post by Scott Stroud\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting rocks out again with a familiar sound...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first single on Sting’s new album, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” sounds like the love child of Police classics “I’ll Be Watching You” and “Can’t Stand Losing You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are the achy lyrics of the former, which holds up well but has more of a stalker vibe than it seemed to the first time around. And there’s the driving bass line of the latter, the style of playing that made Sting’s former band one of the best of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“57th and 9th” as a whole sounds a lot like Sting’s old stuff, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s musically incredible and lyrically wiser, though it also veers into self-importance at times - just as the old stuff did.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike a lot of aging rockers living on past glory, Sting’s return to rock ‘n’ roll from other projects seems driven more by a desire to return to something he loves than the need to make a buck. There’s a payoff for waiting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded in a period of weeks, the album has spontaneity but also a rawness. He could have scrubbed a few clichés from the lyrics - the sands of time on one song, old rockers never die (they just fade away) on another - but the pulsating rush that was the hallmark of Sting’s early work makes up for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA man who knows how to rock this well can be forgiven. It is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arts Desk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRock veteran swaps lotus position for a trip down memory lane...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven now, Sting's reputation as one of rock's most earnest men looms large. His last two projects consisted of a Broadway musical about Newcastle's ship industry and a \"symphonic\" retrospective of his greatest hits. Before that it was saving bees and Elizabethan madrigals with a Bosnian lutenist. Now, however, the singer promises something lighter. 57th and 9th has been heralded as the return of \"Sting the rock star\". Could it really be the tantric one is returning to the sound he created in the early Eighties? \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first signs of familiarity come from the guitar and drums. Here Dominic Miller and Vinnie Colaiuta faithfully recreate the textures and rhythms of Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland from The Police. Throw in Mr Sumner's unmistakable ear for melody and many of the results could pass for Police outtakes and B-sides. \"Petrol Head\" has echoes of \"Synchronicity II\"; \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" and \"50,000\" evoke the band's earlier work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's lyrics, though, are heavier. \"Inshallah\" is a pleasantly thoughtful meditation of the plight of Syrian refugees; \"One Fine Day\", about climate change, is decidedly clunky. No matter how weighty the lyrics, any po-facedness is largely offset by the nostalgic charm of hearing that iconic tenor back in its rightful setting. What might once have felt irritating now seems strangely cosy and reassuring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e57th and 9ths finest three minutes are \"Pretty Young Soldier\" a rather lovely interpretation of the folk story about a girl who dresses as a boy soldier to get her man. The worst track is \"Down Down Down\", so bland it virtually doesn't exist. Yet, while the presence of such fillers make 57th and 9th short of classic, the contents do mainly live up to the cover image - the artist looking significantly younger and cheekier than the grizzled yoga veteran we've become used to. A pleasant enough reminder, then, of the old days.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from ABC News by Allan Raible\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's Latest Album Is His Best Since 1996...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePut quite simply, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is Sting’s best album since 1996’s under-rated “Mercury Falling.” I’ve wanted Sting to explore his rock side again for a very long time. While this isn’t a pure rock record, there are some appealing, crunchy moments on here. “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” effectively recalls his work with The Police and provides him with his biggest hit-contender in a long time. The same goes with “50,000” which was written in tribute to David Bowie and Prince and would fit decently next to a classic like “King Of Pain.” On “Petrol Head,” Sting works a blues-rock vein that is surprisingly tough. With a different arrangement, you could imagine it working similar territory as “Demolition Man.” On the deluxe edition he even delivers a live, slightly bluesy version of the early Police highlight “Next To You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s tempting to call this album a return to Sting’s punk roots, but if you go further in the playlist, there are also some strong ballads. The second half of the record is strikingly quiet when compared to the first.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis isn’t quite the powerhouse album it could have been but it’s a very strong reminder that Sting is indeed one of pop’s finer master-craftsmen. To many, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” showcases the return of the version of Sting that has been missing for some time. After years of wandering and experimentation, it is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” This is most definitely among Sting’s best solo singles to date. It’s an eye-opening return to form of the grandest kind and proof that he still has a hungry side. This track is insistent and infectious in all the best ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“50,000” This is a ballad of sorts but it still balances a feeling of sadness with a spiky, building energy. Again, this is another strong tune with a lot of potential.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Heading South On The Great North Road” This track from the album’s quieter half shows Sting’s classically-minded side delivering a tune that sounds like a traditional folk song for the ages. While this more literary side in this case probably won’t lead to radio spins, it still shows Sting at his songwriting best.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998183506,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/album11472662245_640_dffccd49-5dde-4d53-b6e8-b1f85209387d.jpg?v=1758315232"},{"product_id":"57th-9th-4","title":"57th \u0026 9th","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"'Inshallah' is a beautiful word from the Arabic language which is kind of resignation - it's God's will, it shall be - or it's a word that describes some sort of hope, courage. I don't know what the political solution is but I think if there is a solution, it has to be rooted in empathy - for the victims of the war that's going on in Syria at the moment for example, the victims of poverty in Africa, and perhaps in the future the victims of global warming.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'AFP', 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The first song on the new record is called \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You.\" It sounds romantic at first. But the song is actually about creativity, specifically: about writing. Like an artist or author has a blank slate in front of them every day. It's like snow: There are no clues as to what lies beneath. Is there a road or simply a path? Is there an animal or a muse? And if it is a muse, is it a romantic or a spiritual muse? We don't know. We writers face this problem every day. Yet we indulge the obsession of wanting to express ourselves with words.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Stuttgarter-Nachrichten, 01\/2017\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The songs are not about New York. I call them ‘ten short stories’. They deal with various issues, some of them more serious, some not so. It’s a tribute to New York without me singing directly over New York.” Everyone knows, “I’m an ‘Englishman In New York”!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For the last ten years, my music has been a bit esoteric so people will think I’m doing something like that again. But I want to surprise you. And I’m always happy when I see happy faces who hear rock’n’roll. This record is very direct, simple and the songs are rather short. My old DNA from times with The Police can be seen in it – provided with a new feeling.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An intrinsic part of a musician’s life is to create the wow factor, which comes down to the instruments as well as what your songs say. For example, in recent years, I have made records that had a more esoteric touch simply for the fact that a theme caught my attention and I was curious to learn new things. Perhaps people assume that I will continue doing the same, which they may or may not like. But I was clear that with this album I wanted to do something new and surprise people with something different. I wanted the public to hear something from me that they were not anticipating. Certainly, I could have also surprised them with an electronic music record. This album was something spontaneous, recorded very quickly and done with friends. Every day, I went to the studio in New York where I met with my guys and we would work. When I got back home I would try to give more shape to what we had done, find a story and turn it into song. For me, the experience was to enjoy myself.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The first song called \"I Can’t Stop Thinking About You\" is a song about obsession. It’s really about a writer who sits in front of a blank sheet that looks like a snowy field. Your job as a writer is to write something and dig to find something – a muse, an idea and something to inspire you. The dilemma for any writer is to find inspiration. Music for me flows much faster and I get it in a more natural way, but the inspiration to write the lyrics of the song comes from a much more mysterious place that I really do not understand, but I know if I have patience and discipline it will come. In a way, I want to find myself in a somewhat uncomfortable situation because my life, as you can imagine, is very privileged. Where I live in New York, I have a terrace and during winter when it is freezing cold, below zero degrees, I lock myself out with my paper, my pen and my music and do not enter the house until the song is finished. It is a way of inspiring me and forcing myself to write. I did this for many days. I was terribly cold and so my first song refers to that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If we consider the surprise factor, the most different one is “Petrolhead” because it is very rock and roll. I think it will surprise people. On the other hand there is another one that I think is very sensitive which is “Heading South on the Great North Road,” which is a bit where I come from and why I went in search of a better life. In this sense it is related to another song called “Inshallah” that relatively speaking is also about people – refugees – seeking a better life. I think all people in some way are refugees. Not at the level of the people of Syria, obviously, because they are in imminent danger, but in the sense that no matter where you live, your ancestors always come from elsewhere. We must bear this in mind. The flow of refugees may change in the future; perhaps we will have to seek refuge and hope that others will accept us and will not put obstacles in our way. I'm not trying to give it any kind of political solution, but it is something that must be treated gently and not as something abstract that does not affect us. We have to think of a face, a family and not just in numbers. I have no answer but we have to solve it because it will not go away. The reasons for migration are now mainly due to war and poverty, but soon climate change will also affect it so it is important to get to work and together try to fix it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The thrust of it is rock’n’roll, but all my [musical] DNA is in there. There’s some folk music, some thoughtful, quiet moments. My whole thing is surprise. If I’ve been making esoteric albums for the past 10 years, then people expect that I’ll do that again. But the main thing was, 'Hey, let’s have some energy’. It’s not a lute album.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Glenn Frey, Lemmy, David [Bowie], Prince, Alan Rickman. We had dinner with him a few weeks before. Alan invited Trudie and I specifically to say goodbye to us, but without saying goodbye. His wife told us later - he came to New York and had dinner every night with his close friends. We called him on New Year’s Day - we heard he was in a hospice. He said, 'Oh, I’m fine, I just had a blood change.’ He was dead two weeks later. When a generation’s cultural icons die, it shocks us. The childlike part of us believes they’re immortal. And when you’re a man of a certain age and you’ve lived most of your life already, you think, 'Wow, this is real.’?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I got my musicians in the studio in Hell’s Kitchen in New York and said, ‘I have no idea what we’re doing. Let’s play musical ping pong.’ I needed to make decisions very hard and fast and very quickly and stick by those decisions. But it gave the record a character that it wouldn’t have otherwise had.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"For the last decade or so, I’ve been making what you might call esoteric records where I was only following my curiosity. There was no commercial agenda. Then I thought, ‘What should I surprise people with now?’ And it came to me, a rock ’n’ roll record, or at least the thrust of it being rock ’n’ roll. That could get people saying, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that.’ And that’s what the reaction has been. I think it’s already successful in that regard. People can recognize my entire music DNA on this record – from the beginning until now. It’s all me. I’m a gadfly. I want to do as many different things as I can. Some people have one furrow and they dig deep and I respect them for that, but I like to mulch around.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There was no overriding concept to this album. In fact it was made without any pre-planning at all. I went into the studio with literally no ideas of what it would be except that it would take a short amount of time... Every day, I took something home with me on the walk back to my house. I would ask the song to tell me a story and the next day I’d turn up with a song. Day by day this grew. But there’s no overarching theme or concept.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I normally go in the studio with a great deal of preparation. This time, I just booked the studio and brought my cohorts who have worked with me for almost three decades: Dominic Miller on guitar, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. And I said, “Guys, let’s just play musical Ping-Pong.” An idea will go around in a circle, and a song will materialize, or at least the semblance of a song. I then structure it, give it a shape, and then take that shape home and ask that song what it’s telling me. Who is the character singing this? What’s the mood, what’s the narrative? And then I’d play a trick on myself. I’d lock myself out of my apartment, on the terrace in the cold, and not come in until I’d finished a lyric. I had a cup of coffee and a coat. It was one of those things to put myself out of my comfort zone in order to trick the muse into playing ball with me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Although it’s about a rock star, and of course I’ve been a rock star, “50,000” is not really me. It’s a character that seems to be singing through me and looking back on his career and, in reflection, finding philosophy. There are a lot of people like me at my age, still making rock ’n’ roll, having that rather singular experience of being in front of all those people and feeling empowered, and the hubris of that. And the psychological danger of it, too. And then coming out the other side and asking: “What did that mean? Are you, in fact, a god? Are you godlike?” No, you’re not. You’re very very human, and very mortal. It’s hard to express how unique that feeling is. Not many of us have stood up on those stages in front of 50,000; 100,000; a quarter of a million; in my case, half a million people out there. That can be a very heady and confusing experience. You need a certain perspective on it, to say, “This is fun, but it’s an illusion.” If you do that, then you’ll survive it. Otherwise, no, you’ll become the victim of it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I set out to complete the whole thing in three months at the most. I hadn't prepared anything. I simply went into the studio with my musicians and said, 'Let's play.' What emerged were ten musical short stories that have a very powerful quality. One part of the album is very rock 'n' roll and energetic. The other part is more contemplative and quiet. The album is a bit like me. I'm both.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I have a pool of musicians I enjoy working with. There are so many different tones on this record. That's why I need diverse musicians. They're my friends. They know how I work and what I need from them. They trust me enough to go into the studio with me without any preparation. And there we play a kind of musical ping-pong. I throw something to them. They throw it back. They know how to respond to what I do. And the music grows richer with each exchange. It becomes more complicated and interesting. We improvise, even though we don't play jazz. We trust, love, and respect each other. The music is a result of this relationship. We're a team—like in football.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" has different layers. You can understand the piece as a passionate love song. But it's also about the process of songwriting, the passionate search for inspiration. As a composer, I'm confronted every morning with a blank sheet of paper. Completely empty. Like a field covered in snow. And I have no idea where the thing I'm looking for is, or what it is. A story? A character? A path? A romantic muse? A spiritual muse?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The daily commute to the studio also helped. While I was running, I thought about my ideas. Running stimulates my creativity. It's like a very rhythmic meditation. Running through New York is also very stimulating because it's a very dramatic city. The architecture. The people. The traffic. The noise. I stopped at the traffic light at the same intersection of 57th Street and 9th Ave every day. You have to pay close attention there, otherwise you'll get run over by taxis. While I waited, I gave myself over to my thoughts.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jim Foley was working as a photojournalist in Syria and was captured by ISIS. He was held captive for many months. Then they murdered him and broadcast the beheading online. I saw a film about him. All his friends said he was the one who kept them all sane. He was the one who got them extra food and blankets. He was the one the guards tortured. And in the end, he was the one whose throat was slit. Luckily, they didn't show the execution in the film. When you watch the film, you fall in love with this extraordinary man. I had his family's words in my head — how much they all missed him. I imagined that the family always had an empty chair at the table for him - as if he could walk in at any moment. This became the song Empty Chair. Later, I found out that his friends at their local bar actually always kept a chair free for Jim.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One Fine Day is my ironic response to the global warming crisis. I pray every day that the climate sceptics who claim climate change is a hoax are right. And that all the scientific evidence for it turns out to be false. They're paid by the coal industry and the oil companies. The English poet William Blake said something great: 'A man who persists in his folly will become wise.' If the fool pushes his folly to the extreme, he will become wise. I hope it won't be too late by then.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In 'Petrol Head,' I play a truck driver. He's a macho guy who only thinks about sex and religion. That's not me, of course. Apart from the religion. It's a funny song. In the middle, I quote William Blake from the hymn Jerusalem: 'Bring me my chariot of fire. Bring me my chariot of fire.' It's pretty raw. I enjoy singing it. I'm slipping into the role of someone else who has nothing to do with me. I don't drive a truck. Okay, I did it once, but that was a long time ago. Maybe it's a secret part of me after all. I enjoy this role, anyway.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm convinced that if you structure music correctly, it tells you a story. It then has a narrative thread, an abstract narrative thread. And my job is just to figure out what the music is trying to say. In the case of Petrol Head it was clear that it was about driving. At some point, it became clear: Here's someone driving a huge truck through the American desert. That's the story. I don't really understand it. It's very strange how songs sometimes come to you. You absorb them. They're in the air.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Down, Down Down is about the end of a relationship. Luckily, it's not my relationship. But I have enough life experience to write about it. My heart has been broken. I've left someone. I've broken other people's hearts. I've had all these experiences and can revisit the corresponding emotions at any time. I don't have to relive them. I don't want to. It's also a song about depression, where you sink into the abyss. It's a terrible illness that I don't suffer from. But I know enough people affected by it to write something sensible about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All About Jazz by Nenad Georgievski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003eThroughout his long and illustrious career, Sting has enjoyed an enviable set of circumstances. Not only does he have total artistic freedom but he has been accompanied by elite musicians and has a devoted, global fan base. In return, that has yielded many artistic triumphs as he explored almost every genre known to man. He has been eclectic in his choice of inspiration which is filtered through an ever expansive musical worldview. That incorporates all kinds of sounds and music from pop and jazz to classical, medieval and world music. His new album 57th \u0026amp;9th reveals a restless and uncompromising creative spirit that makes music that still pulses with life and vigour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, 57th \u0026amp;9th is predominantly painted with the primal colours of rock music: rollicking drums, fizzing guitars and fluid bass lines. The first several songs roar straight out of the box. It's been a while since he sounded this energized and unfettered. Producer (and Sting's manager) Martin Kierszenbaum's sparse and raw production is a welcome change of pace for Sting whose previous work often slipped into the quiet, hushed and comfortable. The energy is tough and lean and he has never sounded this raw, urgent, and edgy since his early days with his band The Police. Sonically, this record does not break any drastically new sonic frontiers for him but these kinds of fast-paced rockier songs have been heard only occasionally on his records with \"After the Rain Has Fallen\" from Brand New Day (A\u0026amp;M, 1999) \"All This Time\" Soul Cages, ( A\u0026amp;M, 1991) as examples. The music is driven by a working band of many years and also welcomes other guests to make this recording special. While they rock and sound urgent they don't just bash it away. A band of this calibre is capable of stirring up wild grooves, but here they respond sensitively to Sting's vocal lines, dynamics and conjuring varying dynamics within the songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost importantly, 57th \u0026amp; 9th is dominated by outstanding songwriting. It is another masterclass in the potential potency of lyrics, melodies, and performance from an enduring songwriting master. At heart, Sting is an unequivocally a soul singer and musician. He always sings with great conviction, always drawing you in the story, like having a conversation with an old friend of yours. In contrast to his previous output, the autobiographical and reflective The Last Ship, (A\u0026amp;M, 2013) Sting is utterly engaged in the present, dealing with subjects such as social injustice and the horrors of refugees (\"Inshallah\"), pondering about climate change and environmental issues (\"One Fine Day\") or contemplating the passing of colleagues and close friends such as singers David Bowie, Prince or actor Alan Rickman (\"50.000\") .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe quality of each song is consistently good with peaks and valleys in between. \"If You Can't Love Me\" is one of the many finest moments here. It is a tender mid-tempo ballad offered with the no-nonsense conviction that reveals love may be beyond the measurement of the rational. It's a love song that is achingly sincere without being invasive. The album closes, gorgeously, with a hushed ballad \"Empty Chair\" that deals with the subject of a loss. It's a song written for Jim: The James Foley Story, a documentary about a US journalist that was publicly executed by terrorists in Syria. The tone of the song is delicate and graceful. Sting's voice barely raises throughout, yet he manages to convey more emotion than ever before.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e57th \u0026amp; 9th is a master course in songwriting. Sting has created timeless songs that feel organic, heartfelt and important now, but which will sound as magnificent in the decades to come as they sound today. \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by Jon Dolan\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSting Makes a Surprise Return to Rock \u0026amp; Roll - A darkly impassioned LP full of loud guitars, politics and visions of mortality...\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s been ages since Sting even seemed to conceive of himself as a rock artist, which is why his straight-ahead new LP is so surprising: 57th \u0026amp; 9th is a no-lute zone. You’d have to go all the way back to “Born in the 50’s,” from the very first Police album, to hear him sing over guitars as rough as the ones on the lonely-horn-dog anthem “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” or the no-frills driving banger “Petrol Head.” The highlight “50,000” offers a clue to this newfound urgency; over guitarist Dominic Miller’s dark chords, Sting pays tribute to Prince, recalling ecstatic stadium shows, then flashes to a bathroom-mirror vision of his own mortality: “These lines of stress, one bloodshot eye\/The unhealthy pallor of a troubled ghost.” Desperation also comes through on “One Fine Day,” a delicate plea for climate sanity, and the Middle East-tinged refugee’s prayer “Inshallah.” Elsewhere, he offers a kind of travelogue through his own musical past, from the Chaucer-y balladry of “Heading South on the Great North Road” to “If You  Can’t Love Me,” a mordantly Kafkaesque echo of the jazz rock Sting made in the Eighties. Even if the album gets more ponderous as his concerns deepen, it’s nice to see the king of pain flex a little. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Los Angeles Times by Mikael Wood\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn '57th \u0026amp; 9th,' Sting urgently shares what's on his mind...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2013, Sting sat for an hour or so interview in a small dressing room at what was then Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe veteran English musician was in town talking up “The Last Ship,” an album of songs from a musical he’d composed that was headed to Broadway, and in the course of the conversation Sting made it clear he no longer had much interest in writing the kind of first-person pop tunes that made him a star.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA year later, “The Last Ship” opened in New York — and then closed after three months, a victim of poor ticket sales that even Sting himself couldn’t save by joining the show’s cast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven that turn of events, it may be fair to greet the singer’s new project, “57th \u0026amp; 9th,” with suspicion. Released this month, it’s a collection of — hey, wait a minute — first-person pop tunes, similar in structure to those he created with the Police before he turned his attention to the lute (on 2006’s widely mocked “Songs From the Labyrinth”) and the theater.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot only that, but Sting, 65, is promoting the record in precisely the manner he appeared to have lost his taste for. On Sunday night he’ll perform along with Ariana Grande and Shawn Mendes on the American Music Awards, and next week he’s set to play during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere’s the thing, though: “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is good. Really good. Far from a craven about-face, it might be Sting’s best set of songs since the early ’90s — not a retreat into nostalgia but a shrewd adaptation of a familiar form.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s title reflects its genesis. At a studio near the corner of 57th Street and 9th Avenue in New York, Sting corralled guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta - musicians he’s played with for decades - and got to work banging out songs free of any overarching concept.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sound is taut, scruffy, even punky, full of snarling guitars and hurtling tempos; Sting’s melodies are sturdy but straightforward, as though he’d worked them out while singing live with the band, pushing his voice to be heard above the din.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet the twist is that he didn’t take this throwback approach as an excuse to revisit old times or themes. These are songs about what’s on Sting’s mind right now: war, politics, the environment - and the challenge of songwriting itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe last is the topic at the heart of the sexual metaphor in “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” in which he’s a guy driven mad by his desire to find the right words. “One Fine Day” argues for awareness of climate change, first by appealing to the listener’s emotion (“Three penguins and a bear got drowned”), then with full-on alarm bells (“We must do something quick or die”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn “50,000” Sting ponders the inordinate number of rock and pop stars who’ve died in 2016, which sounds like a miserable idea but actually provides some fascinating insight into what amounts to a professional dilemma.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We tweet our anecdotes, our commentary \/ Or we sing his songs in some sad \u003cbr\u003etribute,” he sings, not weepy at all, “While the tabloids are holding a story of kiss and tell \/ That he’s no longer able to deny or refute.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven when Sting does look back to his youth - as in “Heading South on the Great North Road,” set in his hometown of Newcastle - he opens up the scope of the song, in this case to draw a parallel with the current refugee crisis in Europe. He invokes that situation again in “Inshallah,” with its “sad boats” and “anxious eyes.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDoes the vivid writing and playing on “57th \u0026amp; 9th” guarantee the album will find the mass audience that eluded “The Last Ship”? Hardly. Few who see Sting on the AMAs this weekend are likely to download (or even stream) the record. And few of those who’d enjoy the record as much as I do are likely to watch the AMAs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, hey, if the album bombs and Sting again reverses himself in some way, I won’t automatically doubt him next time. He’s earned the right to change his mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Entertainment Weekly by Nolan Feeney\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith 16 Grammys to his name and spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Sting long ago earned the right to do whatever he wants. And in recent years, the former Police frontman has been exercising that power freely: His last few albums have included the music from his Tony-nominated musical (2013’s The Last Ship), classical reinterpretations of his greatest hits (2010’s Symphonicities), traditional holiday music (2009’s If on a Winter’s Night…), and his infamous batch of lute songs (2006’s Songs from the Labyrinth).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s twelfth LP, 57th \u0026amp; 9th, named for the New York City intersection he traversed every day on the way to the studio, marks his first rock release in more than a decade — and it proves that years of passion projects haven’t dulled his songwriting instincts. That’s partly thanks to a loose and unfussy recording process that saw Sting write on the spot with a tight team of musicians, including members of his touring band and Tex-Mex group the Last Bandoleros, with whom he shares management; there’s a lean muscle powering songs like the hooky opener “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You.” But it’s also because Sting doesn’t hold anything back when it comes to his feelings about the state of the world, whether he’s poking fun at climate-change skeptics (the urgent “One Fine Day”) or empathizing with European refugees (“Inshallah”). Sting is hardly the first artist this year to write about pressing social social issues, but he writes plainly yet poetically about them - a style that keeps his messages from feeling heavy-handed or self-important. Here, he’s just an elder statesman speaking from the heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sounds of 57th range from folksy acoustic numbers to epic stadium-fillers, but the record’s most poignant tunes have stories of loss and mourning in common. The quiet album closer, “The Empty Chair,” was written from the perspective of journalist James Foley, who was killed by ISIS in 2014, and it might be one of the most heart-wrenching songs Sting has ever written - good luck not getting choked up as he sings about keeping a place for Foley at the family dinner table. On “50,000,” which was inspired by the deaths of David Bowie, Prince, and Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, Sting confronts his own mortality and the mythologizing powers of fame by admitting he’s “still believing that old lie… rock stars don’t ever die, they only fade away.” Looking enviably fit at age 65, Sting doesn’t seem in danger of the former anytime soon; and with records as robust as this one, he doesn’t have to worry about the latter, either.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Post by Scott Stroud\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting rocks out again with a familiar sound...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first single on Sting’s new album, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” sounds like the love child of Police classics “I’ll Be Watching You” and “Can’t Stand Losing You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are the achy lyrics of the former, which holds up well but has more of a stalker vibe than it seemed to the first time around. And there’s the driving bass line of the latter, the style of playing that made Sting’s former band one of the best of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“57th and 9th” as a whole sounds a lot like Sting’s old stuff, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s musically incredible and lyrically wiser, though it also veers into self-importance at times - just as the old stuff did.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike a lot of aging rockers living on past glory, Sting’s return to rock ‘n’ roll from other projects seems driven more by a desire to return to something he loves than the need to make a buck. There’s a payoff for waiting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded in a period of weeks, the album has spontaneity but also a rawness. He could have scrubbed a few clichés from the lyrics - the sands of time on one song, old rockers never die (they just fade away) on another - but the pulsating rush that was the hallmark of Sting’s early work makes up for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA man who knows how to rock this well can be forgiven. It is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arts Desk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRock veteran swaps lotus position for a trip down memory lane...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven now, Sting's reputation as one of rock's most earnest men looms large. His last two projects consisted of a Broadway musical about Newcastle's ship industry and a \"symphonic\" retrospective of his greatest hits. Before that it was saving bees and Elizabethan madrigals with a Bosnian lutenist. Now, however, the singer promises something lighter. 57th and 9th has been heralded as the return of \"Sting the rock star\". Could it really be the tantric one is returning to the sound he created in the early Eighties? \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first signs of familiarity come from the guitar and drums. Here Dominic Miller and Vinnie Colaiuta faithfully recreate the textures and rhythms of Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland from The Police. Throw in Mr Sumner's unmistakable ear for melody and many of the results could pass for Police outtakes and B-sides. \"Petrol Head\" has echoes of \"Synchronicity II\"; \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" and \"50,000\" evoke the band's earlier work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's lyrics, though, are heavier. \"Inshallah\" is a pleasantly thoughtful meditation of the plight of Syrian refugees; \"One Fine Day\", about climate change, is decidedly clunky. No matter how weighty the lyrics, any po-facedness is largely offset by the nostalgic charm of hearing that iconic tenor back in its rightful setting. What might once have felt irritating now seems strangely cosy and reassuring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e57th and 9ths finest three minutes are \"Pretty Young Soldier\" a rather lovely interpretation of the folk story about a girl who dresses as a boy soldier to get her man. The worst track is \"Down Down Down\", so bland it virtually doesn't exist. Yet, while the presence of such fillers make 57th and 9th short of classic, the contents do mainly live up to the cover image - the artist looking significantly younger and cheekier than the grizzled yoga veteran we've become used to. A pleasant enough reminder, then, of the old days.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from ABC News by Allan Raible\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's Latest Album Is His Best Since 1996...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePut quite simply, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is Sting’s best album since 1996’s under-rated “Mercury Falling.” I’ve wanted Sting to explore his rock side again for a very long time. While this isn’t a pure rock record, there are some appealing, crunchy moments on here. “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” effectively recalls his work with The Police and provides him with his biggest hit-contender in a long time. The same goes with “50,000” which was written in tribute to David Bowie and Prince and would fit decently next to a classic like “King Of Pain.” On “Petrol Head,” Sting works a blues-rock vein that is surprisingly tough. With a different arrangement, you could imagine it working similar territory as “Demolition Man.” On the deluxe edition he even delivers a live, slightly bluesy version of the early Police highlight “Next To You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s tempting to call this album a return to Sting’s punk roots, but if you go further in the playlist, there are also some strong ballads. The second half of the record is strikingly quiet when compared to the first.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis isn’t quite the powerhouse album it could have been but it’s a very strong reminder that Sting is indeed one of pop’s finer master-craftsmen. To many, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” showcases the return of the version of Sting that has been missing for some time. After years of wandering and experimentation, it is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” This is most definitely among Sting’s best solo singles to date. It’s an eye-opening return to form of the grandest kind and proof that he still has a hungry side. This track is insistent and infectious in all the best ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“50,000” This is a ballad of sorts but it still balances a feeling of sadness with a spiky, building energy. Again, this is another strong tune with a lot of potential.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Heading South On The Great North Road” This track from the album’s quieter half shows Sting’s classically-minded side delivering a tune that sounds like a traditional folk song for the ages. While this more literary side in this case probably won’t lead to radio spins, it still shows Sting at his songwriting best.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998216274,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/album11472662245_640_3ec738f9-c6d8-4244-a89d-fe47f3dc7165.jpg?v=1758315230"},{"product_id":"57th-9th-5","title":"57th \u0026 9th","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"'Inshallah' is a beautiful word from the Arabic language which is kind of resignation - it's God's will, it shall be - or it's a word that describes some sort of hope, courage. I don't know what the political solution is but I think if there is a solution, it has to be rooted in empathy - for the victims of the war that's going on in Syria at the moment for example, the victims of poverty in Africa, and perhaps in the future the victims of global warming.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'AFP', 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The first song on the new record is called \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You.\" It sounds romantic at first. But the song is actually about creativity, specifically: about writing. Like an artist or author has a blank slate in front of them every day. It's like snow: There are no clues as to what lies beneath. Is there a road or simply a path? Is there an animal or a muse? And if it is a muse, is it a romantic or a spiritual muse? We don't know. We writers face this problem every day. Yet we indulge the obsession of wanting to express ourselves with words.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Stuttgarter-Nachrichten, 01\/2017\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The songs are not about New York. I call them ‘ten short stories’. They deal with various issues, some of them more serious, some not so. It’s a tribute to New York without me singing directly over New York.” Everyone knows, “I’m an ‘Englishman In New York”!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For the last ten years, my music has been a bit esoteric so people will think I’m doing something like that again. But I want to surprise you. And I’m always happy when I see happy faces who hear rock’n’roll. This record is very direct, simple and the songs are rather short. My old DNA from times with The Police can be seen in it – provided with a new feeling.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An intrinsic part of a musician’s life is to create the wow factor, which comes down to the instruments as well as what your songs say. For example, in recent years, I have made records that had a more esoteric touch simply for the fact that a theme caught my attention and I was curious to learn new things. Perhaps people assume that I will continue doing the same, which they may or may not like. But I was clear that with this album I wanted to do something new and surprise people with something different. I wanted the public to hear something from me that they were not anticipating. Certainly, I could have also surprised them with an electronic music record. This album was something spontaneous, recorded very quickly and done with friends. Every day, I went to the studio in New York where I met with my guys and we would work. When I got back home I would try to give more shape to what we had done, find a story and turn it into song. For me, the experience was to enjoy myself.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The first song called \"I Can’t Stop Thinking About You\" is a song about obsession. It’s really about a writer who sits in front of a blank sheet that looks like a snowy field. Your job as a writer is to write something and dig to find something – a muse, an idea and something to inspire you. The dilemma for any writer is to find inspiration. Music for me flows much faster and I get it in a more natural way, but the inspiration to write the lyrics of the song comes from a much more mysterious place that I really do not understand, but I know if I have patience and discipline it will come. In a way, I want to find myself in a somewhat uncomfortable situation because my life, as you can imagine, is very privileged. Where I live in New York, I have a terrace and during winter when it is freezing cold, below zero degrees, I lock myself out with my paper, my pen and my music and do not enter the house until the song is finished. It is a way of inspiring me and forcing myself to write. I did this for many days. I was terribly cold and so my first song refers to that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If we consider the surprise factor, the most different one is “Petrolhead” because it is very rock and roll. I think it will surprise people. On the other hand there is another one that I think is very sensitive which is “Heading South on the Great North Road,” which is a bit where I come from and why I went in search of a better life. In this sense it is related to another song called “Inshallah” that relatively speaking is also about people – refugees – seeking a better life. I think all people in some way are refugees. Not at the level of the people of Syria, obviously, because they are in imminent danger, but in the sense that no matter where you live, your ancestors always come from elsewhere. We must bear this in mind. The flow of refugees may change in the future; perhaps we will have to seek refuge and hope that others will accept us and will not put obstacles in our way. I'm not trying to give it any kind of political solution, but it is something that must be treated gently and not as something abstract that does not affect us. We have to think of a face, a family and not just in numbers. I have no answer but we have to solve it because it will not go away. The reasons for migration are now mainly due to war and poverty, but soon climate change will also affect it so it is important to get to work and together try to fix it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The thrust of it is rock’n’roll, but all my [musical] DNA is in there. There’s some folk music, some thoughtful, quiet moments. My whole thing is surprise. If I’ve been making esoteric albums for the past 10 years, then people expect that I’ll do that again. But the main thing was, 'Hey, let’s have some energy’. It’s not a lute album.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Glenn Frey, Lemmy, David [Bowie], Prince, Alan Rickman. We had dinner with him a few weeks before. Alan invited Trudie and I specifically to say goodbye to us, but without saying goodbye. His wife told us later - he came to New York and had dinner every night with his close friends. We called him on New Year’s Day - we heard he was in a hospice. He said, 'Oh, I’m fine, I just had a blood change.’ He was dead two weeks later. When a generation’s cultural icons die, it shocks us. The childlike part of us believes they’re immortal. And when you’re a man of a certain age and you’ve lived most of your life already, you think, 'Wow, this is real.’?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I got my musicians in the studio in Hell’s Kitchen in New York and said, ‘I have no idea what we’re doing. Let’s play musical ping pong.’ I needed to make decisions very hard and fast and very quickly and stick by those decisions. But it gave the record a character that it wouldn’t have otherwise had.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"For the last decade or so, I’ve been making what you might call esoteric records where I was only following my curiosity. There was no commercial agenda. Then I thought, ‘What should I surprise people with now?’ And it came to me, a rock ’n’ roll record, or at least the thrust of it being rock ’n’ roll. That could get people saying, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that.’ And that’s what the reaction has been. I think it’s already successful in that regard. People can recognize my entire music DNA on this record – from the beginning until now. It’s all me. I’m a gadfly. I want to do as many different things as I can. Some people have one furrow and they dig deep and I respect them for that, but I like to mulch around.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There was no overriding concept to this album. In fact it was made without any pre-planning at all. I went into the studio with literally no ideas of what it would be except that it would take a short amount of time... Every day, I took something home with me on the walk back to my house. I would ask the song to tell me a story and the next day I’d turn up with a song. Day by day this grew. But there’s no overarching theme or concept.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I normally go in the studio with a great deal of preparation. This time, I just booked the studio and brought my cohorts who have worked with me for almost three decades: Dominic Miller on guitar, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. And I said, “Guys, let’s just play musical Ping-Pong.” An idea will go around in a circle, and a song will materialize, or at least the semblance of a song. I then structure it, give it a shape, and then take that shape home and ask that song what it’s telling me. Who is the character singing this? What’s the mood, what’s the narrative? And then I’d play a trick on myself. I’d lock myself out of my apartment, on the terrace in the cold, and not come in until I’d finished a lyric. I had a cup of coffee and a coat. It was one of those things to put myself out of my comfort zone in order to trick the muse into playing ball with me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Although it’s about a rock star, and of course I’ve been a rock star, “50,000” is not really me. It’s a character that seems to be singing through me and looking back on his career and, in reflection, finding philosophy. There are a lot of people like me at my age, still making rock ’n’ roll, having that rather singular experience of being in front of all those people and feeling empowered, and the hubris of that. And the psychological danger of it, too. And then coming out the other side and asking: “What did that mean? Are you, in fact, a god? Are you godlike?” No, you’re not. You’re very very human, and very mortal. It’s hard to express how unique that feeling is. Not many of us have stood up on those stages in front of 50,000; 100,000; a quarter of a million; in my case, half a million people out there. That can be a very heady and confusing experience. You need a certain perspective on it, to say, “This is fun, but it’s an illusion.” If you do that, then you’ll survive it. Otherwise, no, you’ll become the victim of it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I set out to complete the whole thing in three months at the most. I hadn't prepared anything. I simply went into the studio with my musicians and said, 'Let's play.' What emerged were ten musical short stories that have a very powerful quality. One part of the album is very rock 'n' roll and energetic. The other part is more contemplative and quiet. The album is a bit like me. I'm both.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I have a pool of musicians I enjoy working with. There are so many different tones on this record. That's why I need diverse musicians. They're my friends. They know how I work and what I need from them. They trust me enough to go into the studio with me without any preparation. And there we play a kind of musical ping-pong. I throw something to them. They throw it back. They know how to respond to what I do. And the music grows richer with each exchange. It becomes more complicated and interesting. We improvise, even though we don't play jazz. We trust, love, and respect each other. The music is a result of this relationship. We're a team—like in football.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" has different layers. You can understand the piece as a passionate love song. But it's also about the process of songwriting, the passionate search for inspiration. As a composer, I'm confronted every morning with a blank sheet of paper. Completely empty. Like a field covered in snow. And I have no idea where the thing I'm looking for is, or what it is. A story? A character? A path? A romantic muse? A spiritual muse?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The daily commute to the studio also helped. While I was running, I thought about my ideas. Running stimulates my creativity. It's like a very rhythmic meditation. Running through New York is also very stimulating because it's a very dramatic city. The architecture. The people. The traffic. The noise. I stopped at the traffic light at the same intersection of 57th Street and 9th Ave every day. You have to pay close attention there, otherwise you'll get run over by taxis. While I waited, I gave myself over to my thoughts.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jim Foley was working as a photojournalist in Syria and was captured by ISIS. He was held captive for many months. Then they murdered him and broadcast the beheading online. I saw a film about him. All his friends said he was the one who kept them all sane. He was the one who got them extra food and blankets. He was the one the guards tortured. And in the end, he was the one whose throat was slit. Luckily, they didn't show the execution in the film. When you watch the film, you fall in love with this extraordinary man. I had his family's words in my head — how much they all missed him. I imagined that the family always had an empty chair at the table for him - as if he could walk in at any moment. This became the song Empty Chair. Later, I found out that his friends at their local bar actually always kept a chair free for Jim.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One Fine Day is my ironic response to the global warming crisis. I pray every day that the climate sceptics who claim climate change is a hoax are right. And that all the scientific evidence for it turns out to be false. They're paid by the coal industry and the oil companies. The English poet William Blake said something great: 'A man who persists in his folly will become wise.' If the fool pushes his folly to the extreme, he will become wise. I hope it won't be too late by then.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In 'Petrol Head,' I play a truck driver. He's a macho guy who only thinks about sex and religion. That's not me, of course. Apart from the religion. It's a funny song. In the middle, I quote William Blake from the hymn Jerusalem: 'Bring me my chariot of fire. Bring me my chariot of fire.' It's pretty raw. I enjoy singing it. I'm slipping into the role of someone else who has nothing to do with me. I don't drive a truck. Okay, I did it once, but that was a long time ago. Maybe it's a secret part of me after all. I enjoy this role, anyway.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm convinced that if you structure music correctly, it tells you a story. It then has a narrative thread, an abstract narrative thread. And my job is just to figure out what the music is trying to say. In the case of Petrol Head it was clear that it was about driving. At some point, it became clear: Here's someone driving a huge truck through the American desert. That's the story. I don't really understand it. It's very strange how songs sometimes come to you. You absorb them. They're in the air.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Down, Down Down is about the end of a relationship. Luckily, it's not my relationship. But I have enough life experience to write about it. My heart has been broken. I've left someone. I've broken other people's hearts. I've had all these experiences and can revisit the corresponding emotions at any time. I don't have to relive them. I don't want to. It's also a song about depression, where you sink into the abyss. It's a terrible illness that I don't suffer from. But I know enough people affected by it to write something sensible about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All About Jazz by Nenad Georgievski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003eThroughout his long and illustrious career, Sting has enjoyed an enviable set of circumstances. Not only does he have total artistic freedom but he has been accompanied by elite musicians and has a devoted, global fan base. In return, that has yielded many artistic triumphs as he explored almost every genre known to man. He has been eclectic in his choice of inspiration which is filtered through an ever expansive musical worldview. That incorporates all kinds of sounds and music from pop and jazz to classical, medieval and world music. His new album 57th \u0026amp;9th reveals a restless and uncompromising creative spirit that makes music that still pulses with life and vigour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, 57th \u0026amp;9th is predominantly painted with the primal colours of rock music: rollicking drums, fizzing guitars and fluid bass lines. The first several songs roar straight out of the box. It's been a while since he sounded this energized and unfettered. Producer (and Sting's manager) Martin Kierszenbaum's sparse and raw production is a welcome change of pace for Sting whose previous work often slipped into the quiet, hushed and comfortable. The energy is tough and lean and he has never sounded this raw, urgent, and edgy since his early days with his band The Police. Sonically, this record does not break any drastically new sonic frontiers for him but these kinds of fast-paced rockier songs have been heard only occasionally on his records with \"After the Rain Has Fallen\" from Brand New Day (A\u0026amp;M, 1999) \"All This Time\" Soul Cages, ( A\u0026amp;M, 1991) as examples. The music is driven by a working band of many years and also welcomes other guests to make this recording special. While they rock and sound urgent they don't just bash it away. A band of this calibre is capable of stirring up wild grooves, but here they respond sensitively to Sting's vocal lines, dynamics and conjuring varying dynamics within the songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost importantly, 57th \u0026amp; 9th is dominated by outstanding songwriting. It is another masterclass in the potential potency of lyrics, melodies, and performance from an enduring songwriting master. At heart, Sting is an unequivocally a soul singer and musician. He always sings with great conviction, always drawing you in the story, like having a conversation with an old friend of yours. In contrast to his previous output, the autobiographical and reflective The Last Ship, (A\u0026amp;M, 2013) Sting is utterly engaged in the present, dealing with subjects such as social injustice and the horrors of refugees (\"Inshallah\"), pondering about climate change and environmental issues (\"One Fine Day\") or contemplating the passing of colleagues and close friends such as singers David Bowie, Prince or actor Alan Rickman (\"50.000\") .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe quality of each song is consistently good with peaks and valleys in between. \"If You Can't Love Me\" is one of the many finest moments here. It is a tender mid-tempo ballad offered with the no-nonsense conviction that reveals love may be beyond the measurement of the rational. It's a love song that is achingly sincere without being invasive. The album closes, gorgeously, with a hushed ballad \"Empty Chair\" that deals with the subject of a loss. It's a song written for Jim: The James Foley Story, a documentary about a US journalist that was publicly executed by terrorists in Syria. The tone of the song is delicate and graceful. Sting's voice barely raises throughout, yet he manages to convey more emotion than ever before.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e57th \u0026amp; 9th is a master course in songwriting. Sting has created timeless songs that feel organic, heartfelt and important now, but which will sound as magnificent in the decades to come as they sound today. \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by Jon Dolan\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSting Makes a Surprise Return to Rock \u0026amp; Roll - A darkly impassioned LP full of loud guitars, politics and visions of mortality...\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s been ages since Sting even seemed to conceive of himself as a rock artist, which is why his straight-ahead new LP is so surprising: 57th \u0026amp; 9th is a no-lute zone. You’d have to go all the way back to “Born in the 50’s,” from the very first Police album, to hear him sing over guitars as rough as the ones on the lonely-horn-dog anthem “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” or the no-frills driving banger “Petrol Head.” The highlight “50,000” offers a clue to this newfound urgency; over guitarist Dominic Miller’s dark chords, Sting pays tribute to Prince, recalling ecstatic stadium shows, then flashes to a bathroom-mirror vision of his own mortality: “These lines of stress, one bloodshot eye\/The unhealthy pallor of a troubled ghost.” Desperation also comes through on “One Fine Day,” a delicate plea for climate sanity, and the Middle East-tinged refugee’s prayer “Inshallah.” Elsewhere, he offers a kind of travelogue through his own musical past, from the Chaucer-y balladry of “Heading South on the Great North Road” to “If You  Can’t Love Me,” a mordantly Kafkaesque echo of the jazz rock Sting made in the Eighties. Even if the album gets more ponderous as his concerns deepen, it’s nice to see the king of pain flex a little. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Los Angeles Times by Mikael Wood\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn '57th \u0026amp; 9th,' Sting urgently shares what's on his mind...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2013, Sting sat for an hour or so interview in a small dressing room at what was then Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe veteran English musician was in town talking up “The Last Ship,” an album of songs from a musical he’d composed that was headed to Broadway, and in the course of the conversation Sting made it clear he no longer had much interest in writing the kind of first-person pop tunes that made him a star.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA year later, “The Last Ship” opened in New York — and then closed after three months, a victim of poor ticket sales that even Sting himself couldn’t save by joining the show’s cast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven that turn of events, it may be fair to greet the singer’s new project, “57th \u0026amp; 9th,” with suspicion. Released this month, it’s a collection of — hey, wait a minute — first-person pop tunes, similar in structure to those he created with the Police before he turned his attention to the lute (on 2006’s widely mocked “Songs From the Labyrinth”) and the theater.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot only that, but Sting, 65, is promoting the record in precisely the manner he appeared to have lost his taste for. On Sunday night he’ll perform along with Ariana Grande and Shawn Mendes on the American Music Awards, and next week he’s set to play during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere’s the thing, though: “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is good. Really good. Far from a craven about-face, it might be Sting’s best set of songs since the early ’90s — not a retreat into nostalgia but a shrewd adaptation of a familiar form.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s title reflects its genesis. At a studio near the corner of 57th Street and 9th Avenue in New York, Sting corralled guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta - musicians he’s played with for decades - and got to work banging out songs free of any overarching concept.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sound is taut, scruffy, even punky, full of snarling guitars and hurtling tempos; Sting’s melodies are sturdy but straightforward, as though he’d worked them out while singing live with the band, pushing his voice to be heard above the din.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet the twist is that he didn’t take this throwback approach as an excuse to revisit old times or themes. These are songs about what’s on Sting’s mind right now: war, politics, the environment - and the challenge of songwriting itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe last is the topic at the heart of the sexual metaphor in “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” in which he’s a guy driven mad by his desire to find the right words. “One Fine Day” argues for awareness of climate change, first by appealing to the listener’s emotion (“Three penguins and a bear got drowned”), then with full-on alarm bells (“We must do something quick or die”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn “50,000” Sting ponders the inordinate number of rock and pop stars who’ve died in 2016, which sounds like a miserable idea but actually provides some fascinating insight into what amounts to a professional dilemma.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We tweet our anecdotes, our commentary \/ Or we sing his songs in some sad \u003cbr\u003etribute,” he sings, not weepy at all, “While the tabloids are holding a story of kiss and tell \/ That he’s no longer able to deny or refute.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven when Sting does look back to his youth - as in “Heading South on the Great North Road,” set in his hometown of Newcastle - he opens up the scope of the song, in this case to draw a parallel with the current refugee crisis in Europe. He invokes that situation again in “Inshallah,” with its “sad boats” and “anxious eyes.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDoes the vivid writing and playing on “57th \u0026amp; 9th” guarantee the album will find the mass audience that eluded “The Last Ship”? Hardly. Few who see Sting on the AMAs this weekend are likely to download (or even stream) the record. And few of those who’d enjoy the record as much as I do are likely to watch the AMAs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, hey, if the album bombs and Sting again reverses himself in some way, I won’t automatically doubt him next time. He’s earned the right to change his mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Entertainment Weekly by Nolan Feeney\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith 16 Grammys to his name and spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Sting long ago earned the right to do whatever he wants. And in recent years, the former Police frontman has been exercising that power freely: His last few albums have included the music from his Tony-nominated musical (2013’s The Last Ship), classical reinterpretations of his greatest hits (2010’s Symphonicities), traditional holiday music (2009’s If on a Winter’s Night…), and his infamous batch of lute songs (2006’s Songs from the Labyrinth).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s twelfth LP, 57th \u0026amp; 9th, named for the New York City intersection he traversed every day on the way to the studio, marks his first rock release in more than a decade — and it proves that years of passion projects haven’t dulled his songwriting instincts. That’s partly thanks to a loose and unfussy recording process that saw Sting write on the spot with a tight team of musicians, including members of his touring band and Tex-Mex group the Last Bandoleros, with whom he shares management; there’s a lean muscle powering songs like the hooky opener “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You.” But it’s also because Sting doesn’t hold anything back when it comes to his feelings about the state of the world, whether he’s poking fun at climate-change skeptics (the urgent “One Fine Day”) or empathizing with European refugees (“Inshallah”). Sting is hardly the first artist this year to write about pressing social social issues, but he writes plainly yet poetically about them - a style that keeps his messages from feeling heavy-handed or self-important. Here, he’s just an elder statesman speaking from the heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sounds of 57th range from folksy acoustic numbers to epic stadium-fillers, but the record’s most poignant tunes have stories of loss and mourning in common. The quiet album closer, “The Empty Chair,” was written from the perspective of journalist James Foley, who was killed by ISIS in 2014, and it might be one of the most heart-wrenching songs Sting has ever written - good luck not getting choked up as he sings about keeping a place for Foley at the family dinner table. On “50,000,” which was inspired by the deaths of David Bowie, Prince, and Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, Sting confronts his own mortality and the mythologizing powers of fame by admitting he’s “still believing that old lie… rock stars don’t ever die, they only fade away.” Looking enviably fit at age 65, Sting doesn’t seem in danger of the former anytime soon; and with records as robust as this one, he doesn’t have to worry about the latter, either.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Post by Scott Stroud\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting rocks out again with a familiar sound...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first single on Sting’s new album, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” sounds like the love child of Police classics “I’ll Be Watching You” and “Can’t Stand Losing You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are the achy lyrics of the former, which holds up well but has more of a stalker vibe than it seemed to the first time around. And there’s the driving bass line of the latter, the style of playing that made Sting’s former band one of the best of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“57th and 9th” as a whole sounds a lot like Sting’s old stuff, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s musically incredible and lyrically wiser, though it also veers into self-importance at times - just as the old stuff did.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike a lot of aging rockers living on past glory, Sting’s return to rock ‘n’ roll from other projects seems driven more by a desire to return to something he loves than the need to make a buck. There’s a payoff for waiting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded in a period of weeks, the album has spontaneity but also a rawness. He could have scrubbed a few clichés from the lyrics - the sands of time on one song, old rockers never die (they just fade away) on another - but the pulsating rush that was the hallmark of Sting’s early work makes up for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA man who knows how to rock this well can be forgiven. It is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arts Desk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRock veteran swaps lotus position for a trip down memory lane...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven now, Sting's reputation as one of rock's most earnest men looms large. His last two projects consisted of a Broadway musical about Newcastle's ship industry and a \"symphonic\" retrospective of his greatest hits. Before that it was saving bees and Elizabethan madrigals with a Bosnian lutenist. Now, however, the singer promises something lighter. 57th and 9th has been heralded as the return of \"Sting the rock star\". Could it really be the tantric one is returning to the sound he created in the early Eighties? \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first signs of familiarity come from the guitar and drums. Here Dominic Miller and Vinnie Colaiuta faithfully recreate the textures and rhythms of Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland from The Police. Throw in Mr Sumner's unmistakable ear for melody and many of the results could pass for Police outtakes and B-sides. \"Petrol Head\" has echoes of \"Synchronicity II\"; \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" and \"50,000\" evoke the band's earlier work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's lyrics, though, are heavier. \"Inshallah\" is a pleasantly thoughtful meditation of the plight of Syrian refugees; \"One Fine Day\", about climate change, is decidedly clunky. No matter how weighty the lyrics, any po-facedness is largely offset by the nostalgic charm of hearing that iconic tenor back in its rightful setting. What might once have felt irritating now seems strangely cosy and reassuring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e57th and 9ths finest three minutes are \"Pretty Young Soldier\" a rather lovely interpretation of the folk story about a girl who dresses as a boy soldier to get her man. The worst track is \"Down Down Down\", so bland it virtually doesn't exist. Yet, while the presence of such fillers make 57th and 9th short of classic, the contents do mainly live up to the cover image - the artist looking significantly younger and cheekier than the grizzled yoga veteran we've become used to. A pleasant enough reminder, then, of the old days.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from ABC News by Allan Raible\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's Latest Album Is His Best Since 1996...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePut quite simply, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is Sting’s best album since 1996’s under-rated “Mercury Falling.” I’ve wanted Sting to explore his rock side again for a very long time. While this isn’t a pure rock record, there are some appealing, crunchy moments on here. “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” effectively recalls his work with The Police and provides him with his biggest hit-contender in a long time. The same goes with “50,000” which was written in tribute to David Bowie and Prince and would fit decently next to a classic like “King Of Pain.” On “Petrol Head,” Sting works a blues-rock vein that is surprisingly tough. With a different arrangement, you could imagine it working similar territory as “Demolition Man.” On the deluxe edition he even delivers a live, slightly bluesy version of the early Police highlight “Next To You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s tempting to call this album a return to Sting’s punk roots, but if you go further in the playlist, there are also some strong ballads. The second half of the record is strikingly quiet when compared to the first.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis isn’t quite the powerhouse album it could have been but it’s a very strong reminder that Sting is indeed one of pop’s finer master-craftsmen. To many, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” showcases the return of the version of Sting that has been missing for some time. After years of wandering and experimentation, it is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” This is most definitely among Sting’s best solo singles to date. It’s an eye-opening return to form of the grandest kind and proof that he still has a hungry side. This track is insistent and infectious in all the best ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“50,000” This is a ballad of sorts but it still balances a feeling of sadness with a spiky, building energy. Again, this is another strong tune with a lot of potential.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Heading South On The Great North Road” This track from the album’s quieter half shows Sting’s classically-minded side delivering a tune that sounds like a traditional folk song for the ages. While this more literary side in this case probably won’t lead to radio spins, it still shows Sting at his songwriting best.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998249042,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/album11472662245_640_da771aef-cfa5-437d-8da0-6d5536212a1d.jpg?v=1758315233"},{"product_id":"57th-9th","title":"57th \u0026 9th","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"'Inshallah' is a beautiful word from the Arabic language which is kind of resignation - it's God's will, it shall be - or it's a word that describes some sort of hope, courage. I don't know what the political solution is but I think if there is a solution, it has to be rooted in empathy - for the victims of the war that's going on in Syria at the moment for example, the victims of poverty in Africa, and perhaps in the future the victims of global warming.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'AFP', 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The first song on the new record is called \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You.\" It sounds romantic at first. But the song is actually about creativity, specifically: about writing. Like an artist or author has a blank slate in front of them every day. It's like snow: There are no clues as to what lies beneath. Is there a road or simply a path? Is there an animal or a muse? And if it is a muse, is it a romantic or a spiritual muse? We don't know. We writers face this problem every day. Yet we indulge the obsession of wanting to express ourselves with words.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Stuttgarter-Nachrichten, 01\/2017\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The songs are not about New York. I call them ‘ten short stories’. They deal with various issues, some of them more serious, some not so. It’s a tribute to New York without me singing directly over New York.” Everyone knows, “I’m an ‘Englishman In New York”!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For the last ten years, my music has been a bit esoteric so people will think I’m doing something like that again. But I want to surprise you. And I’m always happy when I see happy faces who hear rock’n’roll. This record is very direct, simple and the songs are rather short. My old DNA from times with The Police can be seen in it – provided with a new feeling.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An intrinsic part of a musician’s life is to create the wow factor, which comes down to the instruments as well as what your songs say. For example, in recent years, I have made records that had a more esoteric touch simply for the fact that a theme caught my attention and I was curious to learn new things. Perhaps people assume that I will continue doing the same, which they may or may not like. But I was clear that with this album I wanted to do something new and surprise people with something different. I wanted the public to hear something from me that they were not anticipating. Certainly, I could have also surprised them with an electronic music record. This album was something spontaneous, recorded very quickly and done with friends. Every day, I went to the studio in New York where I met with my guys and we would work. When I got back home I would try to give more shape to what we had done, find a story and turn it into song. For me, the experience was to enjoy myself.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The first song called \"I Can’t Stop Thinking About You\" is a song about obsession. It’s really about a writer who sits in front of a blank sheet that looks like a snowy field. Your job as a writer is to write something and dig to find something – a muse, an idea and something to inspire you. The dilemma for any writer is to find inspiration. Music for me flows much faster and I get it in a more natural way, but the inspiration to write the lyrics of the song comes from a much more mysterious place that I really do not understand, but I know if I have patience and discipline it will come. In a way, I want to find myself in a somewhat uncomfortable situation because my life, as you can imagine, is very privileged. Where I live in New York, I have a terrace and during winter when it is freezing cold, below zero degrees, I lock myself out with my paper, my pen and my music and do not enter the house until the song is finished. It is a way of inspiring me and forcing myself to write. I did this for many days. I was terribly cold and so my first song refers to that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If we consider the surprise factor, the most different one is “Petrolhead” because it is very rock and roll. I think it will surprise people. On the other hand there is another one that I think is very sensitive which is “Heading South on the Great North Road,” which is a bit where I come from and why I went in search of a better life. In this sense it is related to another song called “Inshallah” that relatively speaking is also about people – refugees – seeking a better life. I think all people in some way are refugees. Not at the level of the people of Syria, obviously, because they are in imminent danger, but in the sense that no matter where you live, your ancestors always come from elsewhere. We must bear this in mind. The flow of refugees may change in the future; perhaps we will have to seek refuge and hope that others will accept us and will not put obstacles in our way. I'm not trying to give it any kind of political solution, but it is something that must be treated gently and not as something abstract that does not affect us. We have to think of a face, a family and not just in numbers. I have no answer but we have to solve it because it will not go away. The reasons for migration are now mainly due to war and poverty, but soon climate change will also affect it so it is important to get to work and together try to fix it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The thrust of it is rock’n’roll, but all my [musical] DNA is in there. There’s some folk music, some thoughtful, quiet moments. My whole thing is surprise. If I’ve been making esoteric albums for the past 10 years, then people expect that I’ll do that again. But the main thing was, 'Hey, let’s have some energy’. It’s not a lute album.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Glenn Frey, Lemmy, David [Bowie], Prince, Alan Rickman. We had dinner with him a few weeks before. Alan invited Trudie and I specifically to say goodbye to us, but without saying goodbye. His wife told us later - he came to New York and had dinner every night with his close friends. We called him on New Year’s Day - we heard he was in a hospice. He said, 'Oh, I’m fine, I just had a blood change.’ He was dead two weeks later. When a generation’s cultural icons die, it shocks us. The childlike part of us believes they’re immortal. And when you’re a man of a certain age and you’ve lived most of your life already, you think, 'Wow, this is real.’?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I got my musicians in the studio in Hell’s Kitchen in New York and said, ‘I have no idea what we’re doing. Let’s play musical ping pong.’ I needed to make decisions very hard and fast and very quickly and stick by those decisions. But it gave the record a character that it wouldn’t have otherwise had.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"For the last decade or so, I’ve been making what you might call esoteric records where I was only following my curiosity. There was no commercial agenda. Then I thought, ‘What should I surprise people with now?’ And it came to me, a rock ’n’ roll record, or at least the thrust of it being rock ’n’ roll. That could get people saying, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that.’ And that’s what the reaction has been. I think it’s already successful in that regard. People can recognize my entire music DNA on this record – from the beginning until now. It’s all me. I’m a gadfly. I want to do as many different things as I can. Some people have one furrow and they dig deep and I respect them for that, but I like to mulch around.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There was no overriding concept to this album. In fact it was made without any pre-planning at all. I went into the studio with literally no ideas of what it would be except that it would take a short amount of time... Every day, I took something home with me on the walk back to my house. I would ask the song to tell me a story and the next day I’d turn up with a song. Day by day this grew. But there’s no overarching theme or concept.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I normally go in the studio with a great deal of preparation. This time, I just booked the studio and brought my cohorts who have worked with me for almost three decades: Dominic Miller on guitar, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. And I said, “Guys, let’s just play musical Ping-Pong.” An idea will go around in a circle, and a song will materialize, or at least the semblance of a song. I then structure it, give it a shape, and then take that shape home and ask that song what it’s telling me. Who is the character singing this? What’s the mood, what’s the narrative? And then I’d play a trick on myself. I’d lock myself out of my apartment, on the terrace in the cold, and not come in until I’d finished a lyric. I had a cup of coffee and a coat. It was one of those things to put myself out of my comfort zone in order to trick the muse into playing ball with me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Although it’s about a rock star, and of course I’ve been a rock star, “50,000” is not really me. It’s a character that seems to be singing through me and looking back on his career and, in reflection, finding philosophy. There are a lot of people like me at my age, still making rock ’n’ roll, having that rather singular experience of being in front of all those people and feeling empowered, and the hubris of that. And the psychological danger of it, too. And then coming out the other side and asking: “What did that mean? Are you, in fact, a god? Are you godlike?” No, you’re not. You’re very very human, and very mortal. It’s hard to express how unique that feeling is. Not many of us have stood up on those stages in front of 50,000; 100,000; a quarter of a million; in my case, half a million people out there. That can be a very heady and confusing experience. You need a certain perspective on it, to say, “This is fun, but it’s an illusion.” If you do that, then you’ll survive it. Otherwise, no, you’ll become the victim of it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I set out to complete the whole thing in three months at the most. I hadn't prepared anything. I simply went into the studio with my musicians and said, 'Let's play.' What emerged were ten musical short stories that have a very powerful quality. One part of the album is very rock 'n' roll and energetic. The other part is more contemplative and quiet. The album is a bit like me. I'm both.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I have a pool of musicians I enjoy working with. There are so many different tones on this record. That's why I need diverse musicians. They're my friends. They know how I work and what I need from them. They trust me enough to go into the studio with me without any preparation. And there we play a kind of musical ping-pong. I throw something to them. They throw it back. They know how to respond to what I do. And the music grows richer with each exchange. It becomes more complicated and interesting. We improvise, even though we don't play jazz. We trust, love, and respect each other. The music is a result of this relationship. We're a team—like in football.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" has different layers. You can understand the piece as a passionate love song. But it's also about the process of songwriting, the passionate search for inspiration. As a composer, I'm confronted every morning with a blank sheet of paper. Completely empty. Like a field covered in snow. And I have no idea where the thing I'm looking for is, or what it is. A story? A character? A path? A romantic muse? A spiritual muse?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The daily commute to the studio also helped. While I was running, I thought about my ideas. Running stimulates my creativity. It's like a very rhythmic meditation. Running through New York is also very stimulating because it's a very dramatic city. The architecture. The people. The traffic. The noise. I stopped at the traffic light at the same intersection of 57th Street and 9th Ave every day. You have to pay close attention there, otherwise you'll get run over by taxis. While I waited, I gave myself over to my thoughts.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jim Foley was working as a photojournalist in Syria and was captured by ISIS. He was held captive for many months. Then they murdered him and broadcast the beheading online. I saw a film about him. All his friends said he was the one who kept them all sane. He was the one who got them extra food and blankets. He was the one the guards tortured. And in the end, he was the one whose throat was slit. Luckily, they didn't show the execution in the film. When you watch the film, you fall in love with this extraordinary man. I had his family's words in my head — how much they all missed him. I imagined that the family always had an empty chair at the table for him - as if he could walk in at any moment. This became the song Empty Chair. Later, I found out that his friends at their local bar actually always kept a chair free for Jim.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One Fine Day is my ironic response to the global warming crisis. I pray every day that the climate sceptics who claim climate change is a hoax are right. And that all the scientific evidence for it turns out to be false. They're paid by the coal industry and the oil companies. The English poet William Blake said something great: 'A man who persists in his folly will become wise.' If the fool pushes his folly to the extreme, he will become wise. I hope it won't be too late by then.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In 'Petrol Head,' I play a truck driver. He's a macho guy who only thinks about sex and religion. That's not me, of course. Apart from the religion. It's a funny song. In the middle, I quote William Blake from the hymn Jerusalem: 'Bring me my chariot of fire. Bring me my chariot of fire.' It's pretty raw. I enjoy singing it. I'm slipping into the role of someone else who has nothing to do with me. I don't drive a truck. Okay, I did it once, but that was a long time ago. Maybe it's a secret part of me after all. I enjoy this role, anyway.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm convinced that if you structure music correctly, it tells you a story. It then has a narrative thread, an abstract narrative thread. And my job is just to figure out what the music is trying to say. In the case of Petrol Head it was clear that it was about driving. At some point, it became clear: Here's someone driving a huge truck through the American desert. That's the story. I don't really understand it. It's very strange how songs sometimes come to you. You absorb them. They're in the air.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Down, Down Down is about the end of a relationship. Luckily, it's not my relationship. But I have enough life experience to write about it. My heart has been broken. I've left someone. I've broken other people's hearts. I've had all these experiences and can revisit the corresponding emotions at any time. I don't have to relive them. I don't want to. It's also a song about depression, where you sink into the abyss. It's a terrible illness that I don't suffer from. But I know enough people affected by it to write something sensible about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All About Jazz by Nenad Georgievski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003eThroughout his long and illustrious career, Sting has enjoyed an enviable set of circumstances. Not only does he have total artistic freedom but he has been accompanied by elite musicians and has a devoted, global fan base. In return, that has yielded many artistic triumphs as he explored almost every genre known to man. He has been eclectic in his choice of inspiration which is filtered through an ever expansive musical worldview. That incorporates all kinds of sounds and music from pop and jazz to classical, medieval and world music. His new album 57th \u0026amp;9th reveals a restless and uncompromising creative spirit that makes music that still pulses with life and vigour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, 57th \u0026amp;9th is predominantly painted with the primal colours of rock music: rollicking drums, fizzing guitars and fluid bass lines. The first several songs roar straight out of the box. It's been a while since he sounded this energized and unfettered. Producer (and Sting's manager) Martin Kierszenbaum's sparse and raw production is a welcome change of pace for Sting whose previous work often slipped into the quiet, hushed and comfortable. The energy is tough and lean and he has never sounded this raw, urgent, and edgy since his early days with his band The Police. Sonically, this record does not break any drastically new sonic frontiers for him but these kinds of fast-paced rockier songs have been heard only occasionally on his records with \"After the Rain Has Fallen\" from Brand New Day (A\u0026amp;M, 1999) \"All This Time\" Soul Cages, ( A\u0026amp;M, 1991) as examples. The music is driven by a working band of many years and also welcomes other guests to make this recording special. While they rock and sound urgent they don't just bash it away. A band of this calibre is capable of stirring up wild grooves, but here they respond sensitively to Sting's vocal lines, dynamics and conjuring varying dynamics within the songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost importantly, 57th \u0026amp; 9th is dominated by outstanding songwriting. It is another masterclass in the potential potency of lyrics, melodies, and performance from an enduring songwriting master. At heart, Sting is an unequivocally a soul singer and musician. He always sings with great conviction, always drawing you in the story, like having a conversation with an old friend of yours. In contrast to his previous output, the autobiographical and reflective The Last Ship, (A\u0026amp;M, 2013) Sting is utterly engaged in the present, dealing with subjects such as social injustice and the horrors of refugees (\"Inshallah\"), pondering about climate change and environmental issues (\"One Fine Day\") or contemplating the passing of colleagues and close friends such as singers David Bowie, Prince or actor Alan Rickman (\"50.000\") .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe quality of each song is consistently good with peaks and valleys in between. \"If You Can't Love Me\" is one of the many finest moments here. It is a tender mid-tempo ballad offered with the no-nonsense conviction that reveals love may be beyond the measurement of the rational. It's a love song that is achingly sincere without being invasive. The album closes, gorgeously, with a hushed ballad \"Empty Chair\" that deals with the subject of a loss. It's a song written for Jim: The James Foley Story, a documentary about a US journalist that was publicly executed by terrorists in Syria. The tone of the song is delicate and graceful. Sting's voice barely raises throughout, yet he manages to convey more emotion than ever before.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e57th \u0026amp; 9th is a master course in songwriting. Sting has created timeless songs that feel organic, heartfelt and important now, but which will sound as magnificent in the decades to come as they sound today. \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by Jon Dolan\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSting Makes a Surprise Return to Rock \u0026amp; Roll - A darkly impassioned LP full of loud guitars, politics and visions of mortality...\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s been ages since Sting even seemed to conceive of himself as a rock artist, which is why his straight-ahead new LP is so surprising: 57th \u0026amp; 9th is a no-lute zone. You’d have to go all the way back to “Born in the 50’s,” from the very first Police album, to hear him sing over guitars as rough as the ones on the lonely-horn-dog anthem “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” or the no-frills driving banger “Petrol Head.” The highlight “50,000” offers a clue to this newfound urgency; over guitarist Dominic Miller’s dark chords, Sting pays tribute to Prince, recalling ecstatic stadium shows, then flashes to a bathroom-mirror vision of his own mortality: “These lines of stress, one bloodshot eye\/The unhealthy pallor of a troubled ghost.” Desperation also comes through on “One Fine Day,” a delicate plea for climate sanity, and the Middle East-tinged refugee’s prayer “Inshallah.” Elsewhere, he offers a kind of travelogue through his own musical past, from the Chaucer-y balladry of “Heading South on the Great North Road” to “If You  Can’t Love Me,” a mordantly Kafkaesque echo of the jazz rock Sting made in the Eighties. Even if the album gets more ponderous as his concerns deepen, it’s nice to see the king of pain flex a little. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Los Angeles Times by Mikael Wood\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn '57th \u0026amp; 9th,' Sting urgently shares what's on his mind...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2013, Sting sat for an hour or so interview in a small dressing room at what was then Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe veteran English musician was in town talking up “The Last Ship,” an album of songs from a musical he’d composed that was headed to Broadway, and in the course of the conversation Sting made it clear he no longer had much interest in writing the kind of first-person pop tunes that made him a star.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA year later, “The Last Ship” opened in New York — and then closed after three months, a victim of poor ticket sales that even Sting himself couldn’t save by joining the show’s cast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven that turn of events, it may be fair to greet the singer’s new project, “57th \u0026amp; 9th,” with suspicion. Released this month, it’s a collection of — hey, wait a minute — first-person pop tunes, similar in structure to those he created with the Police before he turned his attention to the lute (on 2006’s widely mocked “Songs From the Labyrinth”) and the theater.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot only that, but Sting, 65, is promoting the record in precisely the manner he appeared to have lost his taste for. On Sunday night he’ll perform along with Ariana Grande and Shawn Mendes on the American Music Awards, and next week he’s set to play during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere’s the thing, though: “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is good. Really good. Far from a craven about-face, it might be Sting’s best set of songs since the early ’90s — not a retreat into nostalgia but a shrewd adaptation of a familiar form.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s title reflects its genesis. At a studio near the corner of 57th Street and 9th Avenue in New York, Sting corralled guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta - musicians he’s played with for decades - and got to work banging out songs free of any overarching concept.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sound is taut, scruffy, even punky, full of snarling guitars and hurtling tempos; Sting’s melodies are sturdy but straightforward, as though he’d worked them out while singing live with the band, pushing his voice to be heard above the din.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet the twist is that he didn’t take this throwback approach as an excuse to revisit old times or themes. These are songs about what’s on Sting’s mind right now: war, politics, the environment - and the challenge of songwriting itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe last is the topic at the heart of the sexual metaphor in “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” in which he’s a guy driven mad by his desire to find the right words. “One Fine Day” argues for awareness of climate change, first by appealing to the listener’s emotion (“Three penguins and a bear got drowned”), then with full-on alarm bells (“We must do something quick or die”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn “50,000” Sting ponders the inordinate number of rock and pop stars who’ve died in 2016, which sounds like a miserable idea but actually provides some fascinating insight into what amounts to a professional dilemma.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We tweet our anecdotes, our commentary \/ Or we sing his songs in some sad \u003cbr\u003etribute,” he sings, not weepy at all, “While the tabloids are holding a story of kiss and tell \/ That he’s no longer able to deny or refute.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven when Sting does look back to his youth - as in “Heading South on the Great North Road,” set in his hometown of Newcastle - he opens up the scope of the song, in this case to draw a parallel with the current refugee crisis in Europe. He invokes that situation again in “Inshallah,” with its “sad boats” and “anxious eyes.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDoes the vivid writing and playing on “57th \u0026amp; 9th” guarantee the album will find the mass audience that eluded “The Last Ship”? Hardly. Few who see Sting on the AMAs this weekend are likely to download (or even stream) the record. And few of those who’d enjoy the record as much as I do are likely to watch the AMAs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, hey, if the album bombs and Sting again reverses himself in some way, I won’t automatically doubt him next time. He’s earned the right to change his mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Entertainment Weekly by Nolan Feeney\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith 16 Grammys to his name and spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Sting long ago earned the right to do whatever he wants. And in recent years, the former Police frontman has been exercising that power freely: His last few albums have included the music from his Tony-nominated musical (2013’s The Last Ship), classical reinterpretations of his greatest hits (2010’s Symphonicities), traditional holiday music (2009’s If on a Winter’s Night…), and his infamous batch of lute songs (2006’s Songs from the Labyrinth).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s twelfth LP, 57th \u0026amp; 9th, named for the New York City intersection he traversed every day on the way to the studio, marks his first rock release in more than a decade — and it proves that years of passion projects haven’t dulled his songwriting instincts. That’s partly thanks to a loose and unfussy recording process that saw Sting write on the spot with a tight team of musicians, including members of his touring band and Tex-Mex group the Last Bandoleros, with whom he shares management; there’s a lean muscle powering songs like the hooky opener “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You.” But it’s also because Sting doesn’t hold anything back when it comes to his feelings about the state of the world, whether he’s poking fun at climate-change skeptics (the urgent “One Fine Day”) or empathizing with European refugees (“Inshallah”). Sting is hardly the first artist this year to write about pressing social social issues, but he writes plainly yet poetically about them - a style that keeps his messages from feeling heavy-handed or self-important. Here, he’s just an elder statesman speaking from the heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sounds of 57th range from folksy acoustic numbers to epic stadium-fillers, but the record’s most poignant tunes have stories of loss and mourning in common. The quiet album closer, “The Empty Chair,” was written from the perspective of journalist James Foley, who was killed by ISIS in 2014, and it might be one of the most heart-wrenching songs Sting has ever written - good luck not getting choked up as he sings about keeping a place for Foley at the family dinner table. On “50,000,” which was inspired by the deaths of David Bowie, Prince, and Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, Sting confronts his own mortality and the mythologizing powers of fame by admitting he’s “still believing that old lie… rock stars don’t ever die, they only fade away.” Looking enviably fit at age 65, Sting doesn’t seem in danger of the former anytime soon; and with records as robust as this one, he doesn’t have to worry about the latter, either.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Post by Scott Stroud\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting rocks out again with a familiar sound...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first single on Sting’s new album, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” sounds like the love child of Police classics “I’ll Be Watching You” and “Can’t Stand Losing You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are the achy lyrics of the former, which holds up well but has more of a stalker vibe than it seemed to the first time around. And there’s the driving bass line of the latter, the style of playing that made Sting’s former band one of the best of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“57th and 9th” as a whole sounds a lot like Sting’s old stuff, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s musically incredible and lyrically wiser, though it also veers into self-importance at times - just as the old stuff did.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike a lot of aging rockers living on past glory, Sting’s return to rock ‘n’ roll from other projects seems driven more by a desire to return to something he loves than the need to make a buck. There’s a payoff for waiting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded in a period of weeks, the album has spontaneity but also a rawness. He could have scrubbed a few clichés from the lyrics - the sands of time on one song, old rockers never die (they just fade away) on another - but the pulsating rush that was the hallmark of Sting’s early work makes up for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA man who knows how to rock this well can be forgiven. It is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arts Desk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRock veteran swaps lotus position for a trip down memory lane...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven now, Sting's reputation as one of rock's most earnest men looms large. His last two projects consisted of a Broadway musical about Newcastle's ship industry and a \"symphonic\" retrospective of his greatest hits. Before that it was saving bees and Elizabethan madrigals with a Bosnian lutenist. Now, however, the singer promises something lighter. 57th and 9th has been heralded as the return of \"Sting the rock star\". Could it really be the tantric one is returning to the sound he created in the early Eighties? \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first signs of familiarity come from the guitar and drums. Here Dominic Miller and Vinnie Colaiuta faithfully recreate the textures and rhythms of Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland from The Police. Throw in Mr Sumner's unmistakable ear for melody and many of the results could pass for Police outtakes and B-sides. \"Petrol Head\" has echoes of \"Synchronicity II\"; \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" and \"50,000\" evoke the band's earlier work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's lyrics, though, are heavier. \"Inshallah\" is a pleasantly thoughtful meditation of the plight of Syrian refugees; \"One Fine Day\", about climate change, is decidedly clunky. No matter how weighty the lyrics, any po-facedness is largely offset by the nostalgic charm of hearing that iconic tenor back in its rightful setting. What might once have felt irritating now seems strangely cosy and reassuring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e57th and 9ths finest three minutes are \"Pretty Young Soldier\" a rather lovely interpretation of the folk story about a girl who dresses as a boy soldier to get her man. The worst track is \"Down Down Down\", so bland it virtually doesn't exist. Yet, while the presence of such fillers make 57th and 9th short of classic, the contents do mainly live up to the cover image - the artist looking significantly younger and cheekier than the grizzled yoga veteran we've become used to. A pleasant enough reminder, then, of the old days.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from ABC News by Allan Raible\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's Latest Album Is His Best Since 1996...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePut quite simply, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is Sting’s best album since 1996’s under-rated “Mercury Falling.” I’ve wanted Sting to explore his rock side again for a very long time. While this isn’t a pure rock record, there are some appealing, crunchy moments on here. “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” effectively recalls his work with The Police and provides him with his biggest hit-contender in a long time. The same goes with “50,000” which was written in tribute to David Bowie and Prince and would fit decently next to a classic like “King Of Pain.” On “Petrol Head,” Sting works a blues-rock vein that is surprisingly tough. With a different arrangement, you could imagine it working similar territory as “Demolition Man.” On the deluxe edition he even delivers a live, slightly bluesy version of the early Police highlight “Next To You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s tempting to call this album a return to Sting’s punk roots, but if you go further in the playlist, there are also some strong ballads. The second half of the record is strikingly quiet when compared to the first.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis isn’t quite the powerhouse album it could have been but it’s a very strong reminder that Sting is indeed one of pop’s finer master-craftsmen. To many, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” showcases the return of the version of Sting that has been missing for some time. After years of wandering and experimentation, it is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” This is most definitely among Sting’s best solo singles to date. It’s an eye-opening return to form of the grandest kind and proof that he still has a hungry side. This track is insistent and infectious in all the best ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“50,000” This is a ballad of sorts but it still balances a feeling of sadness with a spiky, building energy. Again, this is another strong tune with a lot of potential.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Heading South On The Great North Road” This track from the album’s quieter half shows Sting’s classically-minded side delivering a tune that sounds like a traditional folk song for the ages. While this more literary side in this case probably won’t lead to radio spins, it still shows Sting at his songwriting best.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998281810,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/album11472662245_640_04aaed81-34cf-4907-84c2-7b59f10bedff.jpg?v=1758315235"},{"product_id":"57th-9th-deluxe-version","title":"57th \u0026 9th (Deluxe version)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"'Inshallah' is a beautiful word from the Arabic language which is kind of resignation - it's God's will, it shall be - or it's a word that describes some sort of hope, courage. I don't know what the political solution is but I think if there is a solution, it has to be rooted in empathy - for the victims of the war that's going on in Syria at the moment for example, the victims of poverty in Africa, and perhaps in the future the victims of global warming.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'AFP', 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The first song on the new record is called \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You.\" It sounds romantic at first. But the song is actually about creativity, specifically: about writing. Like an artist or author has a blank slate in front of them every day. It's like snow: There are no clues as to what lies beneath. Is there a road or simply a path? Is there an animal or a muse? And if it is a muse, is it a romantic or a spiritual muse? We don't know. We writers face this problem every day. Yet we indulge the obsession of wanting to express ourselves with words.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Stuttgarter-Nachrichten, 01\/2017\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The songs are not about New York. I call them ‘ten short stories’. They deal with various issues, some of them more serious, some not so. It’s a tribute to New York without me singing directly over New York.” Everyone knows, “I’m an ‘Englishman In New York”!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For the last ten years, my music has been a bit esoteric so people will think I’m doing something like that again. But I want to surprise you. And I’m always happy when I see happy faces who hear rock’n’roll. This record is very direct, simple and the songs are rather short. My old DNA from times with The Police can be seen in it – provided with a new feeling.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutsche Grammophon, 2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An intrinsic part of a musician’s life is to create the wow factor, which comes down to the instruments as well as what your songs say. For example, in recent years, I have made records that had a more esoteric touch simply for the fact that a theme caught my attention and I was curious to learn new things. Perhaps people assume that I will continue doing the same, which they may or may not like. But I was clear that with this album I wanted to do something new and surprise people with something different. I wanted the public to hear something from me that they were not anticipating. Certainly, I could have also surprised them with an electronic music record. This album was something spontaneous, recorded very quickly and done with friends. Every day, I went to the studio in New York where I met with my guys and we would work. When I got back home I would try to give more shape to what we had done, find a story and turn it into song. For me, the experience was to enjoy myself.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The first song called \"I Can’t Stop Thinking About You\" is a song about obsession. It’s really about a writer who sits in front of a blank sheet that looks like a snowy field. Your job as a writer is to write something and dig to find something – a muse, an idea and something to inspire you. The dilemma for any writer is to find inspiration. Music for me flows much faster and I get it in a more natural way, but the inspiration to write the lyrics of the song comes from a much more mysterious place that I really do not understand, but I know if I have patience and discipline it will come. In a way, I want to find myself in a somewhat uncomfortable situation because my life, as you can imagine, is very privileged. Where I live in New York, I have a terrace and during winter when it is freezing cold, below zero degrees, I lock myself out with my paper, my pen and my music and do not enter the house until the song is finished. It is a way of inspiring me and forcing myself to write. I did this for many days. I was terribly cold and so my first song refers to that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If we consider the surprise factor, the most different one is “Petrolhead” because it is very rock and roll. I think it will surprise people. On the other hand there is another one that I think is very sensitive which is “Heading South on the Great North Road,” which is a bit where I come from and why I went in search of a better life. In this sense it is related to another song called “Inshallah” that relatively speaking is also about people – refugees – seeking a better life. I think all people in some way are refugees. Not at the level of the people of Syria, obviously, because they are in imminent danger, but in the sense that no matter where you live, your ancestors always come from elsewhere. We must bear this in mind. The flow of refugees may change in the future; perhaps we will have to seek refuge and hope that others will accept us and will not put obstacles in our way. I'm not trying to give it any kind of political solution, but it is something that must be treated gently and not as something abstract that does not affect us. We have to think of a face, a family and not just in numbers. I have no answer but we have to solve it because it will not go away. The reasons for migration are now mainly due to war and poverty, but soon climate change will also affect it so it is important to get to work and together try to fix it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMetro, 9\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The thrust of it is rock’n’roll, but all my [musical] DNA is in there. There’s some folk music, some thoughtful, quiet moments. My whole thing is surprise. If I’ve been making esoteric albums for the past 10 years, then people expect that I’ll do that again. But the main thing was, 'Hey, let’s have some energy’. It’s not a lute album.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Glenn Frey, Lemmy, David [Bowie], Prince, Alan Rickman. We had dinner with him a few weeks before. Alan invited Trudie and I specifically to say goodbye to us, but without saying goodbye. His wife told us later - he came to New York and had dinner every night with his close friends. We called him on New Year’s Day - we heard he was in a hospice. He said, 'Oh, I’m fine, I just had a blood change.’ He was dead two weeks later. When a generation’s cultural icons die, it shocks us. The childlike part of us believes they’re immortal. And when you’re a man of a certain age and you’ve lived most of your life already, you think, 'Wow, this is real.’?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDaily Telegraph, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I got my musicians in the studio in Hell’s Kitchen in New York and said, ‘I have no idea what we’re doing. Let’s play musical ping pong.’ I needed to make decisions very hard and fast and very quickly and stick by those decisions. But it gave the record a character that it wouldn’t have otherwise had.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"For the last decade or so, I’ve been making what you might call esoteric records where I was only following my curiosity. There was no commercial agenda. Then I thought, ‘What should I surprise people with now?’ And it came to me, a rock ’n’ roll record, or at least the thrust of it being rock ’n’ roll. That could get people saying, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that.’ And that’s what the reaction has been. I think it’s already successful in that regard. People can recognize my entire music DNA on this record – from the beginning until now. It’s all me. I’m a gadfly. I want to do as many different things as I can. Some people have one furrow and they dig deep and I respect them for that, but I like to mulch around.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There was no overriding concept to this album. In fact it was made without any pre-planning at all. I went into the studio with literally no ideas of what it would be except that it would take a short amount of time... Every day, I took something home with me on the walk back to my house. I would ask the song to tell me a story and the next day I’d turn up with a song. Day by day this grew. But there’s no overarching theme or concept.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLondon Free Press, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I normally go in the studio with a great deal of preparation. This time, I just booked the studio and brought my cohorts who have worked with me for almost three decades: Dominic Miller on guitar, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. And I said, “Guys, let’s just play musical Ping-Pong.” An idea will go around in a circle, and a song will materialize, or at least the semblance of a song. I then structure it, give it a shape, and then take that shape home and ask that song what it’s telling me. Who is the character singing this? What’s the mood, what’s the narrative? And then I’d play a trick on myself. I’d lock myself out of my apartment, on the terrace in the cold, and not come in until I’d finished a lyric. I had a cup of coffee and a coat. It was one of those things to put myself out of my comfort zone in order to trick the muse into playing ball with me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Although it’s about a rock star, and of course I’ve been a rock star, “50,000” is not really me. It’s a character that seems to be singing through me and looking back on his career and, in reflection, finding philosophy. There are a lot of people like me at my age, still making rock ’n’ roll, having that rather singular experience of being in front of all those people and feeling empowered, and the hubris of that. And the psychological danger of it, too. And then coming out the other side and asking: “What did that mean? Are you, in fact, a god? Are you godlike?” No, you’re not. You’re very very human, and very mortal. It’s hard to express how unique that feeling is. Not many of us have stood up on those stages in front of 50,000; 100,000; a quarter of a million; in my case, half a million people out there. That can be a very heady and confusing experience. You need a certain perspective on it, to say, “This is fun, but it’s an illusion.” If you do that, then you’ll survive it. Otherwise, no, you’ll become the victim of it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times, 11\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I set out to complete the whole thing in three months at the most. I hadn't prepared anything. I simply went into the studio with my musicians and said, 'Let's play.' What emerged were ten musical short stories that have a very powerful quality. One part of the album is very rock 'n' roll and energetic. The other part is more contemplative and quiet. The album is a bit like me. I'm both.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I have a pool of musicians I enjoy working with. There are so many different tones on this record. That's why I need diverse musicians. They're my friends. They know how I work and what I need from them. They trust me enough to go into the studio with me without any preparation. And there we play a kind of musical ping-pong. I throw something to them. They throw it back. They know how to respond to what I do. And the music grows richer with each exchange. It becomes more complicated and interesting. We improvise, even though we don't play jazz. We trust, love, and respect each other. The music is a result of this relationship. We're a team—like in football.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" has different layers. You can understand the piece as a passionate love song. But it's also about the process of songwriting, the passionate search for inspiration. As a composer, I'm confronted every morning with a blank sheet of paper. Completely empty. Like a field covered in snow. And I have no idea where the thing I'm looking for is, or what it is. A story? A character? A path? A romantic muse? A spiritual muse?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The daily commute to the studio also helped. While I was running, I thought about my ideas. Running stimulates my creativity. It's like a very rhythmic meditation. Running through New York is also very stimulating because it's a very dramatic city. The architecture. The people. The traffic. The noise. I stopped at the traffic light at the same intersection of 57th Street and 9th Ave every day. You have to pay close attention there, otherwise you'll get run over by taxis. While I waited, I gave myself over to my thoughts.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jim Foley was working as a photojournalist in Syria and was captured by ISIS. He was held captive for many months. Then they murdered him and broadcast the beheading online. I saw a film about him. All his friends said he was the one who kept them all sane. He was the one who got them extra food and blankets. He was the one the guards tortured. And in the end, he was the one whose throat was slit. Luckily, they didn't show the execution in the film. When you watch the film, you fall in love with this extraordinary man. I had his family's words in my head — how much they all missed him. I imagined that the family always had an empty chair at the table for him - as if he could walk in at any moment. This became the song Empty Chair. Later, I found out that his friends at their local bar actually always kept a chair free for Jim.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One Fine Day is my ironic response to the global warming crisis. I pray every day that the climate sceptics who claim climate change is a hoax are right. And that all the scientific evidence for it turns out to be false. They're paid by the coal industry and the oil companies. The English poet William Blake said something great: 'A man who persists in his folly will become wise.' If the fool pushes his folly to the extreme, he will become wise. I hope it won't be too late by then.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In 'Petrol Head,' I play a truck driver. He's a macho guy who only thinks about sex and religion. That's not me, of course. Apart from the religion. It's a funny song. In the middle, I quote William Blake from the hymn Jerusalem: 'Bring me my chariot of fire. Bring me my chariot of fire.' It's pretty raw. I enjoy singing it. I'm slipping into the role of someone else who has nothing to do with me. I don't drive a truck. Okay, I did it once, but that was a long time ago. Maybe it's a secret part of me after all. I enjoy this role, anyway.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm convinced that if you structure music correctly, it tells you a story. It then has a narrative thread, an abstract narrative thread. And my job is just to figure out what the music is trying to say. In the case of Petrol Head it was clear that it was about driving. At some point, it became clear: Here's someone driving a huge truck through the American desert. That's the story. I don't really understand it. It's very strange how songs sometimes come to you. You absorb them. They're in the air.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Down, Down Down is about the end of a relationship. Luckily, it's not my relationship. But I have enough life experience to write about it. My heart has been broken. I've left someone. I've broken other people's hearts. I've had all these experiences and can revisit the corresponding emotions at any time. I don't have to relive them. I don't want to. It's also a song about depression, where you sink into the abyss. It's a terrible illness that I don't suffer from. But I know enough people affected by it to write something sensible about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSting, Deutschlandfunk, 12\/2016\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from All About Jazz by Nenad Georgievski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e    \u003cbr\u003eThroughout his long and illustrious career, Sting has enjoyed an enviable set of circumstances. Not only does he have total artistic freedom but he has been accompanied by elite musicians and has a devoted, global fan base. In return, that has yielded many artistic triumphs as he explored almost every genre known to man. He has been eclectic in his choice of inspiration which is filtered through an ever expansive musical worldview. That incorporates all kinds of sounds and music from pop and jazz to classical, medieval and world music. His new album 57th \u0026amp;9th reveals a restless and uncompromising creative spirit that makes music that still pulses with life and vigour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, 57th \u0026amp;9th is predominantly painted with the primal colours of rock music: rollicking drums, fizzing guitars and fluid bass lines. The first several songs roar straight out of the box. It's been a while since he sounded this energized and unfettered. Producer (and Sting's manager) Martin Kierszenbaum's sparse and raw production is a welcome change of pace for Sting whose previous work often slipped into the quiet, hushed and comfortable. The energy is tough and lean and he has never sounded this raw, urgent, and edgy since his early days with his band The Police. Sonically, this record does not break any drastically new sonic frontiers for him but these kinds of fast-paced rockier songs have been heard only occasionally on his records with \"After the Rain Has Fallen\" from Brand New Day (A\u0026amp;M, 1999) \"All This Time\" Soul Cages, ( A\u0026amp;M, 1991) as examples. The music is driven by a working band of many years and also welcomes other guests to make this recording special. While they rock and sound urgent they don't just bash it away. A band of this calibre is capable of stirring up wild grooves, but here they respond sensitively to Sting's vocal lines, dynamics and conjuring varying dynamics within the songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost importantly, 57th \u0026amp; 9th is dominated by outstanding songwriting. It is another masterclass in the potential potency of lyrics, melodies, and performance from an enduring songwriting master. At heart, Sting is an unequivocally a soul singer and musician. He always sings with great conviction, always drawing you in the story, like having a conversation with an old friend of yours. In contrast to his previous output, the autobiographical and reflective The Last Ship, (A\u0026amp;M, 2013) Sting is utterly engaged in the present, dealing with subjects such as social injustice and the horrors of refugees (\"Inshallah\"), pondering about climate change and environmental issues (\"One Fine Day\") or contemplating the passing of colleagues and close friends such as singers David Bowie, Prince or actor Alan Rickman (\"50.000\") .\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe quality of each song is consistently good with peaks and valleys in between. \"If You Can't Love Me\" is one of the many finest moments here. It is a tender mid-tempo ballad offered with the no-nonsense conviction that reveals love may be beyond the measurement of the rational. It's a love song that is achingly sincere without being invasive. The album closes, gorgeously, with a hushed ballad \"Empty Chair\" that deals with the subject of a loss. It's a song written for Jim: The James Foley Story, a documentary about a US journalist that was publicly executed by terrorists in Syria. The tone of the song is delicate and graceful. Sting's voice barely raises throughout, yet he manages to convey more emotion than ever before.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e57th \u0026amp; 9th is a master course in songwriting. Sting has created timeless songs that feel organic, heartfelt and important now, but which will sound as magnificent in the decades to come as they sound today. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Rolling Stone by Jon Dolan\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSting Makes a Surprise Return to Rock \u0026amp; Roll - A darkly impassioned LP full of loud guitars, politics and visions of mortality...\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s been ages since Sting even seemed to conceive of himself as a rock artist, which is why his straight-ahead new LP is so surprising: 57th \u0026amp; 9th is a no-lute zone. You’d have to go all the way back to “Born in the 50’s,” from the very first Police album, to hear him sing over guitars as rough as the ones on the lonely-horn-dog anthem “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” or the no-frills driving banger “Petrol Head.” The highlight “50,000” offers a clue to this newfound urgency; over guitarist Dominic Miller’s dark chords, Sting pays tribute to Prince, recalling ecstatic stadium shows, then flashes to a bathroom-mirror vision of his own mortality: “These lines of stress, one bloodshot eye\/The unhealthy pallor of a troubled ghost.” Desperation also comes through on “One Fine Day,” a delicate plea for climate sanity, and the Middle East-tinged refugee’s prayer “Inshallah.” Elsewhere, he offers a kind of travelogue through his own musical past, from the Chaucer-y balladry of “Heading South on the Great North Road” to “If You  Can’t Love Me,” a mordantly Kafkaesque echo of the jazz rock Sting made in the Eighties. Even if the album gets more ponderous as his concerns deepen, it’s nice to see the king of pain flex a little. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Los Angeles Times by Mikael Wood\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn '57th \u0026amp; 9th,' Sting urgently shares what's on his mind...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2013, Sting sat for an hour or so interview in a small dressing room at what was then Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe veteran English musician was in town talking up “The Last Ship,” an album of songs from a musical he’d composed that was headed to Broadway, and in the course of the conversation Sting made it clear he no longer had much interest in writing the kind of first-person pop tunes that made him a star.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA year later, “The Last Ship” opened in New York — and then closed after three months, a victim of poor ticket sales that even Sting himself couldn’t save by joining the show’s cast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven that turn of events, it may be fair to greet the singer’s new project, “57th \u0026amp; 9th,” with suspicion. Released this month, it’s a collection of — hey, wait a minute — first-person pop tunes, similar in structure to those he created with the Police before he turned his attention to the lute (on 2006’s widely mocked “Songs From the Labyrinth”) and the theater.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot only that, but Sting, 65, is promoting the record in precisely the manner he appeared to have lost his taste for. On Sunday night he’ll perform along with Ariana Grande and Shawn Mendes on the American Music Awards, and next week he’s set to play during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere’s the thing, though: “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is good. Really good. Far from a craven about-face, it might be Sting’s best set of songs since the early ’90s — not a retreat into nostalgia but a shrewd adaptation of a familiar form.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s title reflects its genesis. At a studio near the corner of 57th Street and 9th Avenue in New York, Sting corralled guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta - musicians he’s played with for decades - and got to work banging out songs free of any overarching concept.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sound is taut, scruffy, even punky, full of snarling guitars and hurtling tempos; Sting’s melodies are sturdy but straightforward, as though he’d worked them out while singing live with the band, pushing his voice to be heard above the din.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet the twist is that he didn’t take this throwback approach as an excuse to revisit old times or themes. These are songs about what’s on Sting’s mind right now: war, politics, the environment - and the challenge of songwriting itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe last is the topic at the heart of the sexual metaphor in “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” in which he’s a guy driven mad by his desire to find the right words. “One Fine Day” argues for awareness of climate change, first by appealing to the listener’s emotion (“Three penguins and a bear got drowned”), then with full-on alarm bells (“We must do something quick or die”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn “50,000” Sting ponders the inordinate number of rock and pop stars who’ve died in 2016, which sounds like a miserable idea but actually provides some fascinating insight into what amounts to a professional dilemma.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We tweet our anecdotes, our commentary \/ Or we sing his songs in some sad \u003cbr\u003etribute,” he sings, not weepy at all, “While the tabloids are holding a story of kiss and tell \/ That he’s no longer able to deny or refute.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven when Sting does look back to his youth - as in “Heading South on the Great North Road,” set in his hometown of Newcastle - he opens up the scope of the song, in this case to draw a parallel with the current refugee crisis in Europe. He invokes that situation again in “Inshallah,” with its “sad boats” and “anxious eyes.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDoes the vivid writing and playing on “57th \u0026amp; 9th” guarantee the album will find the mass audience that eluded “The Last Ship”? Hardly. Few who see Sting on the AMAs this weekend are likely to download (or even stream) the record. And few of those who’d enjoy the record as much as I do are likely to watch the AMAs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, hey, if the album bombs and Sting again reverses himself in some way, I won’t automatically doubt him next time. He’s earned the right to change his mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Entertainment Weekly by Nolan Feeney\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith 16 Grammys to his name and spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Sting long ago earned the right to do whatever he wants. And in recent years, the former Police frontman has been exercising that power freely: His last few albums have included the music from his Tony-nominated musical (2013’s The Last Ship), classical reinterpretations of his greatest hits (2010’s Symphonicities), traditional holiday music (2009’s If on a Winter’s Night…), and his infamous batch of lute songs (2006’s Songs from the Labyrinth).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s twelfth LP, 57th \u0026amp; 9th, named for the New York City intersection he traversed every day on the way to the studio, marks his first rock release in more than a decade — and it proves that years of passion projects haven’t dulled his songwriting instincts. That’s partly thanks to a loose and unfussy recording process that saw Sting write on the spot with a tight team of musicians, including members of his touring band and Tex-Mex group the Last Bandoleros, with whom he shares management; there’s a lean muscle powering songs like the hooky opener “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You.” But it’s also because Sting doesn’t hold anything back when it comes to his feelings about the state of the world, whether he’s poking fun at climate-change skeptics (the urgent “One Fine Day”) or empathizing with European refugees (“Inshallah”). Sting is hardly the first artist this year to write about pressing social social issues, but he writes plainly yet poetically about them - a style that keeps his messages from feeling heavy-handed or self-important. Here, he’s just an elder statesman speaking from the heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sounds of 57th range from folksy acoustic numbers to epic stadium-fillers, but the record’s most poignant tunes have stories of loss and mourning in common. The quiet album closer, “The Empty Chair,” was written from the perspective of journalist James Foley, who was killed by ISIS in 2014, and it might be one of the most heart-wrenching songs Sting has ever written - good luck not getting choked up as he sings about keeping a place for Foley at the family dinner table. On “50,000,” which was inspired by the deaths of David Bowie, Prince, and Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, Sting confronts his own mortality and the mythologizing powers of fame by admitting he’s “still believing that old lie… rock stars don’t ever die, they only fade away.” Looking enviably fit at age 65, Sting doesn’t seem in danger of the former anytime soon; and with records as robust as this one, he doesn’t have to worry about the latter, either.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Washington Post by Scott Stroud\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting rocks out again with a familiar sound...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first single on Sting’s new album, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” sounds like the love child of Police classics “I’ll Be Watching You” and “Can’t Stand Losing You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are the achy lyrics of the former, which holds up well but has more of a stalker vibe than it seemed to the first time around. And there’s the driving bass line of the latter, the style of playing that made Sting’s former band one of the best of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“57th and 9th” as a whole sounds a lot like Sting’s old stuff, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s musically incredible and lyrically wiser, though it also veers into self-importance at times - just as the old stuff did.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike a lot of aging rockers living on past glory, Sting’s return to rock ‘n’ roll from other projects seems driven more by a desire to return to something he loves than the need to make a buck. There’s a payoff for waiting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded in a period of weeks, the album has spontaneity but also a rawness. He could have scrubbed a few clichés from the lyrics - the sands of time on one song, old rockers never die (they just fade away) on another - but the pulsating rush that was the hallmark of Sting’s early work makes up for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA man who knows how to rock this well can be forgiven. It is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arts Desk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRock veteran swaps lotus position for a trip down memory lane...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven now, Sting's reputation as one of rock's most earnest men looms large. His last two projects consisted of a Broadway musical about Newcastle's ship industry and a \"symphonic\" retrospective of his greatest hits. Before that it was saving bees and Elizabethan madrigals with a Bosnian lutenist. Now, however, the singer promises something lighter. 57th and 9th has been heralded as the return of \"Sting the rock star\". Could it really be the tantric one is returning to the sound he created in the early Eighties? \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first signs of familiarity come from the guitar and drums. Here Dominic Miller and Vinnie Colaiuta faithfully recreate the textures and rhythms of Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland from The Police. Throw in Mr Sumner's unmistakable ear for melody and many of the results could pass for Police outtakes and B-sides. \"Petrol Head\" has echoes of \"Synchronicity II\"; \"I Can't Stop Thinking About You\" and \"50,000\" evoke the band's earlier work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's lyrics, though, are heavier. \"Inshallah\" is a pleasantly thoughtful meditation of the plight of Syrian refugees; \"One Fine Day\", about climate change, is decidedly clunky. No matter how weighty the lyrics, any po-facedness is largely offset by the nostalgic charm of hearing that iconic tenor back in its rightful setting. What might once have felt irritating now seems strangely cosy and reassuring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e57th and 9ths finest three minutes are \"Pretty Young Soldier\" a rather lovely interpretation of the folk story about a girl who dresses as a boy soldier to get her man. The worst track is \"Down Down Down\", so bland it virtually doesn't exist. Yet, while the presence of such fillers make 57th and 9th short of classic, the contents do mainly live up to the cover image - the artist looking significantly younger and cheekier than the grizzled yoga veteran we've become used to. A pleasant enough reminder, then, of the old days.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from ABC News by Allan Raible\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting's Latest Album Is His Best Since 1996...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePut quite simply, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” is Sting’s best album since 1996’s under-rated “Mercury Falling.” I’ve wanted Sting to explore his rock side again for a very long time. While this isn’t a pure rock record, there are some appealing, crunchy moments on here. “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” effectively recalls his work with The Police and provides him with his biggest hit-contender in a long time. The same goes with “50,000” which was written in tribute to David Bowie and Prince and would fit decently next to a classic like “King Of Pain.” On “Petrol Head,” Sting works a blues-rock vein that is surprisingly tough. With a different arrangement, you could imagine it working similar territory as “Demolition Man.” On the deluxe edition he even delivers a live, slightly bluesy version of the early Police highlight “Next To You.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s tempting to call this album a return to Sting’s punk roots, but if you go further in the playlist, there are also some strong ballads. The second half of the record is strikingly quiet when compared to the first.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis isn’t quite the powerhouse album it could have been but it’s a very strong reminder that Sting is indeed one of pop’s finer master-craftsmen. To many, “57th \u0026amp; 9th” showcases the return of the version of Sting that has been missing for some time. After years of wandering and experimentation, it is good to have him back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” This is most definitely among Sting’s best solo singles to date. It’s an eye-opening return to form of the grandest kind and proof that he still has a hungry side. This track is insistent and infectious in all the best ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“50,000” This is a ballad of sorts but it still balances a feeling of sadness with a spiky, building energy. Again, this is another strong tune with a lot of potential.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Heading South On The Great North Road” This track from the album’s quieter half shows Sting’s classically-minded side delivering a tune that sounds like a traditional folk song for the ages. While this more literary side in this case probably won’t lead to radio spins, it still shows Sting at his songwriting best.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998314578,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/album1deluxe1472662517_640.jpg?v=1758315236"},{"product_id":"57th-9th-live-from-chicago","title":"57th \u0026 9th: Live From Chicago","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIntroducing 57th \u0026amp; 9th: Live From Chicago, an exclusive 12” vinyl and companion digital download featuring songs, both new hits and classics, recorded live by WXRT on the 57th \u0026amp; 9th Tour on March 3, 2017. This record is being produced EXCLUSIVELY FOR STING.COM MEMBERS. It will not be available for purchase in stores or online.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998642258,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/chicago1507189782_640.jpg?v=1758315247"},{"product_id":"44-876","title":"44\/876","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e44\/876 was recorded in Jamaica and New York with Sting \u0026amp; Shaggy being joined by various musicians and writers including the legendary Robbie Shakespeare of Sly and Robbie, dancehall sensation Aidonia, Morgan Heritage, Branford Marsalis, Agent Sasco and Sting’s longtime guitarist, Dominic Miller as well as writers Taranchyla, Dwayne “iLL Wayno” Shippy, Shane Hoosong, Machine Gun Funk and Patexx. The sessions were produced in part by Sting International (“Oh, Carolina,” “Boombastic” and “It Wasn’t Me,”) and by Martin Kierszenbaum who has previously written\/produced songs for Sting, Madonna and Lady Gaga. Sting International, Robert “Hitmixer” Orton, Sting International and Tony Lake mixed 44\/876.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Associated Press by Mark Kennedy\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fact that Shaggy and Sting are teaming up on a CD does, admittedly, sound like a gimmick. Why are these two very different artists together? Because they happen to be known by a single name? Why not keep going and add Shakira, Sia, Slash and Seal?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaybe one day, but put the snarkiness aside and enjoy this warm bromance between the Jamaican dancehall king and the cool, intellectual Englishman.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“44\/876” - the title is a combo of the phone country codes for Sting’s native England and Shaggy’s Jamaica - makes sense as soon as you recall Sting’s liberal use of reggae rhythms as part of The Police.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turns out there’s real chemistry between Shaggy, whose deep, thick cadences made “Boombastic” and “It Wasn’t Me” such beloved hits, and Sting’s flexible, honeyed voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe duo helped write every song on the 12-track album and their collaboration has triggered some interesting - some might say curious - songwriting, including lifted poetry from Lewis Carroll for “Just One Lifetime” and some role-playing (Shaggy portrays a judge and Sting a defendant on the innovative “Crooked Tree”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first, title song smartly honors Bob Marley - Sting says Marley’s ghost “haunts me to this day\/ There’s a spiritual truth in the words of his song” - as a way of inoculating everyone for this quirky offering. Then it’s off to more trop-hop on this sunny Caribbean jaunt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s the pro-immigrant, Motown-inflected “Dreaming in the U.S.A.” where Shaggy, a former U.S. Marine, notes he defended the nation. That adds weight to his statement: “I await the day when we will all inhabit a better America.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting, for his part, seems fed up with Britain: “The politics of this country are getting to me,” he sings in one song. Then in the slinky standout “Waiting for the Break of Day,” he hits again: “You see some politicians\/ You hear the things they say\/ You hear the falseness in their positions.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBranford Marsalis stops by to play sax and Robbie Shakespeare helps on bass. Sting’s daughter, Eliot Sumner, gets a writing credit and sings on “Night Shift.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou soon realize that Sting and Shaggy need each other, nowhere more so than on “22nd Street,” which is like a rejected cut from “The Dream of the Blue Turtles” until Sting’s delicate china shop is entered by Shaggy and his bearish voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s first single, “Don’t Make Me Wait,” a sway-inducing pop song with a reggae sheen, turns out to be only a taste of what these men can bring, their two vocal and musical styles melding into something as delicious as a plate of jerk chicken washed down with a cold beer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Daily Mail by Adrian Thrills\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has sung with jazz musicians and rappers, written a musical about shipbuilding on his native Tyneside and released an album of Renaissance lute music. But his latest escapade - a set of Caribbean-themed songs with dancehall reggae star Shaggy - is his most improbable yet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe record takes its title from the international dialling codes for the UK (44) and Jamaica (876) and is a sun-kissed mix of pop and reggae. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter being introduced by Sting's manager, who used to work with Shaggy, the unlikely couple got together to record a duet, Don't Make Me Wait, and were so happy with the results that other songs soon followed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fruits of 'Shaggy and Sting inna combination' are sometimes rather gimmicky, but 44\/876 avoids sounding like a vanity project by making the most of the pair's respective strengths: String's meticulous songwriting; deep-voiced Shaggy's spontaneity and flair.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe two are fairly evenly matched. Sting, 66, achieved global fame with The Police. Shaggy, 49, is a former US marine who moved from Jamaica to Brooklyn as a teenager. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving taken his stage name after a character in the TV cartoon Scooby-Doo, he has topped the UK chart four times with hits such as Boombastic and It Wasn't Me.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe duo's initial duet sets the tone: Don't Make Me Wait finds Shaggy playfully parading his lover man credentials. 'It didn't take me long to fall in love with your mind,' he sings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElsewhere, bassist Robbie Shakespeare and saxophonist Branford Marsalis contribute to a set of tuneful, good-natured songs that, despite Sting's thoughtful lyrics, refuse to take themselves too seriously.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCrooked Tree is a courtroom playlet that casts Shaggy as the Honourable Judge Burrell - his real name is Orville Burrell - and Sting as a contrite defendant. The Police-like Dreaming In The USA salutes a gallery of American cultural idols, including Elvis, Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, before Shaggy delivers the damning kiss-off line: 'I await the day when we will all inhabit a better America.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are numbers on which Sting takes the lead. With its gentle flute and lively fret-work by the singer's touring guitarist Dominic Miller, 22nd Street could have come straight off a Sting solo project, with Shaggy's raspy patter an afterthought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the songs where Mr. Boombastic takes centre stage are the most entertaining. Waiting For The Break Of Day is a languid piano piece lamenting the 'falseness' of politicians. To Love And Be Loved is an unashamedly poppy track that finds Sting admitting he has 'two left feet' when it comes to dancing. Accompanied by fairground organ, it's a bubbly, Shaggy-directed paean to good times - and all the better for that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Daily Telegraph by Neil McCormick\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is something about the combination of Sting and Shaggy that seems inherently ludicrous: Mr Boombastic Loverman meets Tantric Sex God in a pop\/reggae pile up. These two swaggering old mononymous male stars seem to belong to different corners of the musical universe. Sting, 66, is rock royalty – a virtuoso musician and supreme singer-songwriter with intellectual pretensions, who dabbles in folk, classical and opera. Shaggy, 49, is an ebullient Jamaican toaster with a gritty voice and penchant for fruity innuendo.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the suggestion of their shared management, Sting agreed to sing a hook on a Shaggy single, the sunny Don’t Make Me Wait, and the pair got on so well that the sessions expanded into a whole album of original songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe title track, 44\/876 – named after the respective international dialling codes for Britain and Jamaica – commemorates their transatlantic friendship. Over a breezy Caribbean groove, Sting confesses that “the ghost of Bob Marley haunts me to this day”, while Shaggy adds enthusiastic interjections: “Big up the UK, man, yeah, bam bam!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m tempted to say it is surprisingly good – yet why should we be surprised? They are both gifted, charismatic veteran musicians with very distinctive skills. The blend of Sting’s sweet, high tenor and top-tier songwriting with Shaggy’s earthy delivery and rhythmic bounce has an effortless appeal. Sting’s early success with the Police was rooted in reggae and it’s a flow that suits him well, even if his excruciating delivery of the phrase “positive vibration” is some of the dodgiest white patois heard since 10CC’s Dreadlock Holiday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s a hefty dollop of cheese on poppier tracks. The way Sting drops in such lines as “as my good friend Shaggy says” brings to mind Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin hamming it up in Vegas. These kind of guest star combinations have become a feature of modern pop and it’s a nice reminder that the oldies can duet, too. The Shaggy-led Gotta Get Back My Baby is such a fantastically catchy pop song it is a pity it will most likely be relegated to the Radio 2 playlist. If Bruno Mars and Drake recorded the same track, there’d be no escaping it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, Sting does the heavy lifting, with Shaggy dipping in and out as wing man, proclaiming “biddy bong bong” as the mood takes him. But aside from the more obviously playful pop, there are songs with tough political and emotional edges. The brooding Waiting for the Break of Day puts Sting on a picket line: “When the laws are wicked \/ You’re forced to disobey.” Just One Lifetime twists Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter into a nursery rhyme for the apocalypse. While 22nd Street sounds like a lost Gershwin classic given a lover’s rock twist. Crooked Tree is a dark, narrative folk song, with Shaggy voicing a hanging judge, while Sting pleads for clemency. Sad Trombone is a noirish jazz ballad built around audaciously overblown musical similes and metaphors. These songs are strong enough to fit anywhere into Sting’s impressive canon, delivered with an energy and focus that keeps his tendency to over-elaborate at bay.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat I like most is the sense that these two musicians are beyond caring about perceptions, simply determined to have fun.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Newsweek by Glenn Gamboa\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe unlikely rock-reggae odd couple find a surprisingly sweet middle ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe musical partnership between Sting and Shaggy seems weird, not because of their musical styles, but because of their personal ones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has cultivated an oh-so-serious rock persona for decades, both in The Police and out of it, while Shaggy, who splits his time between Jamaica and Valley Stream, has painted himself - in America, at least - as a reggae prankster. How would these two big personalities work together?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, judging from their “44\/876” album (A\u0026amp;M\/Interscope), Sting and Shaggy could probably have benefited from a bit more disagreement. On “44\/876,” named for the country codes for Sting’s native United Kingdom and Shaggy’s native Jamaica, they often sound deferential when a stronger blend of their styles would have worked better.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTheir collaboration is strongest when Sting buys into Shaggy’s reggae-pop vibe, like on the playful “To Love and Be Loved” of the Bob Marley-influenced “Morning Is Coming.” The first single “Don’t Make Me Wait” kickstarted the partnership when Shaggy’s former A\u0026amp;R rep Martin Kierszenbaum played the song for Sting, whom he now manages. It works well because it’s essentially a Shaggy song, with its catchy, lilting chorus and gentle reggae groove. On the other end, “Waiting for the Break of Day” sounds like it could have come from Sting’s “Ten Summoner’s Tales,” enhanced by Shaggy’s toasting. They create something new on “Dreaming in the USA,” a love letter to America that combines Motown with Police-like guitar riffs that shows how crafty Sting and Shaggy really can be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere they run into problems is when Sting gets a little too wrapped up in clever imagery. On “Sad Trombone,” he goes from one metaphor to the next, while Shaggy’s straightforward contribution only draws more attention to lines about being “the butter to my toast.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting and Shaggy have found a special connection on “44\/876,” one that could blossom into something bigger in time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The National by Adam Workman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlikely pairing of Sting and Shaggy dials up the spirit of Marley for some rays of pop-reggae - The unlikely duo make the sun shine on collaborative effort...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeldom since the Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man worked with Scottish bores Texas in the late 1990s (Say What You Want) have there been such a “huh?” music combo as this: Sting, the 66-year-old former Police frontman behind enduring hits Roxanne and Message in a Bottle; and Shaggy, the 49-year-old pop-reggae architect of, err, classic singles Boombastic and It Wasn’t Me.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album title is the international dialling codes of the two artists’ respective countries, and their musical influences similarly meet in the middle – although, while Sting’s familiar tones are tinged with occasional disconcerting Jamaican twangs, Shaggy goes even farther into his patois without a hint of English influence. It’s easy to forget that Sting has dabbled in reggae before, although not as much as Shaggy’s confusingly named producer, Sting International, who handles much of the behind-the-desk work on 44\/876.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting claims on the opening title track that “the ghost of Bob Marley” haunts him “to this day” – and it does hint at the album’s spirit, which evokes some of the reggae pioneer’s sunniest moments, alongside infrequent darker diversions such as courtroom lament Crooked Tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s an album that the world wouldn’t have missed were it never conceived, but given that it does exist, the results could have been a lot worse – and that even extends to an unexpected cover of West End show tune Love Changes Everything.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from USA Today by Maeve McDermott\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShaggy and Sting's collaborative album '44\/876' is a baffling joy...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor the first minute of 44\/876, the new collaborative album from Shaggy and Sting that is hotly anticipated if only for its ‘WTF’ novelty, it sounds like the two musicians may just pull this thing off. 44\/876 (out Friday) opens with its title track, beginning with a sunny verse from Shaggy celebrating his island roots over charmingly of-the-moment tropical-pop beats, hinting that the joining of forces between the English rocker and the Jamaican dancehall star may not be a total bust.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen, Sting starts singing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It shakes me to my soul with a positive vibration, I start dreaming of Jamaica, the Caribbean nation,” he begins, the clunkiest possible introduction to the album’s ‘Sting does reggae!’ concept, which only gets more amusing when he invokes “the ghost of Bob Marley that haunts me to this day\" with all the nuance of a clueless tourist getting his hair cornrowed during an island holiday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a hilariously unfortunate introduction to an album that certainly has its bright spots. Morning is Coming, the album’s second track, is a better introduction to Sting’s relative talents on 44\/876, his lilting vocals a better match for the song’s gentle roots reggae. Of course, Sting is no rookie when it comes to the sounds of Jamaica, drawing from reggae and ska over the course of his career with the Police and in his solo works.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis pairing with Shaggy, best known for his 2000s run of singles including the Steve Miller-interpolating hit Angel and the novelty classic It Wasn’t Me, works best when both singers meet one another halfway between their respective comfort zones, rather than step too far into one another’s worlds. That works both ways, as heard on Shaggy’s clunky attempts to match Sting’s cadences on the poppier Gotta Get Back My Baby.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s lighthearted songwriting verges on treacly at points, mostly when Sting goes on storytelling tangents, jauntily quoting Lewis Carroll on Just One Lifetime - “The time has come, Shaggy said, to talk of many things” - and roleplaying a prisoner in front of Shaggy’s judge on Crooked Tree, before singing about “making the sweetest love” to a woman he nicknames “Sad Trombone” on the song of the same name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe also seems quite keen to make his political opinions known, dedicating his first verse on 44\/876 to complaining about how the “politics of this country is getting to me,” like a party guest determined to harsh the buzz with politics talk.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSave for Sting’s more meandering moments, the album is mostly enjoyable, from its pleasant lead single Don’t Make Me Wait to Dreaming in the U.S.A, the two singers’ Springsteen-in-Jamaica ode to the American dream. 44\/876 may get its name from the phone country codes for the artists’ two home countries, England and Jamaica, but there’s something distinctly American-feeling about the album, which sees both its creators as ex-pats, with Shaggy pining for his island home and Sting unimpressed with the politics of Britain today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlus, only in America could this gonzo pairing of two stars at various levels of old geezer-dom, truly make sense. And while the world wasn’t exactly clamoring for this album to exist, the end product is more lucid than many likely expected. If anything, 44\/876 is proof that both Shaggy and Sting can keep evolving into the later era of their careers, and maintaining a sense of humor about it in the process.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Pitchfork by Evan Rytlewski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe reggae-lite collaboration between Sting and Shaggy is as professional, good-natured, and helplessly uncool as its billing promises.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhy Shaggy? Presumably, if Sting wanted to go 50\/50 on a reggae album, he had options. Toots Hibbert is still in fine voice. The Wailers aren’t really the Wailers anymore, but Sting and the Wailers has a hell of a ring to it. And if he were looking to make a splash on the adult contemporary charts, Michael Franti probably could have made it happen. But Shaggy? Mr. Boombastic? The guy who sings like he’s auditioning to voice a breakfast cereal character? Why?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turns out the two just really hit it off. Sting even refers to “my good friend Shaggy” early on the duo’s unlikely collaboration 44\/876, and the album never leaves any doubt that Sting means it. Just look at them posing on those motorcycles, like your parents in their most embarrassing vacation photo. Even when the material falls flat, as it frequently does, there’s some pleasure in picturing these two entirely unobjectionable personalities living their best lives, knocking back Coronas while gently busting each other’s chops with the superficial banter of Liam Neeson and his middle-age golf buddies in the Taken films. It’s such an old-man record you can almost feel your testosterone drop listening to it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e44\/876 is as professional, good-natured, and helplessly uncool as its billing promises. Does Sting feign a Caribbean accent? Yes, obviously. Does he fetishize white sandy beaches and honour the ghost of Bob Marley? You know he does. Are there air horns? Yup—all those boxes are checked right out the gate on the opening title track, another inglorious addition to the canon of reggae songs about how great reggae music is. “It shakes me to my soul with a positive vibration, I start dreaming of Jamaica,” Sting sings, standing out like a fanny-packed tourist against unexpectedly contemporary pop-dancehall production fit for a Sean Kingston album. The track’s modern sheen is a fake-out; the rest of the record is more UB40 than Top 40.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a Rolling Stone profile, Shaggy makes a crack about women getting pregnant to the album’s steamy single “Don’t Make Me Wait,” but by and large the Shaggy here is a far less randy one than the “It Wasn’t Me” Shaggy at the turn of the century. He’s not as miscast as he sounds on paper. Nobody will mistake him for one of reggae’s greats, but he’s a game performer, down for whatever the album throws at him, be it dub, rocksteady, or yacht rock. His toasts colour otherwise colourless songs without disrupting the tasteful romantic vibe Sting sets so carefully. And while there’s some initial absurdity in hearing him opposite Sting, one of the stateliest and most humourless of all of rock elder statesmen, the album never acknowledges it, not even on “Morning is Coming,” where Sting is awoken by to the serene song of a nightingale… that happens to share the severe nasally voice of Shaggy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMore often Sting is the one who sounds out of place. His voice has taken on a smoky hue that can work for him when he leans into it, especially on the jazzy, The Dream of the Blue Turtles-styled “Waiting for the Break of Day” or the torchy “Sad Trombone” (yes, that’s really the title, and no, it doesn’t get the reference). Yet every time he reaches for his higher registers he shows the limits of his range, inviting unflattering comparisons to his youthful heyday with the Police. There was a time when Sting legitimately could have nailed a designated reggae album, but his realistic window for that closed quite a while ago. Maybe that’s why so many of these songs, even the upbeat ones, dwell on missed opportunities and the passage of time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe great irony of 44\/876 is, despite its inherent disposability, it’s actually one of Sting’s more enjoyable albums, simply because he’s actually having fun here. At times, the album almost feels like Sting’s treat to himself, a reward for all those grief-stricken song cycles, symphonic works, and that one album with all the lute on it. After decades of treating music as a solemn obligation, he deserves a little vacation, and 44\/876 is as close as any Sting album has ever come to sounding like one. The music’s usually pretty lame, but at least the company is nice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from AllAboutJazz by Nenad Georgivski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery summer needs its soundtrack, i.e. - a song or an album full of songs that will remind people that it's good to be alive. The summer is the time to feel good and it has to have its music that would reflect the fun and mischievous behavior that you would remember the summer by. And on this duet record between pop star Sting and dancehall star Shaggy, titled 44\/876, a potent cocktail of timeless Caribbean styles come together in a full-scale tropical explosion, colorful, playful, and above all, a good time. What initially began with Sting singing backing vocals on a song for a Shaggy's album soon became good fun and easy rapport that prompted both parties to record a full album together. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e44\/876 is in contrast with Sting's previous record, 57th and 9th (A\u0026amp;M\/Interscope, 2016), which was a classic Post-Police record that emphasized Sting's songwriting mastery. It was colored in the hues of rock music and was a return to form. On the other hand, 44\/876 emphasizes Sting's life-long love affair with reggae and ska music that began with the songs from his band The Police. Throughout his illustrious career, many of Sting's songs were influenced by the music from the Caribbean among other styles of music like \"Love is The Seventh Wave\" and \"Englishmen in New York.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the other hand, that influence wasn't a one way street, as over the years, many musicians from Jamaica paid tribute to Sting's music by covering his songs with the Police, as heard on compilations such as Reggatta Mondatta: Reggae Tribute Album to The Police (Ark 21, 2000) and Spirits In The Material World: A Reggae Tribute To The Police, (Shanachie, 2008.) These songs weren't covered by anonymous musicians but by leading artists from the island from various generations, which showcases the special relationship that exists here. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Sting can be a master of unlikely musical partnerships. His inclination for sharing the spotlight knows no genre-bounds, ranging from singers Cheb Mami, Craig David to lutist Edin Karamazov or guitarist Eric Clapton. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Shaggy's longtime producer Sting International and Sting's manager Martin Kierszenbaum, this record is both propelled and colored by an interesting and diverse selection of musicians. As a result 44\/876 is a swirl of diverse Jamaican styles, sounds, and themes that bring out the summer festive feel. Highlights are copious. From the opener, the title song, until the closing \"Night Shift,\" the songs are full of pulsating and infectious beats, funky grooves that pair with sweet and playful melodies. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Reggaeville by Gardy Stein\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll in all, this record fully exhibits the upsides what can happen when two great musicians from entirely different backgrounds unite in the name making music together. Love is still the seventh wave.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile features and collaborations are a common thing in Reggae and Dancehall, most stay within the genre's boundaries. Recently though, these boundaries have remarkably expanded to include Cuban music (e.g. Jake Savona's Havana Meets Kingston) and the motherland (e.g. Kabaka and Stonebwoy in Borders or the latter and Demarco in Say It), a welcome move to accommodate the growing popularity of Afrobeats. With 44\/876, this expansion-movement has been taken to the next level - a full album-length collaboration of Orville Richard Burrell and Gordon Matthew Sumner, better known as Shaggy and Sting!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs unlikely as this combination might seem at first glance, the two superstars have a lot in common. Both are Grammy Winners, both look back to decades of creating amazing music, and both have already crossed over into the other's genre - Sting even claims that Reggae has been a major influence on all of his music! On top of everything else, their voices complement each other perfectly. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGarbed in the masterful work of Shaun \"Sting International\" Pizzonia (the producer who is responsible for Shaggy's hit It Wasn't Me) and additional input by sound-cracks like \"iLL Wayno\" Shippy, Teflon, Shane Hoosong or Martin Kierszenbaum, twelve tracks present a convincing marriage of Sting's skilled, multi-octaved singing and the deep, bassy MCing of Mr. Boombastic. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEnough with the intro - let's take a look at the songs! Opening and title track, the cryptical numbers (indicating UK's and Jamaica's country codes) are a fast-paced ode to the Caribbean island and feature royalty such as Morgan Heritage and Dancehall-High-Fly'yeah' Aidonia. With its laid-back Reggae beat, Morning Is Coming makes for a sharp contrast, celebrating a nightingale's chirping and the rising of a new day. The melodious horn section played by David Barnes, Joel Gonzalez, Zachary Lucas, Robert Stringer and Branford Marsalis captures this pioneering spirit and leads over to the more melancholy, piano-driven Waiting For The Break Of Day. Similar in feeling, Sad Trombone gives you exactly what the title says, plus Sting's possibly best vocal delivery on this release. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGotta Get Back My Baby brings in a rocky flavour, but much more interesting is the next track, which is actually the one that sparked the album. When Shaggy was at Martin Kierszenbaum's studio in LA last year, Martin (who happens to be Sting's manager) sent the raw sketch of Don't Make Me Wait over to Sting to ask for a contribution. The Englishman had so much fun working on it that the mutual idea of doing more fell on fertile ground. A hit in itself, this love song is thus not only the nucleus around which the present album took form, it's also the first single, accompanied by a stunning video. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust One Lifetime is a philosophical musing about the ups and downs of life, quoting the poem The Walrus \u0026amp; The Carpenter by British word-smith Lewis Carroll. Less philosophical but none less touching, the airily instrumented 22nd Street circles around a past encounter, while Dreaming In The USA talks about the very present danger of America disappointing the dreams of its people   admittedly in a quite subtle manner. Rhythmically, that's the most \"Stingy\" track on here! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinding ourselves in court, Crooked Tree is a remarkable piece of storytelling in which the defendant brings across the simple truth that we are all carved of different wood, some more crooked than others. Goose bumps! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs if to lift the wistful mood thus induced, the much lighter To Love And Be Loved will have you skanking in no time, and the final Night Shift, despite the work-related lyrics, sends us off on a sweet, bubbling musical note. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat a ride! Fun, diversified and lyrically elaborated, 44\/876 is a sparkling surprise for fans of both artists, artists who obviously not only work extremely well in studio together, but also on stage, as a planned tour will show (including a joint performance at the Queen's 92th Birthday!). Sting himself says that \"an element of surprise is so important in music\", and with this album, he and Shaggy certainly added a piece of major importance to the unfolding year's output. More of this, please! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Pop Mag by Mai Perkins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are quite a few fascinating bromances that have popped up over the years. Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon. George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Not to mention, of course, the most iconic duo, Batman and Robin. Thankfully we can now add to the list the most surprising new tag team – Sting and Shaggy – who have released their unexpected first collaborative album, “44\/876”. While the two joke that they met on Tinder, in reality it was a manager for the two legends who hooked them up for this joint venture. After listening to what would become the lead single, “Don’t Make Me Wait”, the rep sent the song to Sting, who in turn made his way down to the studio in Los Angeles where Shaggy was recording that day. As the story would unfold, without even realizing what was happening, Sting came through the door singing the hook, demanding that Shaggy produce the song with him on it. The rest has all been very kismet for the two Grammy-winning musicians. The synergy has been great. Their vocals complement one another. So they kept recording. Then one song turned into five songs recorded, which turned into the eclectic dancehall-pop album we now know as “44\/876”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf working on the project, Sting reflects that it’s good to be able to share fifty percent of the creative vision as a band leader with Shaggy. On the other hand, Shaggy appreciates Sting’s tendency to push him out of his comfort zone into new territory as a composer and songwriter, especially when it comes to chord changes, key modulation, and the types of song structure that Shaggy isn’t used to. As a result, creating this LP has been a process that both have found exciting and fulfilling. “44\/876” as an album gives sunshine vibes and captures the essence of Jamaica more than expected. Their anticipation was to transcend music and culture given Sting’s home island of Great Britain, whose international dialing code is 44, and Shaggy’s Caribbean birthplace whose code is 876. It’s not surprising that Sting would produce such a reggae-influenced album with Shaggy, either. He’s always had an instinct for paying homage to a style of music that shaped who he would become as a musician. This has become a full circle moment in his career by creating this collection of songs with an authentic reggae artist, which has been a natural fit for Sting. In the early days, his band The Police would actually tour with reggae bands like Burning Spear and Steele Pulse when they were first starting out in the late 70s and early 80s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s title track, which features celebrated reggae group Morgan Heritage, is a mix of mystical escapism and feel-good bounce. Several songs really work for the project including “Morning Is Coming” with its classic horn and deep bass vibe and the single “Don’t Make Me Wait”, which is a worthy salute to Bob Marley’s “Waiting In Vain”. “Waiting For The Break Of Day” on the other hand is definitely in the same vein as Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”, with updated chord changes. “Gotta Get Back My Baby” is a bit cliche as if a teeny-bopper would be singing the lyrics, not middle-aged rock and reggae stars. The poet Lewis Carroll served as inspiration for the songwriting on “Just One Lifetime”. In it, Sting pens an adventure between two unlikely people, who, on a journey through life, comment on the dystopian yet hopeful world as they see it, hoping to make a difference.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album boasts strong ballads where Sting takes the lead, like the groovy “22nd Street” and the majestic and beautiful “Love Changes Everything”, one of the strongest songs on the album. “Dreaming In The U.S.A.” is their sincere love letter to the United States, where Sting chooses to live as “a guest”. Though the song isn’t implicitly political and comes across a bit cheeky, Sting is on record acknowledging The Dreamers in America who are in a very necessary fight for rights as immigrants, and this song could be considered a follow-up to “Englishman In New York”. “Crooked Tree” is the most imaginative song on the album with the two acting out a courtroom drama of drug dealing and human trafficking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are some instant hits as well like the rootsy skank hit “To Love And Be Loved” or the dubstep of “Sad Trombone” and “Night Shift”. In addition to the jams, Sting and Shaggy brought some bona fide heavyweights on board with bassist Robbie Shakespeare of the reggae super-duo Sly And Robbie, Sting’s longtime guitarist Dominic Miller, jazz instrumentalist Branford Marsalis, Agent Sasco, dancehall sensation Aidonia, and other notables. As far as the music game goes, both Sting and Shaggy individually tout a storied career, with their combined sixty-five years in the music business, forty for Sting and twenty-five for Shaggy. That the iconic rock star would saunter into Mr. Boombastic’s recording session and invite himself to create a joint album between the two of them is nothing short of amazing. The two are planning a world tour for summer 2018 that will encompass their epic catalogues of music, and that, in and of itself, is a reason to get on the “44\/876” love train! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998707794,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/448761520455652_640.jpg?v=1758315250"},{"product_id":"44-876-super-deluxe","title":"44\/876 (Super Deluxe)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e44\/876 was recorded in Jamaica and New York with Sting \u0026amp; Shaggy being joined by various musicians and writers including the legendary Robbie Shakespeare of Sly and Robbie, dancehall sensation Aidonia, Morgan Heritage, Branford Marsalis, Agent Sasco and Sting’s longtime guitarist, Dominic Miller as well as writers Taranchyla, Dwayne “iLL Wayno” Shippy, Shane Hoosong, Machine Gun Funk and Patexx. The sessions were produced in part by Sting International (“Oh, Carolina,” “Boombastic” and “It Wasn’t Me,”) and by Martin Kierszenbaum who has previously written\/produced songs for Sting, Madonna and Lady Gaga. Sting International, Robert “Hitmixer” Orton, Sting International and Tony Lake mixed 44\/876.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Associated Press by Mark Kennedy\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fact that Shaggy and Sting are teaming up on a CD does, admittedly, sound like a gimmick. Why are these two very different artists together? Because they happen to be known by a single name? Why not keep going and add Shakira, Sia, Slash and Seal?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaybe one day, but put the snarkiness aside and enjoy this warm bromance between the Jamaican dancehall king and the cool, intellectual Englishman.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“44\/876” - the title is a combo of the phone country codes for Sting’s native England and Shaggy’s Jamaica - makes sense as soon as you recall Sting’s liberal use of reggae rhythms as part of The Police.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turns out there’s real chemistry between Shaggy, whose deep, thick cadences made “Boombastic” and “It Wasn’t Me” such beloved hits, and Sting’s flexible, honeyed voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe duo helped write every song on the 12-track album and their collaboration has triggered some interesting - some might say curious - songwriting, including lifted poetry from Lewis Carroll for “Just One Lifetime” and some role-playing (Shaggy portrays a judge and Sting a defendant on the innovative “Crooked Tree”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first, title song smartly honors Bob Marley - Sting says Marley’s ghost “haunts me to this day\/ There’s a spiritual truth in the words of his song” - as a way of inoculating everyone for this quirky offering. Then it’s off to more trop-hop on this sunny Caribbean jaunt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s the pro-immigrant, Motown-inflected “Dreaming in the U.S.A.” where Shaggy, a former U.S. Marine, notes he defended the nation. That adds weight to his statement: “I await the day when we will all inhabit a better America.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting, for his part, seems fed up with Britain: “The politics of this country are getting to me,” he sings in one song. Then in the slinky standout “Waiting for the Break of Day,” he hits again: “You see some politicians\/ You hear the things they say\/ You hear the falseness in their positions.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBranford Marsalis stops by to play sax and Robbie Shakespeare helps on bass. Sting’s daughter, Eliot Sumner, gets a writing credit and sings on “Night Shift.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou soon realize that Sting and Shaggy need each other, nowhere more so than on “22nd Street,” which is like a rejected cut from “The Dream of the Blue Turtles” until Sting’s delicate china shop is entered by Shaggy and his bearish voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s first single, “Don’t Make Me Wait,” a sway-inducing pop song with a reggae sheen, turns out to be only a taste of what these men can bring, their two vocal and musical styles melding into something as delicious as a plate of jerk chicken washed down with a cold beer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Daily Mail by Adrian Thrills\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has sung with jazz musicians and rappers, written a musical about shipbuilding on his native Tyneside and released an album of Renaissance lute music. But his latest escapade - a set of Caribbean-themed songs with dancehall reggae star Shaggy - is his most improbable yet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe record takes its title from the international dialling codes for the UK (44) and Jamaica (876) and is a sun-kissed mix of pop and reggae. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter being introduced by Sting's manager, who used to work with Shaggy, the unlikely couple got together to record a duet, Don't Make Me Wait, and were so happy with the results that other songs soon followed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fruits of 'Shaggy and Sting inna combination' are sometimes rather gimmicky, but 44\/876 avoids sounding like a vanity project by making the most of the pair's respective strengths: String's meticulous songwriting; deep-voiced Shaggy's spontaneity and flair.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe two are fairly evenly matched. Sting, 66, achieved global fame with The Police. Shaggy, 49, is a former US marine who moved from Jamaica to Brooklyn as a teenager. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving taken his stage name after a character in the TV cartoon Scooby-Doo, he has topped the UK chart four times with hits such as Boombastic and It Wasn't Me.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe duo's initial duet sets the tone: Don't Make Me Wait finds Shaggy playfully parading his lover man credentials. 'It didn't take me long to fall in love with your mind,' he sings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElsewhere, bassist Robbie Shakespeare and saxophonist Branford Marsalis contribute to a set of tuneful, good-natured songs that, despite Sting's thoughtful lyrics, refuse to take themselves too seriously.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCrooked Tree is a courtroom playlet that casts Shaggy as the Honourable Judge Burrell - his real name is Orville Burrell - and Sting as a contrite defendant. The Police-like Dreaming In The USA salutes a gallery of American cultural idols, including Elvis, Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, before Shaggy delivers the damning kiss-off line: 'I await the day when we will all inhabit a better America.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are numbers on which Sting takes the lead. With its gentle flute and lively fret-work by the singer's touring guitarist Dominic Miller, 22nd Street could have come straight off a Sting solo project, with Shaggy's raspy patter an afterthought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the songs where Mr. Boombastic takes centre stage are the most entertaining. Waiting For The Break Of Day is a languid piano piece lamenting the 'falseness' of politicians. To Love And Be Loved is an unashamedly poppy track that finds Sting admitting he has 'two left feet' when it comes to dancing. Accompanied by fairground organ, it's a bubbly, Shaggy-directed paean to good times - and all the better for that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Daily Telegraph by Neil McCormick\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is something about the combination of Sting and Shaggy that seems inherently ludicrous: Mr Boombastic Loverman meets Tantric Sex God in a pop\/reggae pile up. These two swaggering old mononymous male stars seem to belong to different corners of the musical universe. Sting, 66, is rock royalty – a virtuoso musician and supreme singer-songwriter with intellectual pretensions, who dabbles in folk, classical and opera. Shaggy, 49, is an ebullient Jamaican toaster with a gritty voice and penchant for fruity innuendo.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the suggestion of their shared management, Sting agreed to sing a hook on a Shaggy single, the sunny Don’t Make Me Wait, and the pair got on so well that the sessions expanded into a whole album of original songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe title track, 44\/876 – named after the respective international dialling codes for Britain and Jamaica – commemorates their transatlantic friendship. Over a breezy Caribbean groove, Sting confesses that “the ghost of Bob Marley haunts me to this day”, while Shaggy adds enthusiastic interjections: “Big up the UK, man, yeah, bam bam!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m tempted to say it is surprisingly good – yet why should we be surprised? They are both gifted, charismatic veteran musicians with very distinctive skills. The blend of Sting’s sweet, high tenor and top-tier songwriting with Shaggy’s earthy delivery and rhythmic bounce has an effortless appeal. Sting’s early success with the Police was rooted in reggae and it’s a flow that suits him well, even if his excruciating delivery of the phrase “positive vibration” is some of the dodgiest white patois heard since 10CC’s Dreadlock Holiday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s a hefty dollop of cheese on poppier tracks. The way Sting drops in such lines as “as my good friend Shaggy says” brings to mind Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin hamming it up in Vegas. These kind of guest star combinations have become a feature of modern pop and it’s a nice reminder that the oldies can duet, too. The Shaggy-led Gotta Get Back My Baby is such a fantastically catchy pop song it is a pity it will most likely be relegated to the Radio 2 playlist. If Bruno Mars and Drake recorded the same track, there’d be no escaping it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, Sting does the heavy lifting, with Shaggy dipping in and out as wing man, proclaiming “biddy bong bong” as the mood takes him. But aside from the more obviously playful pop, there are songs with tough political and emotional edges. The brooding Waiting for the Break of Day puts Sting on a picket line: “When the laws are wicked \/ You’re forced to disobey.” Just One Lifetime twists Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter into a nursery rhyme for the apocalypse. While 22nd Street sounds like a lost Gershwin classic given a lover’s rock twist. Crooked Tree is a dark, narrative folk song, with Shaggy voicing a hanging judge, while Sting pleads for clemency. Sad Trombone is a noirish jazz ballad built around audaciously overblown musical similes and metaphors. These songs are strong enough to fit anywhere into Sting’s impressive canon, delivered with an energy and focus that keeps his tendency to over-elaborate at bay.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat I like most is the sense that these two musicians are beyond caring about perceptions, simply determined to have fun.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Newsweek by Glenn Gamboa\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe unlikely rock-reggae odd couple find a surprisingly sweet middle ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe musical partnership between Sting and Shaggy seems weird, not because of their musical styles, but because of their personal ones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has cultivated an oh-so-serious rock persona for decades, both in The Police and out of it, while Shaggy, who splits his time between Jamaica and Valley Stream, has painted himself - in America, at least - as a reggae prankster. How would these two big personalities work together?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, judging from their “44\/876” album (A\u0026amp;M\/Interscope), Sting and Shaggy could probably have benefited from a bit more disagreement. On “44\/876,” named for the country codes for Sting’s native United Kingdom and Shaggy’s native Jamaica, they often sound deferential when a stronger blend of their styles would have worked better.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTheir collaboration is strongest when Sting buys into Shaggy’s reggae-pop vibe, like on the playful “To Love and Be Loved” of the Bob Marley-influenced “Morning Is Coming.” The first single “Don’t Make Me Wait” kickstarted the partnership when Shaggy’s former A\u0026amp;R rep Martin Kierszenbaum played the song for Sting, whom he now manages. It works well because it’s essentially a Shaggy song, with its catchy, lilting chorus and gentle reggae groove. On the other end, “Waiting for the Break of Day” sounds like it could have come from Sting’s “Ten Summoner’s Tales,” enhanced by Shaggy’s toasting. They create something new on “Dreaming in the USA,” a love letter to America that combines Motown with Police-like guitar riffs that shows how crafty Sting and Shaggy really can be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere they run into problems is when Sting gets a little too wrapped up in clever imagery. On “Sad Trombone,” he goes from one metaphor to the next, while Shaggy’s straightforward contribution only draws more attention to lines about being “the butter to my toast.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting and Shaggy have found a special connection on “44\/876,” one that could blossom into something bigger in time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The National by Adam Workman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlikely pairing of Sting and Shaggy dials up the spirit of Marley for some rays of pop-reggae - The unlikely duo make the sun shine on collaborative effort...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeldom since the Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man worked with Scottish bores Texas in the late 1990s (Say What You Want) have there been such a “huh?” music combo as this: Sting, the 66-year-old former Police frontman behind enduring hits Roxanne and Message in a Bottle; and Shaggy, the 49-year-old pop-reggae architect of, err, classic singles Boombastic and It Wasn’t Me.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album title is the international dialling codes of the two artists’ respective countries, and their musical influences similarly meet in the middle – although, while Sting’s familiar tones are tinged with occasional disconcerting Jamaican twangs, Shaggy goes even farther into his patois without a hint of English influence. It’s easy to forget that Sting has dabbled in reggae before, although not as much as Shaggy’s confusingly named producer, Sting International, who handles much of the behind-the-desk work on 44\/876.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting claims on the opening title track that “the ghost of Bob Marley” haunts him “to this day” – and it does hint at the album’s spirit, which evokes some of the reggae pioneer’s sunniest moments, alongside infrequent darker diversions such as courtroom lament Crooked Tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s an album that the world wouldn’t have missed were it never conceived, but given that it does exist, the results could have been a lot worse – and that even extends to an unexpected cover of West End show tune Love Changes Everything.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from USA Today by Maeve McDermott\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShaggy and Sting's collaborative album '44\/876' is a baffling joy...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor the first minute of 44\/876, the new collaborative album from Shaggy and Sting that is hotly anticipated if only for its ‘WTF’ novelty, it sounds like the two musicians may just pull this thing off. 44\/876 (out Friday) opens with its title track, beginning with a sunny verse from Shaggy celebrating his island roots over charmingly of-the-moment tropical-pop beats, hinting that the joining of forces between the English rocker and the Jamaican dancehall star may not be a total bust.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen, Sting starts singing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It shakes me to my soul with a positive vibration, I start dreaming of Jamaica, the Caribbean nation,” he begins, the clunkiest possible introduction to the album’s ‘Sting does reggae!’ concept, which only gets more amusing when he invokes “the ghost of Bob Marley that haunts me to this day\" with all the nuance of a clueless tourist getting his hair cornrowed during an island holiday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a hilariously unfortunate introduction to an album that certainly has its bright spots. Morning is Coming, the album’s second track, is a better introduction to Sting’s relative talents on 44\/876, his lilting vocals a better match for the song’s gentle roots reggae. Of course, Sting is no rookie when it comes to the sounds of Jamaica, drawing from reggae and ska over the course of his career with the Police and in his solo works.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis pairing with Shaggy, best known for his 2000s run of singles including the Steve Miller-interpolating hit Angel and the novelty classic It Wasn’t Me, works best when both singers meet one another halfway between their respective comfort zones, rather than step too far into one another’s worlds. That works both ways, as heard on Shaggy’s clunky attempts to match Sting’s cadences on the poppier Gotta Get Back My Baby.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s lighthearted songwriting verges on treacly at points, mostly when Sting goes on storytelling tangents, jauntily quoting Lewis Carroll on Just One Lifetime - “The time has come, Shaggy said, to talk of many things” - and roleplaying a prisoner in front of Shaggy’s judge on Crooked Tree, before singing about “making the sweetest love” to a woman he nicknames “Sad Trombone” on the song of the same name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe also seems quite keen to make his political opinions known, dedicating his first verse on 44\/876 to complaining about how the “politics of this country is getting to me,” like a party guest determined to harsh the buzz with politics talk.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSave for Sting’s more meandering moments, the album is mostly enjoyable, from its pleasant lead single Don’t Make Me Wait to Dreaming in the U.S.A, the two singers’ Springsteen-in-Jamaica ode to the American dream. 44\/876 may get its name from the phone country codes for the artists’ two home countries, England and Jamaica, but there’s something distinctly American-feeling about the album, which sees both its creators as ex-pats, with Shaggy pining for his island home and Sting unimpressed with the politics of Britain today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlus, only in America could this gonzo pairing of two stars at various levels of old geezer-dom, truly make sense. And while the world wasn’t exactly clamoring for this album to exist, the end product is more lucid than many likely expected. If anything, 44\/876 is proof that both Shaggy and Sting can keep evolving into the later era of their careers, and maintaining a sense of humor about it in the process.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Pitchfork by Evan Rytlewski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe reggae-lite collaboration between Sting and Shaggy is as professional, good-natured, and helplessly uncool as its billing promises.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhy Shaggy? Presumably, if Sting wanted to go 50\/50 on a reggae album, he had options. Toots Hibbert is still in fine voice. The Wailers aren’t really the Wailers anymore, but Sting and the Wailers has a hell of a ring to it. And if he were looking to make a splash on the adult contemporary charts, Michael Franti probably could have made it happen. But Shaggy? Mr. Boombastic? The guy who sings like he’s auditioning to voice a breakfast cereal character? Why?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turns out the two just really hit it off. Sting even refers to “my good friend Shaggy” early on the duo’s unlikely collaboration 44\/876, and the album never leaves any doubt that Sting means it. Just look at them posing on those motorcycles, like your parents in their most embarrassing vacation photo. Even when the material falls flat, as it frequently does, there’s some pleasure in picturing these two entirely unobjectionable personalities living their best lives, knocking back Coronas while gently busting each other’s chops with the superficial banter of Liam Neeson and his middle-age golf buddies in the Taken films. It’s such an old-man record you can almost feel your testosterone drop listening to it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e44\/876 is as professional, good-natured, and helplessly uncool as its billing promises. Does Sting feign a Caribbean accent? Yes, obviously. Does he fetishize white sandy beaches and honour the ghost of Bob Marley? You know he does. Are there air horns? Yup—all those boxes are checked right out the gate on the opening title track, another inglorious addition to the canon of reggae songs about how great reggae music is. “It shakes me to my soul with a positive vibration, I start dreaming of Jamaica,” Sting sings, standing out like a fanny-packed tourist against unexpectedly contemporary pop-dancehall production fit for a Sean Kingston album. The track’s modern sheen is a fake-out; the rest of the record is more UB40 than Top 40.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a Rolling Stone profile, Shaggy makes a crack about women getting pregnant to the album’s steamy single “Don’t Make Me Wait,” but by and large the Shaggy here is a far less randy one than the “It Wasn’t Me” Shaggy at the turn of the century. He’s not as miscast as he sounds on paper. Nobody will mistake him for one of reggae’s greats, but he’s a game performer, down for whatever the album throws at him, be it dub, rocksteady, or yacht rock. His toasts colour otherwise colourless songs without disrupting the tasteful romantic vibe Sting sets so carefully. And while there’s some initial absurdity in hearing him opposite Sting, one of the stateliest and most humourless of all of rock elder statesmen, the album never acknowledges it, not even on “Morning is Coming,” where Sting is awoken by to the serene song of a nightingale… that happens to share the severe nasally voice of Shaggy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMore often Sting is the one who sounds out of place. His voice has taken on a smoky hue that can work for him when he leans into it, especially on the jazzy, The Dream of the Blue Turtles-styled “Waiting for the Break of Day” or the torchy “Sad Trombone” (yes, that’s really the title, and no, it doesn’t get the reference). Yet every time he reaches for his higher registers he shows the limits of his range, inviting unflattering comparisons to his youthful heyday with the Police. There was a time when Sting legitimately could have nailed a designated reggae album, but his realistic window for that closed quite a while ago. Maybe that’s why so many of these songs, even the upbeat ones, dwell on missed opportunities and the passage of time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe great irony of 44\/876 is, despite its inherent disposability, it’s actually one of Sting’s more enjoyable albums, simply because he’s actually having fun here. At times, the album almost feels like Sting’s treat to himself, a reward for all those grief-stricken song cycles, symphonic works, and that one album with all the lute on it. After decades of treating music as a solemn obligation, he deserves a little vacation, and 44\/876 is as close as any Sting album has ever come to sounding like one. The music’s usually pretty lame, but at least the company is nice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from AllAboutJazz by Nenad Georgivski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery summer needs its soundtrack, i.e. - a song or an album full of songs that will remind people that it's good to be alive. The summer is the time to feel good and it has to have its music that would reflect the fun and mischievous behavior that you would remember the summer by. And on this duet record between pop star Sting and dancehall star Shaggy, titled 44\/876, a potent cocktail of timeless Caribbean styles come together in a full-scale tropical explosion, colorful, playful, and above all, a good time. What initially began with Sting singing backing vocals on a song for a Shaggy's album soon became good fun and easy rapport that prompted both parties to record a full album together. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e44\/876 is in contrast with Sting's previous record, 57th and 9th (A\u0026amp;M\/Interscope, 2016), which was a classic Post-Police record that emphasized Sting's songwriting mastery. It was colored in the hues of rock music and was a return to form. On the other hand, 44\/876 emphasizes Sting's life-long love affair with reggae and ska music that began with the songs from his band The Police. Throughout his illustrious career, many of Sting's songs were influenced by the music from the Caribbean among other styles of music like \"Love is The Seventh Wave\" and \"Englishmen in New York.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the other hand, that influence wasn't a one way street, as over the years, many musicians from Jamaica paid tribute to Sting's music by covering his songs with the Police, as heard on compilations such as Reggatta Mondatta: Reggae Tribute Album to The Police (Ark 21, 2000) and Spirits In The Material World: A Reggae Tribute To The Police, (Shanachie, 2008.) These songs weren't covered by anonymous musicians but by leading artists from the island from various generations, which showcases the special relationship that exists here. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Sting can be a master of unlikely musical partnerships. His inclination for sharing the spotlight knows no genre-bounds, ranging from singers Cheb Mami, Craig David to lutist Edin Karamazov or guitarist Eric Clapton. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Shaggy's longtime producer Sting International and Sting's manager Martin Kierszenbaum, this record is both propelled and colored by an interesting and diverse selection of musicians. As a result 44\/876 is a swirl of diverse Jamaican styles, sounds, and themes that bring out the summer festive feel. Highlights are copious. From the opener, the title song, until the closing \"Night Shift,\" the songs are full of pulsating and infectious beats, funky grooves that pair with sweet and playful melodies. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Reggaeville by Gardy Stein\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll in all, this record fully exhibits the upsides what can happen when two great musicians from entirely different backgrounds unite in the name making music together. Love is still the seventh wave.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile features and collaborations are a common thing in Reggae and Dancehall, most stay within the genre's boundaries. Recently though, these boundaries have remarkably expanded to include Cuban music (e.g. Jake Savona's Havana Meets Kingston) and the motherland (e.g. Kabaka and Stonebwoy in Borders or the latter and Demarco in Say It), a welcome move to accommodate the growing popularity of Afrobeats. With 44\/876, this expansion-movement has been taken to the next level - a full album-length collaboration of Orville Richard Burrell and Gordon Matthew Sumner, better known as Shaggy and Sting!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs unlikely as this combination might seem at first glance, the two superstars have a lot in common. Both are Grammy Winners, both look back to decades of creating amazing music, and both have already crossed over into the other's genre - Sting even claims that Reggae has been a major influence on all of his music! On top of everything else, their voices complement each other perfectly. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGarbed in the masterful work of Shaun \"Sting International\" Pizzonia (the producer who is responsible for Shaggy's hit It Wasn't Me) and additional input by sound-cracks like \"iLL Wayno\" Shippy, Teflon, Shane Hoosong or Martin Kierszenbaum, twelve tracks present a convincing marriage of Sting's skilled, multi-octaved singing and the deep, bassy MCing of Mr. Boombastic. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEnough with the intro - let's take a look at the songs! Opening and title track, the cryptical numbers (indicating UK's and Jamaica's country codes) are a fast-paced ode to the Caribbean island and feature royalty such as Morgan Heritage and Dancehall-High-Fly'yeah' Aidonia. With its laid-back Reggae beat, Morning Is Coming makes for a sharp contrast, celebrating a nightingale's chirping and the rising of a new day. The melodious horn section played by David Barnes, Joel Gonzalez, Zachary Lucas, Robert Stringer and Branford Marsalis captures this pioneering spirit and leads over to the more melancholy, piano-driven Waiting For The Break Of Day. Similar in feeling, Sad Trombone gives you exactly what the title says, plus Sting's possibly best vocal delivery on this release. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGotta Get Back My Baby brings in a rocky flavour, but much more interesting is the next track, which is actually the one that sparked the album. When Shaggy was at Martin Kierszenbaum's studio in LA last year, Martin (who happens to be Sting's manager) sent the raw sketch of Don't Make Me Wait over to Sting to ask for a contribution. The Englishman had so much fun working on it that the mutual idea of doing more fell on fertile ground. A hit in itself, this love song is thus not only the nucleus around which the present album took form, it's also the first single, accompanied by a stunning video. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust One Lifetime is a philosophical musing about the ups and downs of life, quoting the poem The Walrus \u0026amp; The Carpenter by British word-smith Lewis Carroll. Less philosophical but none less touching, the airily instrumented 22nd Street circles around a past encounter, while Dreaming In The USA talks about the very present danger of America disappointing the dreams of its people   admittedly in a quite subtle manner. Rhythmically, that's the most \"Stingy\" track on here! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinding ourselves in court, Crooked Tree is a remarkable piece of storytelling in which the defendant brings across the simple truth that we are all carved of different wood, some more crooked than others. Goose bumps! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs if to lift the wistful mood thus induced, the much lighter To Love And Be Loved will have you skanking in no time, and the final Night Shift, despite the work-related lyrics, sends us off on a sweet, bubbling musical note. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat a ride! Fun, diversified and lyrically elaborated, 44\/876 is a sparkling surprise for fans of both artists, artists who obviously not only work extremely well in studio together, but also on stage, as a planned tour will show (including a joint performance at the Queen's 92th Birthday!). Sting himself says that \"an element of surprise is so important in music\", and with this album, he and Shaggy certainly added a piece of major importance to the unfolding year's output. More of this, please! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Pop Mag by Mai Perkins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are quite a few fascinating bromances that have popped up over the years. Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon. George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Not to mention, of course, the most iconic duo, Batman and Robin. Thankfully we can now add to the list the most surprising new tag team – Sting and Shaggy – who have released their unexpected first collaborative album, “44\/876”. While the two joke that they met on Tinder, in reality it was a manager for the two legends who hooked them up for this joint venture. After listening to what would become the lead single, “Don’t Make Me Wait”, the rep sent the song to Sting, who in turn made his way down to the studio in Los Angeles where Shaggy was recording that day. As the story would unfold, without even realizing what was happening, Sting came through the door singing the hook, demanding that Shaggy produce the song with him on it. The rest has all been very kismet for the two Grammy-winning musicians. The synergy has been great. Their vocals complement one another. So they kept recording. Then one song turned into five songs recorded, which turned into the eclectic dancehall-pop album we now know as “44\/876”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf working on the project, Sting reflects that it’s good to be able to share fifty percent of the creative vision as a band leader with Shaggy. On the other hand, Shaggy appreciates Sting’s tendency to push him out of his comfort zone into new territory as a composer and songwriter, especially when it comes to chord changes, key modulation, and the types of song structure that Shaggy isn’t used to. As a result, creating this LP has been a process that both have found exciting and fulfilling. “44\/876” as an album gives sunshine vibes and captures the essence of Jamaica more than expected. Their anticipation was to transcend music and culture given Sting’s home island of Great Britain, whose international dialing code is 44, and Shaggy’s Caribbean birthplace whose code is 876. It’s not surprising that Sting would produce such a reggae-influenced album with Shaggy, either. He’s always had an instinct for paying homage to a style of music that shaped who he would become as a musician. This has become a full circle moment in his career by creating this collection of songs with an authentic reggae artist, which has been a natural fit for Sting. In the early days, his band The Police would actually tour with reggae bands like Burning Spear and Steele Pulse when they were first starting out in the late 70s and early 80s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s title track, which features celebrated reggae group Morgan Heritage, is a mix of mystical escapism and feel-good bounce. Several songs really work for the project including “Morning Is Coming” with its classic horn and deep bass vibe and the single “Don’t Make Me Wait”, which is a worthy salute to Bob Marley’s “Waiting In Vain”. “Waiting For The Break Of Day” on the other hand is definitely in the same vein as Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”, with updated chord changes. “Gotta Get Back My Baby” is a bit cliche as if a teeny-bopper would be singing the lyrics, not middle-aged rock and reggae stars. The poet Lewis Carroll served as inspiration for the songwriting on “Just One Lifetime”. In it, Sting pens an adventure between two unlikely people, who, on a journey through life, comment on the dystopian yet hopeful world as they see it, hoping to make a difference.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album boasts strong ballads where Sting takes the lead, like the groovy “22nd Street” and the majestic and beautiful “Love Changes Everything”, one of the strongest songs on the album. “Dreaming In The U.S.A.” is their sincere love letter to the United States, where Sting chooses to live as “a guest”. Though the song isn’t implicitly political and comes across a bit cheeky, Sting is on record acknowledging The Dreamers in America who are in a very necessary fight for rights as immigrants, and this song could be considered a follow-up to “Englishman In New York”. “Crooked Tree” is the most imaginative song on the album with the two acting out a courtroom drama of drug dealing and human trafficking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are some instant hits as well like the rootsy skank hit “To Love And Be Loved” or the dubstep of “Sad Trombone” and “Night Shift”. In addition to the jams, Sting and Shaggy brought some bona fide heavyweights on board with bassist Robbie Shakespeare of the reggae super-duo Sly And Robbie, Sting’s longtime guitarist Dominic Miller, jazz instrumentalist Branford Marsalis, Agent Sasco, dancehall sensation Aidonia, and other notables. As far as the music game goes, both Sting and Shaggy individually tout a storied career, with their combined sixty-five years in the music business, forty for Sting and twenty-five for Shaggy. That the iconic rock star would saunter into Mr. Boombastic’s recording session and invite himself to create a joint album between the two of them is nothing short of amazing. The two are planning a world tour for summer 2018 that will encompass their epic catalogues of music, and that, in and of itself, is a reason to get on the “44\/876” love train! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998740562,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/448761520455768_640.jpg?v=1758315250"},{"product_id":"44-876-digital-deluxe-album-target-physical-exclusive","title":"44\/876 (Digital Deluxe Album \u0026 Target Physical Exclusive)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e44\/876 was recorded in Jamaica and New York with Sting \u0026amp; Shaggy being joined by various musicians and writers including the legendary Robbie Shakespeare of Sly and Robbie, dancehall sensation Aidonia, Morgan Heritage, Branford Marsalis, Agent Sasco and Sting’s longtime guitarist, Dominic Miller as well as writers Taranchyla, Dwayne “iLL Wayno” Shippy, Shane Hoosong, Machine Gun Funk and Patexx. The sessions were produced in part by Sting International (“Oh, Carolina,” “Boombastic” and “It Wasn’t Me,”) and by Martin Kierszenbaum who has previously written\/produced songs for Sting, Madonna and Lady Gaga. Sting International, Robert “Hitmixer” Orton, Sting International and Tony Lake mixed 44\/876.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Associated Press by Mark Kennedy\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fact that Shaggy and Sting are teaming up on a CD does, admittedly, sound like a gimmick. Why are these two very different artists together? Because they happen to be known by a single name? Why not keep going and add Shakira, Sia, Slash and Seal?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaybe one day, but put the snarkiness aside and enjoy this warm bromance between the Jamaican dancehall king and the cool, intellectual Englishman.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“44\/876” - the title is a combo of the phone country codes for Sting’s native England and Shaggy’s Jamaica - makes sense as soon as you recall Sting’s liberal use of reggae rhythms as part of The Police.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turns out there’s real chemistry between Shaggy, whose deep, thick cadences made “Boombastic” and “It Wasn’t Me” such beloved hits, and Sting’s flexible, honeyed voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe duo helped write every song on the 12-track album and their collaboration has triggered some interesting - some might say curious - songwriting, including lifted poetry from Lewis Carroll for “Just One Lifetime” and some role-playing (Shaggy portrays a judge and Sting a defendant on the innovative “Crooked Tree”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first, title song smartly honors Bob Marley - Sting says Marley’s ghost “haunts me to this day\/ There’s a spiritual truth in the words of his song” - as a way of inoculating everyone for this quirky offering. Then it’s off to more trop-hop on this sunny Caribbean jaunt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s the pro-immigrant, Motown-inflected “Dreaming in the U.S.A.” where Shaggy, a former U.S. Marine, notes he defended the nation. That adds weight to his statement: “I await the day when we will all inhabit a better America.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting, for his part, seems fed up with Britain: “The politics of this country are getting to me,” he sings in one song. Then in the slinky standout “Waiting for the Break of Day,” he hits again: “You see some politicians\/ You hear the things they say\/ You hear the falseness in their positions.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBranford Marsalis stops by to play sax and Robbie Shakespeare helps on bass. Sting’s daughter, Eliot Sumner, gets a writing credit and sings on “Night Shift.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou soon realize that Sting and Shaggy need each other, nowhere more so than on “22nd Street,” which is like a rejected cut from “The Dream of the Blue Turtles” until Sting’s delicate china shop is entered by Shaggy and his bearish voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s first single, “Don’t Make Me Wait,” a sway-inducing pop song with a reggae sheen, turns out to be only a taste of what these men can bring, their two vocal and musical styles melding into something as delicious as a plate of jerk chicken washed down with a cold beer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Daily Mail by Adrian Thrills\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has sung with jazz musicians and rappers, written a musical about shipbuilding on his native Tyneside and released an album of Renaissance lute music. But his latest escapade - a set of Caribbean-themed songs with dancehall reggae star Shaggy - is his most improbable yet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe record takes its title from the international dialling codes for the UK (44) and Jamaica (876) and is a sun-kissed mix of pop and reggae. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter being introduced by Sting's manager, who used to work with Shaggy, the unlikely couple got together to record a duet, Don't Make Me Wait, and were so happy with the results that other songs soon followed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fruits of 'Shaggy and Sting inna combination' are sometimes rather gimmicky, but 44\/876 avoids sounding like a vanity project by making the most of the pair's respective strengths: String's meticulous songwriting; deep-voiced Shaggy's spontaneity and flair.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe two are fairly evenly matched. Sting, 66, achieved global fame with The Police. Shaggy, 49, is a former US marine who moved from Jamaica to Brooklyn as a teenager. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving taken his stage name after a character in the TV cartoon Scooby-Doo, he has topped the UK chart four times with hits such as Boombastic and It Wasn't Me.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe duo's initial duet sets the tone: Don't Make Me Wait finds Shaggy playfully parading his lover man credentials. 'It didn't take me long to fall in love with your mind,' he sings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElsewhere, bassist Robbie Shakespeare and saxophonist Branford Marsalis contribute to a set of tuneful, good-natured songs that, despite Sting's thoughtful lyrics, refuse to take themselves too seriously.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCrooked Tree is a courtroom playlet that casts Shaggy as the Honourable Judge Burrell - his real name is Orville Burrell - and Sting as a contrite defendant. The Police-like Dreaming In The USA salutes a gallery of American cultural idols, including Elvis, Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, before Shaggy delivers the damning kiss-off line: 'I await the day when we will all inhabit a better America.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are numbers on which Sting takes the lead. With its gentle flute and lively fret-work by the singer's touring guitarist Dominic Miller, 22nd Street could have come straight off a Sting solo project, with Shaggy's raspy patter an afterthought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the songs where Mr. Boombastic takes centre stage are the most entertaining. Waiting For The Break Of Day is a languid piano piece lamenting the 'falseness' of politicians. To Love And Be Loved is an unashamedly poppy track that finds Sting admitting he has 'two left feet' when it comes to dancing. Accompanied by fairground organ, it's a bubbly, Shaggy-directed paean to good times - and all the better for that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Daily Telegraph by Neil McCormick\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is something about the combination of Sting and Shaggy that seems inherently ludicrous: Mr Boombastic Loverman meets Tantric Sex God in a pop\/reggae pile up. These two swaggering old mononymous male stars seem to belong to different corners of the musical universe. Sting, 66, is rock royalty – a virtuoso musician and supreme singer-songwriter with intellectual pretensions, who dabbles in folk, classical and opera. Shaggy, 49, is an ebullient Jamaican toaster with a gritty voice and penchant for fruity innuendo.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the suggestion of their shared management, Sting agreed to sing a hook on a Shaggy single, the sunny Don’t Make Me Wait, and the pair got on so well that the sessions expanded into a whole album of original songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe title track, 44\/876 – named after the respective international dialling codes for Britain and Jamaica – commemorates their transatlantic friendship. Over a breezy Caribbean groove, Sting confesses that “the ghost of Bob Marley haunts me to this day”, while Shaggy adds enthusiastic interjections: “Big up the UK, man, yeah, bam bam!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m tempted to say it is surprisingly good – yet why should we be surprised? They are both gifted, charismatic veteran musicians with very distinctive skills. The blend of Sting’s sweet, high tenor and top-tier songwriting with Shaggy’s earthy delivery and rhythmic bounce has an effortless appeal. Sting’s early success with the Police was rooted in reggae and it’s a flow that suits him well, even if his excruciating delivery of the phrase “positive vibration” is some of the dodgiest white patois heard since 10CC’s Dreadlock Holiday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s a hefty dollop of cheese on poppier tracks. The way Sting drops in such lines as “as my good friend Shaggy says” brings to mind Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin hamming it up in Vegas. These kind of guest star combinations have become a feature of modern pop and it’s a nice reminder that the oldies can duet, too. The Shaggy-led Gotta Get Back My Baby is such a fantastically catchy pop song it is a pity it will most likely be relegated to the Radio 2 playlist. If Bruno Mars and Drake recorded the same track, there’d be no escaping it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, Sting does the heavy lifting, with Shaggy dipping in and out as wing man, proclaiming “biddy bong bong” as the mood takes him. But aside from the more obviously playful pop, there are songs with tough political and emotional edges. The brooding Waiting for the Break of Day puts Sting on a picket line: “When the laws are wicked \/ You’re forced to disobey.” Just One Lifetime twists Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter into a nursery rhyme for the apocalypse. While 22nd Street sounds like a lost Gershwin classic given a lover’s rock twist. Crooked Tree is a dark, narrative folk song, with Shaggy voicing a hanging judge, while Sting pleads for clemency. Sad Trombone is a noirish jazz ballad built around audaciously overblown musical similes and metaphors. These songs are strong enough to fit anywhere into Sting’s impressive canon, delivered with an energy and focus that keeps his tendency to over-elaborate at bay.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat I like most is the sense that these two musicians are beyond caring about perceptions, simply determined to have fun.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Newsweek by Glenn Gamboa\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe unlikely rock-reggae odd couple find a surprisingly sweet middle ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe musical partnership between Sting and Shaggy seems weird, not because of their musical styles, but because of their personal ones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has cultivated an oh-so-serious rock persona for decades, both in The Police and out of it, while Shaggy, who splits his time between Jamaica and Valley Stream, has painted himself - in America, at least - as a reggae prankster. How would these two big personalities work together?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, judging from their “44\/876” album (A\u0026amp;M\/Interscope), Sting and Shaggy could probably have benefited from a bit more disagreement. On “44\/876,” named for the country codes for Sting’s native United Kingdom and Shaggy’s native Jamaica, they often sound deferential when a stronger blend of their styles would have worked better.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTheir collaboration is strongest when Sting buys into Shaggy’s reggae-pop vibe, like on the playful “To Love and Be Loved” of the Bob Marley-influenced “Morning Is Coming.” The first single “Don’t Make Me Wait” kickstarted the partnership when Shaggy’s former A\u0026amp;R rep Martin Kierszenbaum played the song for Sting, whom he now manages. It works well because it’s essentially a Shaggy song, with its catchy, lilting chorus and gentle reggae groove. On the other end, “Waiting for the Break of Day” sounds like it could have come from Sting’s “Ten Summoner’s Tales,” enhanced by Shaggy’s toasting. They create something new on “Dreaming in the USA,” a love letter to America that combines Motown with Police-like guitar riffs that shows how crafty Sting and Shaggy really can be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere they run into problems is when Sting gets a little too wrapped up in clever imagery. On “Sad Trombone,” he goes from one metaphor to the next, while Shaggy’s straightforward contribution only draws more attention to lines about being “the butter to my toast.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting and Shaggy have found a special connection on “44\/876,” one that could blossom into something bigger in time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The National by Adam Workman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlikely pairing of Sting and Shaggy dials up the spirit of Marley for some rays of pop-reggae - The unlikely duo make the sun shine on collaborative effort...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeldom since the Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man worked with Scottish bores Texas in the late 1990s (Say What You Want) have there been such a “huh?” music combo as this: Sting, the 66-year-old former Police frontman behind enduring hits Roxanne and Message in a Bottle; and Shaggy, the 49-year-old pop-reggae architect of, err, classic singles Boombastic and It Wasn’t Me.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album title is the international dialling codes of the two artists’ respective countries, and their musical influences similarly meet in the middle – although, while Sting’s familiar tones are tinged with occasional disconcerting Jamaican twangs, Shaggy goes even farther into his patois without a hint of English influence. It’s easy to forget that Sting has dabbled in reggae before, although not as much as Shaggy’s confusingly named producer, Sting International, who handles much of the behind-the-desk work on 44\/876.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting claims on the opening title track that “the ghost of Bob Marley” haunts him “to this day” – and it does hint at the album’s spirit, which evokes some of the reggae pioneer’s sunniest moments, alongside infrequent darker diversions such as courtroom lament Crooked Tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s an album that the world wouldn’t have missed were it never conceived, but given that it does exist, the results could have been a lot worse – and that even extends to an unexpected cover of West End show tune Love Changes Everything.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from USA Today by Maeve McDermott\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShaggy and Sting's collaborative album '44\/876' is a baffling joy...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor the first minute of 44\/876, the new collaborative album from Shaggy and Sting that is hotly anticipated if only for its ‘WTF’ novelty, it sounds like the two musicians may just pull this thing off. 44\/876 (out Friday) opens with its title track, beginning with a sunny verse from Shaggy celebrating his island roots over charmingly of-the-moment tropical-pop beats, hinting that the joining of forces between the English rocker and the Jamaican dancehall star may not be a total bust.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen, Sting starts singing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It shakes me to my soul with a positive vibration, I start dreaming of Jamaica, the Caribbean nation,” he begins, the clunkiest possible introduction to the album’s ‘Sting does reggae!’ concept, which only gets more amusing when he invokes “the ghost of Bob Marley that haunts me to this day\" with all the nuance of a clueless tourist getting his hair cornrowed during an island holiday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a hilariously unfortunate introduction to an album that certainly has its bright spots. Morning is Coming, the album’s second track, is a better introduction to Sting’s relative talents on 44\/876, his lilting vocals a better match for the song’s gentle roots reggae. Of course, Sting is no rookie when it comes to the sounds of Jamaica, drawing from reggae and ska over the course of his career with the Police and in his solo works.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis pairing with Shaggy, best known for his 2000s run of singles including the Steve Miller-interpolating hit Angel and the novelty classic It Wasn’t Me, works best when both singers meet one another halfway between their respective comfort zones, rather than step too far into one another’s worlds. That works both ways, as heard on Shaggy’s clunky attempts to match Sting’s cadences on the poppier Gotta Get Back My Baby.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s lighthearted songwriting verges on treacly at points, mostly when Sting goes on storytelling tangents, jauntily quoting Lewis Carroll on Just One Lifetime - “The time has come, Shaggy said, to talk of many things” - and roleplaying a prisoner in front of Shaggy’s judge on Crooked Tree, before singing about “making the sweetest love” to a woman he nicknames “Sad Trombone” on the song of the same name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe also seems quite keen to make his political opinions known, dedicating his first verse on 44\/876 to complaining about how the “politics of this country is getting to me,” like a party guest determined to harsh the buzz with politics talk.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSave for Sting’s more meandering moments, the album is mostly enjoyable, from its pleasant lead single Don’t Make Me Wait to Dreaming in the U.S.A, the two singers’ Springsteen-in-Jamaica ode to the American dream. 44\/876 may get its name from the phone country codes for the artists’ two home countries, England and Jamaica, but there’s something distinctly American-feeling about the album, which sees both its creators as ex-pats, with Shaggy pining for his island home and Sting unimpressed with the politics of Britain today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlus, only in America could this gonzo pairing of two stars at various levels of old geezer-dom, truly make sense. And while the world wasn’t exactly clamoring for this album to exist, the end product is more lucid than many likely expected. If anything, 44\/876 is proof that both Shaggy and Sting can keep evolving into the later era of their careers, and maintaining a sense of humor about it in the process.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Pitchfork by Evan Rytlewski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe reggae-lite collaboration between Sting and Shaggy is as professional, good-natured, and helplessly uncool as its billing promises.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhy Shaggy? Presumably, if Sting wanted to go 50\/50 on a reggae album, he had options. Toots Hibbert is still in fine voice. The Wailers aren’t really the Wailers anymore, but Sting and the Wailers has a hell of a ring to it. And if he were looking to make a splash on the adult contemporary charts, Michael Franti probably could have made it happen. But Shaggy? Mr. Boombastic? The guy who sings like he’s auditioning to voice a breakfast cereal character? Why?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turns out the two just really hit it off. Sting even refers to “my good friend Shaggy” early on the duo’s unlikely collaboration 44\/876, and the album never leaves any doubt that Sting means it. Just look at them posing on those motorcycles, like your parents in their most embarrassing vacation photo. Even when the material falls flat, as it frequently does, there’s some pleasure in picturing these two entirely unobjectionable personalities living their best lives, knocking back Coronas while gently busting each other’s chops with the superficial banter of Liam Neeson and his middle-age golf buddies in the Taken films. It’s such an old-man record you can almost feel your testosterone drop listening to it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e44\/876 is as professional, good-natured, and helplessly uncool as its billing promises. Does Sting feign a Caribbean accent? Yes, obviously. Does he fetishize white sandy beaches and honour the ghost of Bob Marley? You know he does. Are there air horns? Yup—all those boxes are checked right out the gate on the opening title track, another inglorious addition to the canon of reggae songs about how great reggae music is. “It shakes me to my soul with a positive vibration, I start dreaming of Jamaica,” Sting sings, standing out like a fanny-packed tourist against unexpectedly contemporary pop-dancehall production fit for a Sean Kingston album. The track’s modern sheen is a fake-out; the rest of the record is more UB40 than Top 40.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a Rolling Stone profile, Shaggy makes a crack about women getting pregnant to the album’s steamy single “Don’t Make Me Wait,” but by and large the Shaggy here is a far less randy one than the “It Wasn’t Me” Shaggy at the turn of the century. He’s not as miscast as he sounds on paper. Nobody will mistake him for one of reggae’s greats, but he’s a game performer, down for whatever the album throws at him, be it dub, rocksteady, or yacht rock. His toasts colour otherwise colourless songs without disrupting the tasteful romantic vibe Sting sets so carefully. And while there’s some initial absurdity in hearing him opposite Sting, one of the stateliest and most humourless of all of rock elder statesmen, the album never acknowledges it, not even on “Morning is Coming,” where Sting is awoken by to the serene song of a nightingale… that happens to share the severe nasally voice of Shaggy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMore often Sting is the one who sounds out of place. His voice has taken on a smoky hue that can work for him when he leans into it, especially on the jazzy, The Dream of the Blue Turtles-styled “Waiting for the Break of Day” or the torchy “Sad Trombone” (yes, that’s really the title, and no, it doesn’t get the reference). Yet every time he reaches for his higher registers he shows the limits of his range, inviting unflattering comparisons to his youthful heyday with the Police. There was a time when Sting legitimately could have nailed a designated reggae album, but his realistic window for that closed quite a while ago. Maybe that’s why so many of these songs, even the upbeat ones, dwell on missed opportunities and the passage of time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe great irony of 44\/876 is, despite its inherent disposability, it’s actually one of Sting’s more enjoyable albums, simply because he’s actually having fun here. At times, the album almost feels like Sting’s treat to himself, a reward for all those grief-stricken song cycles, symphonic works, and that one album with all the lute on it. After decades of treating music as a solemn obligation, he deserves a little vacation, and 44\/876 is as close as any Sting album has ever come to sounding like one. The music’s usually pretty lame, but at least the company is nice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from AllAboutJazz by Nenad Georgivski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery summer needs its soundtrack, i.e. - a song or an album full of songs that will remind people that it's good to be alive. The summer is the time to feel good and it has to have its music that would reflect the fun and mischievous behavior that you would remember the summer by. And on this duet record between pop star Sting and dancehall star Shaggy, titled 44\/876, a potent cocktail of timeless Caribbean styles come together in a full-scale tropical explosion, colorful, playful, and above all, a good time. What initially began with Sting singing backing vocals on a song for a Shaggy's album soon became good fun and easy rapport that prompted both parties to record a full album together. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e44\/876 is in contrast with Sting's previous record, 57th and 9th (A\u0026amp;M\/Interscope, 2016), which was a classic Post-Police record that emphasized Sting's songwriting mastery. It was colored in the hues of rock music and was a return to form. On the other hand, 44\/876 emphasizes Sting's life-long love affair with reggae and ska music that began with the songs from his band The Police. Throughout his illustrious career, many of Sting's songs were influenced by the music from the Caribbean among other styles of music like \"Love is The Seventh Wave\" and \"Englishmen in New York.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the other hand, that influence wasn't a one way street, as over the years, many musicians from Jamaica paid tribute to Sting's music by covering his songs with the Police, as heard on compilations such as Reggatta Mondatta: Reggae Tribute Album to The Police (Ark 21, 2000) and Spirits In The Material World: A Reggae Tribute To The Police, (Shanachie, 2008.) These songs weren't covered by anonymous musicians but by leading artists from the island from various generations, which showcases the special relationship that exists here. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Sting can be a master of unlikely musical partnerships. His inclination for sharing the spotlight knows no genre-bounds, ranging from singers Cheb Mami, Craig David to lutist Edin Karamazov or guitarist Eric Clapton. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Shaggy's longtime producer Sting International and Sting's manager Martin Kierszenbaum, this record is both propelled and colored by an interesting and diverse selection of musicians. As a result 44\/876 is a swirl of diverse Jamaican styles, sounds, and themes that bring out the summer festive feel. Highlights are copious. From the opener, the title song, until the closing \"Night Shift,\" the songs are full of pulsating and infectious beats, funky grooves that pair with sweet and playful melodies. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Reggaeville by Gardy Stein\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll in all, this record fully exhibits the upsides what can happen when two great musicians from entirely different backgrounds unite in the name making music together. Love is still the seventh wave.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile features and collaborations are a common thing in Reggae and Dancehall, most stay within the genre's boundaries. Recently though, these boundaries have remarkably expanded to include Cuban music (e.g. Jake Savona's Havana Meets Kingston) and the motherland (e.g. Kabaka and Stonebwoy in Borders or the latter and Demarco in Say It), a welcome move to accommodate the growing popularity of Afrobeats. With 44\/876, this expansion-movement has been taken to the next level - a full album-length collaboration of Orville Richard Burrell and Gordon Matthew Sumner, better known as Shaggy and Sting!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs unlikely as this combination might seem at first glance, the two superstars have a lot in common. Both are Grammy Winners, both look back to decades of creating amazing music, and both have already crossed over into the other's genre - Sting even claims that Reggae has been a major influence on all of his music! On top of everything else, their voices complement each other perfectly. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGarbed in the masterful work of Shaun \"Sting International\" Pizzonia (the producer who is responsible for Shaggy's hit It Wasn't Me) and additional input by sound-cracks like \"iLL Wayno\" Shippy, Teflon, Shane Hoosong or Martin Kierszenbaum, twelve tracks present a convincing marriage of Sting's skilled, multi-octaved singing and the deep, bassy MCing of Mr. Boombastic. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEnough with the intro - let's take a look at the songs! Opening and title track, the cryptical numbers (indicating UK's and Jamaica's country codes) are a fast-paced ode to the Caribbean island and feature royalty such as Morgan Heritage and Dancehall-High-Fly'yeah' Aidonia. With its laid-back Reggae beat, Morning Is Coming makes for a sharp contrast, celebrating a nightingale's chirping and the rising of a new day. The melodious horn section played by David Barnes, Joel Gonzalez, Zachary Lucas, Robert Stringer and Branford Marsalis captures this pioneering spirit and leads over to the more melancholy, piano-driven Waiting For The Break Of Day. Similar in feeling, Sad Trombone gives you exactly what the title says, plus Sting's possibly best vocal delivery on this release. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGotta Get Back My Baby brings in a rocky flavour, but much more interesting is the next track, which is actually the one that sparked the album. When Shaggy was at Martin Kierszenbaum's studio in LA last year, Martin (who happens to be Sting's manager) sent the raw sketch of Don't Make Me Wait over to Sting to ask for a contribution. The Englishman had so much fun working on it that the mutual idea of doing more fell on fertile ground. A hit in itself, this love song is thus not only the nucleus around which the present album took form, it's also the first single, accompanied by a stunning video. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust One Lifetime is a philosophical musing about the ups and downs of life, quoting the poem The Walrus \u0026amp; The Carpenter by British word-smith Lewis Carroll. Less philosophical but none less touching, the airily instrumented 22nd Street circles around a past encounter, while Dreaming In The USA talks about the very present danger of America disappointing the dreams of its people   admittedly in a quite subtle manner. Rhythmically, that's the most \"Stingy\" track on here! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinding ourselves in court, Crooked Tree is a remarkable piece of storytelling in which the defendant brings across the simple truth that we are all carved of different wood, some more crooked than others. Goose bumps! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs if to lift the wistful mood thus induced, the much lighter To Love And Be Loved will have you skanking in no time, and the final Night Shift, despite the work-related lyrics, sends us off on a sweet, bubbling musical note. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat a ride! Fun, diversified and lyrically elaborated, 44\/876 is a sparkling surprise for fans of both artists, artists who obviously not only work extremely well in studio together, but also on stage, as a planned tour will show (including a joint performance at the Queen's 92th Birthday!). Sting himself says that \"an element of surprise is so important in music\", and with this album, he and Shaggy certainly added a piece of major importance to the unfolding year's output. More of this, please! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Pop Mag by Mai Perkins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are quite a few fascinating bromances that have popped up over the years. Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon. George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Not to mention, of course, the most iconic duo, Batman and Robin. Thankfully we can now add to the list the most surprising new tag team – Sting and Shaggy – who have released their unexpected first collaborative album, “44\/876”. While the two joke that they met on Tinder, in reality it was a manager for the two legends who hooked them up for this joint venture. After listening to what would become the lead single, “Don’t Make Me Wait”, the rep sent the song to Sting, who in turn made his way down to the studio in Los Angeles where Shaggy was recording that day. As the story would unfold, without even realizing what was happening, Sting came through the door singing the hook, demanding that Shaggy produce the song with him on it. The rest has all been very kismet for the two Grammy-winning musicians. The synergy has been great. Their vocals complement one another. So they kept recording. Then one song turned into five songs recorded, which turned into the eclectic dancehall-pop album we now know as “44\/876”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf working on the project, Sting reflects that it’s good to be able to share fifty percent of the creative vision as a band leader with Shaggy. On the other hand, Shaggy appreciates Sting’s tendency to push him out of his comfort zone into new territory as a composer and songwriter, especially when it comes to chord changes, key modulation, and the types of song structure that Shaggy isn’t used to. As a result, creating this LP has been a process that both have found exciting and fulfilling. “44\/876” as an album gives sunshine vibes and captures the essence of Jamaica more than expected. Their anticipation was to transcend music and culture given Sting’s home island of Great Britain, whose international dialing code is 44, and Shaggy’s Caribbean birthplace whose code is 876. It’s not surprising that Sting would produce such a reggae-influenced album with Shaggy, either. He’s always had an instinct for paying homage to a style of music that shaped who he would become as a musician. This has become a full circle moment in his career by creating this collection of songs with an authentic reggae artist, which has been a natural fit for Sting. In the early days, his band The Police would actually tour with reggae bands like Burning Spear and Steele Pulse when they were first starting out in the late 70s and early 80s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s title track, which features celebrated reggae group Morgan Heritage, is a mix of mystical escapism and feel-good bounce. Several songs really work for the project including “Morning Is Coming” with its classic horn and deep bass vibe and the single “Don’t Make Me Wait”, which is a worthy salute to Bob Marley’s “Waiting In Vain”. “Waiting For The Break Of Day” on the other hand is definitely in the same vein as Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”, with updated chord changes. “Gotta Get Back My Baby” is a bit cliche as if a teeny-bopper would be singing the lyrics, not middle-aged rock and reggae stars. The poet Lewis Carroll served as inspiration for the songwriting on “Just One Lifetime”. In it, Sting pens an adventure between two unlikely people, who, on a journey through life, comment on the dystopian yet hopeful world as they see it, hoping to make a difference.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album boasts strong ballads where Sting takes the lead, like the groovy “22nd Street” and the majestic and beautiful “Love Changes Everything”, one of the strongest songs on the album. “Dreaming In The U.S.A.” is their sincere love letter to the United States, where Sting chooses to live as “a guest”. Though the song isn’t implicitly political and comes across a bit cheeky, Sting is on record acknowledging The Dreamers in America who are in a very necessary fight for rights as immigrants, and this song could be considered a follow-up to “Englishman In New York”. “Crooked Tree” is the most imaginative song on the album with the two acting out a courtroom drama of drug dealing and human trafficking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are some instant hits as well like the rootsy skank hit “To Love And Be Loved” or the dubstep of “Sad Trombone” and “Night Shift”. In addition to the jams, Sting and Shaggy brought some bona fide heavyweights on board with bassist Robbie Shakespeare of the reggae super-duo Sly And Robbie, Sting’s longtime guitarist Dominic Miller, jazz instrumentalist Branford Marsalis, Agent Sasco, dancehall sensation Aidonia, and other notables. As far as the music game goes, both Sting and Shaggy individually tout a storied career, with their combined sixty-five years in the music business, forty for Sting and twenty-five for Shaggy. That the iconic rock star would saunter into Mr. Boombastic’s recording session and invite himself to create a joint album between the two of them is nothing short of amazing. The two are planning a world tour for summer 2018 that will encompass their epic catalogues of music, and that, in and of itself, is a reason to get on the “44\/876” love train! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998773330,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/448761520455870_640.jpg?v=1758315252"},{"product_id":"44-876-the-remixes","title":"44\/876: The Remixes","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Associated Press by Mark Kennedy\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fact that Shaggy and Sting are teaming up on a CD does, admittedly, sound like a gimmick. Why are these two very different artists together? Because they happen to be known by a single name? Why not keep going and add Shakira, Sia, Slash and Seal?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaybe one day, but put the snarkiness aside and enjoy this warm bromance between the Jamaican dancehall king and the cool, intellectual Englishman.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“44\/876” - the title is a combo of the phone country codes for Sting’s native England and Shaggy’s Jamaica - makes sense as soon as you recall Sting’s liberal use of reggae rhythms as part of The Police.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turns out there’s real chemistry between Shaggy, whose deep, thick cadences made “Boombastic” and “It Wasn’t Me” such beloved hits, and Sting’s flexible, honeyed voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe duo helped write every song on the 12-track album and their collaboration has triggered some interesting - some might say curious - songwriting, including lifted poetry from Lewis Carroll for “Just One Lifetime” and some role-playing (Shaggy portrays a judge and Sting a defendant on the innovative “Crooked Tree”).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first, title song smartly honors Bob Marley - Sting says Marley’s ghost “haunts me to this day\/ There’s a spiritual truth in the words of his song” - as a way of inoculating everyone for this quirky offering. Then it’s off to more trop-hop on this sunny Caribbean jaunt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s the pro-immigrant, Motown-inflected “Dreaming in the U.S.A.” where Shaggy, a former U.S. Marine, notes he defended the nation. That adds weight to his statement: “I await the day when we will all inhabit a better America.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting, for his part, seems fed up with Britain: “The politics of this country are getting to me,” he sings in one song. Then in the slinky standout “Waiting for the Break of Day,” he hits again: “You see some politicians\/ You hear the things they say\/ You hear the falseness in their positions.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBranford Marsalis stops by to play sax and Robbie Shakespeare helps on bass. Sting’s daughter, Eliot Sumner, gets a writing credit and sings on “Night Shift.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou soon realize that Sting and Shaggy need each other, nowhere more so than on “22nd Street,” which is like a rejected cut from “The Dream of the Blue Turtles” until Sting’s delicate china shop is entered by Shaggy and his bearish voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s first single, “Don’t Make Me Wait,” a sway-inducing pop song with a reggae sheen, turns out to be only a taste of what these men can bring, their two vocal and musical styles melding into something as delicious as a plate of jerk chicken washed down with a cold beer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Daily Mail by Adrian Thrills\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has sung with jazz musicians and rappers, written a musical about shipbuilding on his native Tyneside and released an album of Renaissance lute music. But his latest escapade - a set of Caribbean-themed songs with dancehall reggae star Shaggy - is his most improbable yet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe record takes its title from the international dialling codes for the UK (44) and Jamaica (876) and is a sun-kissed mix of pop and reggae. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter being introduced by Sting's manager, who used to work with Shaggy, the unlikely couple got together to record a duet, Don't Make Me Wait, and were so happy with the results that other songs soon followed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fruits of 'Shaggy and Sting inna combination' are sometimes rather gimmicky, but 44\/876 avoids sounding like a vanity project by making the most of the pair's respective strengths: String's meticulous songwriting; deep-voiced Shaggy's spontaneity and flair.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe two are fairly evenly matched. Sting, 66, achieved global fame with The Police. Shaggy, 49, is a former US marine who moved from Jamaica to Brooklyn as a teenager. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving taken his stage name after a character in the TV cartoon Scooby-Doo, he has topped the UK chart four times with hits such as Boombastic and It Wasn't Me.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe duo's initial duet sets the tone: Don't Make Me Wait finds Shaggy playfully parading his lover man credentials. 'It didn't take me long to fall in love with your mind,' he sings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElsewhere, bassist Robbie Shakespeare and saxophonist Branford Marsalis contribute to a set of tuneful, good-natured songs that, despite Sting's thoughtful lyrics, refuse to take themselves too seriously.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCrooked Tree is a courtroom playlet that casts Shaggy as the Honourable Judge Burrell - his real name is Orville Burrell - and Sting as a contrite defendant. The Police-like Dreaming In The USA salutes a gallery of American cultural idols, including Elvis, Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, before Shaggy delivers the damning kiss-off line: 'I await the day when we will all inhabit a better America.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are numbers on which Sting takes the lead. With its gentle flute and lively fret-work by the singer's touring guitarist Dominic Miller, 22nd Street could have come straight off a Sting solo project, with Shaggy's raspy patter an afterthought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the songs where Mr. Boombastic takes centre stage are the most entertaining. Waiting For The Break Of Day is a languid piano piece lamenting the 'falseness' of politicians. To Love And Be Loved is an unashamedly poppy track that finds Sting admitting he has 'two left feet' when it comes to dancing. Accompanied by fairground organ, it's a bubbly, Shaggy-directed paean to good times - and all the better for that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Daily Telegraph by Neil McCormick\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is something about the combination of Sting and Shaggy that seems inherently ludicrous: Mr Boombastic Loverman meets Tantric Sex God in a pop\/reggae pile up. These two swaggering old mononymous male stars seem to belong to different corners of the musical universe. Sting, 66, is rock royalty – a virtuoso musician and supreme singer-songwriter with intellectual pretensions, who dabbles in folk, classical and opera. Shaggy, 49, is an ebullient Jamaican toaster with a gritty voice and penchant for fruity innuendo.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the suggestion of their shared management, Sting agreed to sing a hook on a Shaggy single, the sunny Don’t Make Me Wait, and the pair got on so well that the sessions expanded into a whole album of original songs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe title track, 44\/876 – named after the respective international dialling codes for Britain and Jamaica – commemorates their transatlantic friendship. Over a breezy Caribbean groove, Sting confesses that “the ghost of Bob Marley haunts me to this day”, while Shaggy adds enthusiastic interjections: “Big up the UK, man, yeah, bam bam!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m tempted to say it is surprisingly good – yet why should we be surprised? They are both gifted, charismatic veteran musicians with very distinctive skills. The blend of Sting’s sweet, high tenor and top-tier songwriting with Shaggy’s earthy delivery and rhythmic bounce has an effortless appeal. Sting’s early success with the Police was rooted in reggae and it’s a flow that suits him well, even if his excruciating delivery of the phrase “positive vibration” is some of the dodgiest white patois heard since 10CC’s Dreadlock Holiday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s a hefty dollop of cheese on poppier tracks. The way Sting drops in such lines as “as my good friend Shaggy says” brings to mind Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin hamming it up in Vegas. These kind of guest star combinations have become a feature of modern pop and it’s a nice reminder that the oldies can duet, too. The Shaggy-led Gotta Get Back My Baby is such a fantastically catchy pop song it is a pity it will most likely be relegated to the Radio 2 playlist. If Bruno Mars and Drake recorded the same track, there’d be no escaping it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, Sting does the heavy lifting, with Shaggy dipping in and out as wing man, proclaiming “biddy bong bong” as the mood takes him. But aside from the more obviously playful pop, there are songs with tough political and emotional edges. The brooding Waiting for the Break of Day puts Sting on a picket line: “When the laws are wicked \/ You’re forced to disobey.” Just One Lifetime twists Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter into a nursery rhyme for the apocalypse. While 22nd Street sounds like a lost Gershwin classic given a lover’s rock twist. Crooked Tree is a dark, narrative folk song, with Shaggy voicing a hanging judge, while Sting pleads for clemency. Sad Trombone is a noirish jazz ballad built around audaciously overblown musical similes and metaphors. These songs are strong enough to fit anywhere into Sting’s impressive canon, delivered with an energy and focus that keeps his tendency to over-elaborate at bay.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat I like most is the sense that these two musicians are beyond caring about perceptions, simply determined to have fun.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Newsweek by Glenn Gamboa\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe unlikely rock-reggae odd couple find a surprisingly sweet middle ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe musical partnership between Sting and Shaggy seems weird, not because of their musical styles, but because of their personal ones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting has cultivated an oh-so-serious rock persona for decades, both in The Police and out of it, while Shaggy, who splits his time between Jamaica and Valley Stream, has painted himself - in America, at least - as a reggae prankster. How would these two big personalities work together?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, judging from their “44\/876” album (A\u0026amp;M\/Interscope), Sting and Shaggy could probably have benefited from a bit more disagreement. On “44\/876,” named for the country codes for Sting’s native United Kingdom and Shaggy’s native Jamaica, they often sound deferential when a stronger blend of their styles would have worked better.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTheir collaboration is strongest when Sting buys into Shaggy’s reggae-pop vibe, like on the playful “To Love and Be Loved” of the Bob Marley-influenced “Morning Is Coming.” The first single “Don’t Make Me Wait” kickstarted the partnership when Shaggy’s former A\u0026amp;R rep Martin Kierszenbaum played the song for Sting, whom he now manages. It works well because it’s essentially a Shaggy song, with its catchy, lilting chorus and gentle reggae groove. On the other end, “Waiting for the Break of Day” sounds like it could have come from Sting’s “Ten Summoner’s Tales,” enhanced by Shaggy’s toasting. They create something new on “Dreaming in the USA,” a love letter to America that combines Motown with Police-like guitar riffs that shows how crafty Sting and Shaggy really can be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere they run into problems is when Sting gets a little too wrapped up in clever imagery. On “Sad Trombone,” he goes from one metaphor to the next, while Shaggy’s straightforward contribution only draws more attention to lines about being “the butter to my toast.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting and Shaggy have found a special connection on “44\/876,” one that could blossom into something bigger in time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The National by Adam Workman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlikely pairing of Sting and Shaggy dials up the spirit of Marley for some rays of pop-reggae - The unlikely duo make the sun shine on collaborative effort...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeldom since the Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man worked with Scottish bores Texas in the late 1990s (Say What You Want) have there been such a “huh?” music combo as this: Sting, the 66-year-old former Police frontman behind enduring hits Roxanne and Message in a Bottle; and Shaggy, the 49-year-old pop-reggae architect of, err, classic singles Boombastic and It Wasn’t Me.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album title is the international dialling codes of the two artists’ respective countries, and their musical influences similarly meet in the middle – although, while Sting’s familiar tones are tinged with occasional disconcerting Jamaican twangs, Shaggy goes even farther into his patois without a hint of English influence. It’s easy to forget that Sting has dabbled in reggae before, although not as much as Shaggy’s confusingly named producer, Sting International, who handles much of the behind-the-desk work on 44\/876.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting claims on the opening title track that “the ghost of Bob Marley” haunts him “to this day” – and it does hint at the album’s spirit, which evokes some of the reggae pioneer’s sunniest moments, alongside infrequent darker diversions such as courtroom lament Crooked Tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s an album that the world wouldn’t have missed were it never conceived, but given that it does exist, the results could have been a lot worse – and that even extends to an unexpected cover of West End show tune Love Changes Everything.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from USA Today by Maeve McDermott\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShaggy and Sting's collaborative album '44\/876' is a baffling joy...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor the first minute of 44\/876, the new collaborative album from Shaggy and Sting that is hotly anticipated if only for its ‘WTF’ novelty, it sounds like the two musicians may just pull this thing off. 44\/876 (out Friday) opens with its title track, beginning with a sunny verse from Shaggy celebrating his island roots over charmingly of-the-moment tropical-pop beats, hinting that the joining of forces between the English rocker and the Jamaican dancehall star may not be a total bust.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen, Sting starts singing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It shakes me to my soul with a positive vibration, I start dreaming of Jamaica, the Caribbean nation,” he begins, the clunkiest possible introduction to the album’s ‘Sting does reggae!’ concept, which only gets more amusing when he invokes “the ghost of Bob Marley that haunts me to this day\" with all the nuance of a clueless tourist getting his hair cornrowed during an island holiday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a hilariously unfortunate introduction to an album that certainly has its bright spots. Morning is Coming, the album’s second track, is a better introduction to Sting’s relative talents on 44\/876, his lilting vocals a better match for the song’s gentle roots reggae. Of course, Sting is no rookie when it comes to the sounds of Jamaica, drawing from reggae and ska over the course of his career with the Police and in his solo works.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis pairing with Shaggy, best known for his 2000s run of singles including the Steve Miller-interpolating hit Angel and the novelty classic It Wasn’t Me, works best when both singers meet one another halfway between their respective comfort zones, rather than step too far into one another’s worlds. That works both ways, as heard on Shaggy’s clunky attempts to match Sting’s cadences on the poppier Gotta Get Back My Baby.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s lighthearted songwriting verges on treacly at points, mostly when Sting goes on storytelling tangents, jauntily quoting Lewis Carroll on Just One Lifetime - “The time has come, Shaggy said, to talk of many things” - and roleplaying a prisoner in front of Shaggy’s judge on Crooked Tree, before singing about “making the sweetest love” to a woman he nicknames “Sad Trombone” on the song of the same name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe also seems quite keen to make his political opinions known, dedicating his first verse on 44\/876 to complaining about how the “politics of this country is getting to me,” like a party guest determined to harsh the buzz with politics talk.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSave for Sting’s more meandering moments, the album is mostly enjoyable, from its pleasant lead single Don’t Make Me Wait to Dreaming in the U.S.A, the two singers’ Springsteen-in-Jamaica ode to the American dream. 44\/876 may get its name from the phone country codes for the artists’ two home countries, England and Jamaica, but there’s something distinctly American-feeling about the album, which sees both its creators as ex-pats, with Shaggy pining for his island home and Sting unimpressed with the politics of Britain today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlus, only in America could this gonzo pairing of two stars at various levels of old geezer-dom, truly make sense. And while the world wasn’t exactly clamoring for this album to exist, the end product is more lucid than many likely expected. If anything, 44\/876 is proof that both Shaggy and Sting can keep evolving into the later era of their careers, and maintaining a sense of humor about it in the process.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Pitchfork by Evan Rytlewski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe reggae-lite collaboration between Sting and Shaggy is as professional, good-natured, and helplessly uncool as its billing promises.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhy Shaggy? Presumably, if Sting wanted to go 50\/50 on a reggae album, he had options. Toots Hibbert is still in fine voice. The Wailers aren’t really the Wailers anymore, but Sting and the Wailers has a hell of a ring to it. And if he were looking to make a splash on the adult contemporary charts, Michael Franti probably could have made it happen. But Shaggy? Mr. Boombastic? The guy who sings like he’s auditioning to voice a breakfast cereal character? Why?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turns out the two just really hit it off. Sting even refers to “my good friend Shaggy” early on the duo’s unlikely collaboration 44\/876, and the album never leaves any doubt that Sting means it. Just look at them posing on those motorcycles, like your parents in their most embarrassing vacation photo. Even when the material falls flat, as it frequently does, there’s some pleasure in picturing these two entirely unobjectionable personalities living their best lives, knocking back Coronas while gently busting each other’s chops with the superficial banter of Liam Neeson and his middle-age golf buddies in the Taken films. It’s such an old-man record you can almost feel your testosterone drop listening to it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e44\/876 is as professional, good-natured, and helplessly uncool as its billing promises. Does Sting feign a Caribbean accent? Yes, obviously. Does he fetishize white sandy beaches and honour the ghost of Bob Marley? You know he does. Are there air horns? Yup—all those boxes are checked right out the gate on the opening title track, another inglorious addition to the canon of reggae songs about how great reggae music is. “It shakes me to my soul with a positive vibration, I start dreaming of Jamaica,” Sting sings, standing out like a fanny-packed tourist against unexpectedly contemporary pop-dancehall production fit for a Sean Kingston album. The track’s modern sheen is a fake-out; the rest of the record is more UB40 than Top 40.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a Rolling Stone profile, Shaggy makes a crack about women getting pregnant to the album’s steamy single “Don’t Make Me Wait,” but by and large the Shaggy here is a far less randy one than the “It Wasn’t Me” Shaggy at the turn of the century. He’s not as miscast as he sounds on paper. Nobody will mistake him for one of reggae’s greats, but he’s a game performer, down for whatever the album throws at him, be it dub, rocksteady, or yacht rock. His toasts colour otherwise colourless songs without disrupting the tasteful romantic vibe Sting sets so carefully. And while there’s some initial absurdity in hearing him opposite Sting, one of the stateliest and most humourless of all of rock elder statesmen, the album never acknowledges it, not even on “Morning is Coming,” where Sting is awoken by to the serene song of a nightingale… that happens to share the severe nasally voice of Shaggy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMore often Sting is the one who sounds out of place. His voice has taken on a smoky hue that can work for him when he leans into it, especially on the jazzy, The Dream of the Blue Turtles-styled “Waiting for the Break of Day” or the torchy “Sad Trombone” (yes, that’s really the title, and no, it doesn’t get the reference). Yet every time he reaches for his higher registers he shows the limits of his range, inviting unflattering comparisons to his youthful heyday with the Police. There was a time when Sting legitimately could have nailed a designated reggae album, but his realistic window for that closed quite a while ago. Maybe that’s why so many of these songs, even the upbeat ones, dwell on missed opportunities and the passage of time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe great irony of 44\/876 is, despite its inherent disposability, it’s actually one of Sting’s more enjoyable albums, simply because he’s actually having fun here. At times, the album almost feels like Sting’s treat to himself, a reward for all those grief-stricken song cycles, symphonic works, and that one album with all the lute on it. After decades of treating music as a solemn obligation, he deserves a little vacation, and 44\/876 is as close as any Sting album has ever come to sounding like one. The music’s usually pretty lame, but at least the company is nice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from AllAboutJazz by Nenad Georgivski\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery summer needs its soundtrack, i.e. - a song or an album full of songs that will remind people that it's good to be alive. The summer is the time to feel good and it has to have its music that would reflect the fun and mischievous behavior that you would remember the summer by. And on this duet record between pop star Sting and dancehall star Shaggy, titled 44\/876, a potent cocktail of timeless Caribbean styles come together in a full-scale tropical explosion, colorful, playful, and above all, a good time. What initially began with Sting singing backing vocals on a song for a Shaggy's album soon became good fun and easy rapport that prompted both parties to record a full album together. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e44\/876 is in contrast with Sting's previous record, 57th and 9th (A\u0026amp;M\/Interscope, 2016), which was a classic Post-Police record that emphasized Sting's songwriting mastery. It was colored in the hues of rock music and was a return to form. On the other hand, 44\/876 emphasizes Sting's life-long love affair with reggae and ska music that began with the songs from his band The Police. Throughout his illustrious career, many of Sting's songs were influenced by the music from the Caribbean among other styles of music like \"Love is The Seventh Wave\" and \"Englishmen in New York.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the other hand, that influence wasn't a one way street, as over the years, many musicians from Jamaica paid tribute to Sting's music by covering his songs with the Police, as heard on compilations such as Reggatta Mondatta: Reggae Tribute Album to The Police (Ark 21, 2000) and Spirits In The Material World: A Reggae Tribute To The Police, (Shanachie, 2008.) These songs weren't covered by anonymous musicians but by leading artists from the island from various generations, which showcases the special relationship that exists here. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Sting can be a master of unlikely musical partnerships. His inclination for sharing the spotlight knows no genre-bounds, ranging from singers Cheb Mami, Craig David to lutist Edin Karamazov or guitarist Eric Clapton. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Shaggy's longtime producer Sting International and Sting's manager Martin Kierszenbaum, this record is both propelled and colored by an interesting and diverse selection of musicians. As a result 44\/876 is a swirl of diverse Jamaican styles, sounds, and themes that bring out the summer festive feel. Highlights are copious. From the opener, the title song, until the closing \"Night Shift,\" the songs are full of pulsating and infectious beats, funky grooves that pair with sweet and playful melodies. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Reggaeville by Gardy Stein\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll in all, this record fully exhibits the upsides what can happen when two great musicians from entirely different backgrounds unite in the name making music together. Love is still the seventh wave.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile features and collaborations are a common thing in Reggae and Dancehall, most stay within the genre's boundaries. Recently though, these boundaries have remarkably expanded to include Cuban music (e.g. Jake Savona's Havana Meets Kingston) and the motherland (e.g. Kabaka and Stonebwoy in Borders or the latter and Demarco in Say It), a welcome move to accommodate the growing popularity of Afrobeats. With 44\/876, this expansion-movement has been taken to the next level - a full album-length collaboration of Orville Richard Burrell and Gordon Matthew Sumner, better known as Shaggy and Sting!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs unlikely as this combination might seem at first glance, the two superstars have a lot in common. Both are Grammy Winners, both look back to decades of creating amazing music, and both have already crossed over into the other's genre - Sting even claims that Reggae has been a major influence on all of his music! On top of everything else, their voices complement each other perfectly. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGarbed in the masterful work of Shaun \"Sting International\" Pizzonia (the producer who is responsible for Shaggy's hit It Wasn't Me) and additional input by sound-cracks like \"iLL Wayno\" Shippy, Teflon, Shane Hoosong or Martin Kierszenbaum, twelve tracks present a convincing marriage of Sting's skilled, multi-octaved singing and the deep, bassy MCing of Mr. Boombastic. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEnough with the intro - let's take a look at the songs! Opening and title track, the cryptical numbers (indicating UK's and Jamaica's country codes) are a fast-paced ode to the Caribbean island and feature royalty such as Morgan Heritage and Dancehall-High-Fly'yeah' Aidonia. With its laid-back Reggae beat, Morning Is Coming makes for a sharp contrast, celebrating a nightingale's chirping and the rising of a new day. The melodious horn section played by David Barnes, Joel Gonzalez, Zachary Lucas, Robert Stringer and Branford Marsalis captures this pioneering spirit and leads over to the more melancholy, piano-driven Waiting For The Break Of Day. Similar in feeling, Sad Trombone gives you exactly what the title says, plus Sting's possibly best vocal delivery on this release. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGotta Get Back My Baby brings in a rocky flavour, but much more interesting is the next track, which is actually the one that sparked the album. When Shaggy was at Martin Kierszenbaum's studio in LA last year, Martin (who happens to be Sting's manager) sent the raw sketch of Don't Make Me Wait over to Sting to ask for a contribution. The Englishman had so much fun working on it that the mutual idea of doing more fell on fertile ground. A hit in itself, this love song is thus not only the nucleus around which the present album took form, it's also the first single, accompanied by a stunning video. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust One Lifetime is a philosophical musing about the ups and downs of life, quoting the poem The Walrus \u0026amp; The Carpenter by British word-smith Lewis Carroll. Less philosophical but none less touching, the airily instrumented 22nd Street circles around a past encounter, while Dreaming In The USA talks about the very present danger of America disappointing the dreams of its people   admittedly in a quite subtle manner. Rhythmically, that's the most \"Stingy\" track on here! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinding ourselves in court, Crooked Tree is a remarkable piece of storytelling in which the defendant brings across the simple truth that we are all carved of different wood, some more crooked than others. Goose bumps! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs if to lift the wistful mood thus induced, the much lighter To Love And Be Loved will have you skanking in no time, and the final Night Shift, despite the work-related lyrics, sends us off on a sweet, bubbling musical note. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat a ride! Fun, diversified and lyrically elaborated, 44\/876 is a sparkling surprise for fans of both artists, artists who obviously not only work extremely well in studio together, but also on stage, as a planned tour will show (including a joint performance at the Queen's 92th Birthday!). Sting himself says that \"an element of surprise is so important in music\", and with this album, he and Shaggy certainly added a piece of major importance to the unfolding year's output. More of this, please! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Pop Mag by Mai Perkins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are quite a few fascinating bromances that have popped up over the years. Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon. George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Not to mention, of course, the most iconic duo, Batman and Robin. Thankfully we can now add to the list the most surprising new tag team – Sting and Shaggy – who have released their unexpected first collaborative album, “44\/876”. While the two joke that they met on Tinder, in reality it was a manager for the two legends who hooked them up for this joint venture. After listening to what would become the lead single, “Don’t Make Me Wait”, the rep sent the song to Sting, who in turn made his way down to the studio in Los Angeles where Shaggy was recording that day. As the story would unfold, without even realizing what was happening, Sting came through the door singing the hook, demanding that Shaggy produce the song with him on it. The rest has all been very kismet for the two Grammy-winning musicians. The synergy has been great. Their vocals complement one another. So they kept recording. Then one song turned into five songs recorded, which turned into the eclectic dancehall-pop album we now know as “44\/876”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf working on the project, Sting reflects that it’s good to be able to share fifty percent of the creative vision as a band leader with Shaggy. On the other hand, Shaggy appreciates Sting’s tendency to push him out of his comfort zone into new territory as a composer and songwriter, especially when it comes to chord changes, key modulation, and the types of song structure that Shaggy isn’t used to. As a result, creating this LP has been a process that both have found exciting and fulfilling. “44\/876” as an album gives sunshine vibes and captures the essence of Jamaica more than expected. Their anticipation was to transcend music and culture given Sting’s home island of Great Britain, whose international dialing code is 44, and Shaggy’s Caribbean birthplace whose code is 876. It’s not surprising that Sting would produce such a reggae-influenced album with Shaggy, either. He’s always had an instinct for paying homage to a style of music that shaped who he would become as a musician. This has become a full circle moment in his career by creating this collection of songs with an authentic reggae artist, which has been a natural fit for Sting. In the early days, his band The Police would actually tour with reggae bands like Burning Spear and Steele Pulse when they were first starting out in the late 70s and early 80s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s title track, which features celebrated reggae group Morgan Heritage, is a mix of mystical escapism and feel-good bounce. Several songs really work for the project including “Morning Is Coming” with its classic horn and deep bass vibe and the single “Don’t Make Me Wait”, which is a worthy salute to Bob Marley’s “Waiting In Vain”. “Waiting For The Break Of Day” on the other hand is definitely in the same vein as Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”, with updated chord changes. “Gotta Get Back My Baby” is a bit cliche as if a teeny-bopper would be singing the lyrics, not middle-aged rock and reggae stars. The poet Lewis Carroll served as inspiration for the songwriting on “Just One Lifetime”. In it, Sting pens an adventure between two unlikely people, who, on a journey through life, comment on the dystopian yet hopeful world as they see it, hoping to make a difference.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album boasts strong ballads where Sting takes the lead, like the groovy “22nd Street” and the majestic and beautiful “Love Changes Everything”, one of the strongest songs on the album. “Dreaming In The U.S.A.” is their sincere love letter to the United States, where Sting chooses to live as “a guest”. Though the song isn’t implicitly political and comes across a bit cheeky, Sting is on record acknowledging The Dreamers in America who are in a very necessary fight for rights as immigrants, and this song could be considered a follow-up to “Englishman In New York”. “Crooked Tree” is the most imaginative song on the album with the two acting out a courtroom drama of drug dealing and human trafficking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are some instant hits as well like the rootsy skank hit “To Love And Be Loved” or the dubstep of “Sad Trombone” and “Night Shift”. In addition to the jams, Sting and Shaggy brought some bona fide heavyweights on board with bassist Robbie Shakespeare of the reggae super-duo Sly And Robbie, Sting’s longtime guitarist Dominic Miller, jazz instrumentalist Branford Marsalis, Agent Sasco, dancehall sensation Aidonia, and other notables. As far as the music game goes, both Sting and Shaggy individually tout a storied career, with their combined sixty-five years in the music business, forty for Sting and twenty-five for Shaggy. That the iconic rock star would saunter into Mr. Boombastic’s recording session and invite himself to create a joint album between the two of them is nothing short of amazing. The two are planning a world tour for summer 2018 that will encompass their epic catalogues of music, and that, in and of itself, is a reason to get on the “44\/876” love train! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155998969938,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/remixes1526566744_640.jpg?v=1758315259"},{"product_id":"my-songs","title":"My Songs","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSpeaking on his approach to the album, Sting says: “‘My Songs’ is my life in songs. Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, but all of them with a contemporary focus.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ boasts modernized recordings, faithful to the original arrangements and celebrates Sting’s illustrious musical career as one of the world’s most distinctive and influential artists. Since forming The Police in 1977 with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, Sting has evolved into one of the world’s most iconic artists, selling 100 million records and earning the highest accolades along the way. Fans can expect to hear Sting’s own fresh approach to hits including “Englishman In New York,” “Fields Of Gold,” “Shape Of My Heart,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Roxanne,” “Message In A Bottle” and many more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album will also be accompanied by new liner notes written by Sting, in which he shares the personal stories behind each song and provides insight into how some of the most enduring songs of all time were written.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever one to stand still, in the summer of 2018, following his collaborative album release with Shaggy - the Grammy Award-winning chart-topping record ‘44\/876’ – the iconic duo launched a world tour through North America, South America, Eastern Europe and this year will extend to the UK for a series of intimate shows from May 19th - 25th. These collaborative performances will be followed by Sting’s own, solo ‘My Songs’ tour this summer - a dynamic show featuring the most beloved songs written by Sting spanning his prolific career, accompanied by an electric, rock ensemble. Tour itinerary and tickets can be found at www.sting.com.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ was produced and A\u0026amp;R’d by Martin Kierszenbaum (Sting, Lady Gaga, Robyn), Dave Audé (Bruno Mars, Selena Gomez) and Jerry Fuentes (The Last Bandoleros). The album was mixed by Robert Orton (Lana Del Rey, Mumford \u0026amp; Sons) and engineered by Tony Lake (Sting, Shaggy). \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ will be released on CD and vinyl, and a deluxe edition will be available including live recordings of ‘Synchronicity II’, ‘Next To You’, ‘Spirits In the Material World’ and ‘Fragile’. An exclusive edition for Japan will also feature a live recording of ‘I Can’t Stop Thinking About You’, and an exclusive for France is set to include an extended version of ‘Desert Rose’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arts Desk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr Sumner updates his impressive back catalogue... slightly\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome say that every successful rock star's career can be divided into three phases. First comes the youthful exuberance. Next, there's mature experimentation. Finally, the artist goes back over everything he's done. That's where Sting is now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis last solo album was a homage to the Police, and now he's \"re-imagined, refitted, and reshaped\" a selection of his greatest hits. Or, at least, that's how he puts it. In truth, you'd need a magnifying glass to tell the difference between most of these and the originals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou're not, for instance, going to find \"Roxanne\" rearranged with lutes. Nor are there any new or unreleased songs. Instead, we find a series of re-recordings and remixes. The Tantric One has teamed up with a trusty bunch of old collaborators and together they have conjured up a series of subtly alternative versions of songs. To be fair, you probably wouldn't have wanted to tamper with them too much anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIronically, the new recordings sound more like demo tracks. \"So Lonely\" has been pulled down half an octave, but guitarist Jerry Fuentes still manages to reproduce Andy Summers's guitar part note for note. \"Message in a Bottle\" is fractionally slower and a little gruffer. \"Walking on the Moon\" is most notable for how drummer Josh Freese manages to outdo Stewart Copeland's original stick-work. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe remixes are a little more varied. The least successful is \"If You Love Someone Set Them Free\", which has been fitted out with the kind of beats you might have heard in Ibiza in 1996. \"Fields of Gold\", by contrast, finds new depths in its more pastoral arrangement. And \"If I Ever Lose My Faith in You\" has been made bouncier and brighter. There's also one live version, \"Roxanne\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course, with so little that's new here many will question the point of this record. Partly, it's to herald a world tour and Las Vegas residency. Really though, it's just an excuse to revisit some great tunes. And why not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt isn’t clear why Sting felt the need to take old Police and solo favourites and re-record them in slightly different versions, but they are indeed his songs and many are fantastic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReggae\/pop-punk gems by the Police such as Message in a Bottle and Walking on the Moon are as beguiling as ever, while Englishman in New York is a reminder that, while he may forever be threatening to play the lute in the lotus position in a rainforest, naked, Sting remains a nuanced and literary songwriter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOccasional attempts to update the back catalogue prove unfortunate, particularly a cheesy dance-pop version of If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, but for the most part this is a pleasant if unnecessary reminder of Sting’s finest moments. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from SuperDeluxeEdition by Paul Sinclair\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting tinkering with his old classics is a pointless exercise...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf all the things Sting could do these days, putting out a solo album filled with new compositions doesn’t appear to be high in his list of priorities. Whilst he’s been quite busy in recent years, he has sought creative and personal satisfaction from his The Last Ship project, which was by nature rather collaborative, he’s made a record with Shaggy (which was actually a lot of fun) and even on tour Sting has teamed up with others to keep him company (Paul Simon and now Shaggy). 2016’s 57th \u0026amp; 9th is his only solo album in the last 15 years and after its somewhat tepid reception, Sting may well have thought ‘what’s the point?’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut hey, even if you easily sell out tours largely on the strength of your greatest hits, chances are your marketing ‘team’ will advise that you still need something new-sounding to hang it on, and if you haven’t got fresh songs or perhaps a reissue to promote, what other options are available to you? Step forward the idea of ‘revisiting’ old songs!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s My Songs is exactly such a project. He has re-recorded some of his old numbers, and it seems ‘deep cuts’ isn’t in his vocabulary – at least for this initiative. It includes massive Police hits like ‘Every Breath You Take’, ‘Message In A Bottle’ and solo favourites such as ‘Englishman In New York’ and ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’. Some songs are complete re-recordings, while others are a Brundlefly fusion of new and old. Describing the approach, Sting picks his words carefully, although not carefully enough to avoid sounding like a double-glazing salesman: “Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, and all of them with a contemporary focus.” Remember that last phrase.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo what are these new versions like? It varies, but if there’s one thing these recordings have in common it’s that none of them improve on the originals. That need not render the My Songs initiative a pointless exercise, because there’s much pleasure to be had from creative explorations or getting to a finished song via an alternative route, but Sting really isn’t interested in that at this juncture. He’s eschewing any twisty musical B-roads and opting for the sitting-in-the-middle-lane of a straight and direct motorway. He’s has typed ‘contemporary focus’ into his sat nav and isn’t going to risk not reaching that destination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis goal, that destination, is about maximising the appeal of his back catalogue to a much younger, streaming-dominated generation. He’s really shoving a needle into the temples of some great pop songs and injecting a bit of botox; filling out what he perceives as some cragginess and making them (in his eyes) fit for purpose for young listeners.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo be fair, Sting’s arguments are thoughtfully presented. He told Billboard earlier this year that “sometimes songs are identified by the technology they were recorded with – recording techniques, the sound of synthesizers or the drum sound. They all date a song, so we just want to re-contemporise the stuff.” In other words, he feels that some of the production is dated and getting in the way of people hearing or enjoying his old Police and solo hits. Millennials scared off by the punky rawness of the late 1970s or the reverb and bombast of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe problem is, while I accept that no one is denying us access to the originals, Sting is effectively creating a marketplace with two versions of these songs, the songs as released and these ‘reframed\/refitted\/\u003cbr\u003ereconstructed’ versions. That could be confusing. Also, has anyone ever actually said “I really like ‘Every Breath You Take’ but I wish it didn’t sound so old-fashioned”?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet’s talk about some specifics. As far as I’m concerned “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” is one of Sting’s most enduring solo songs and should be left well alone. Alas, Mr Sumner is doing the opposite of leaving it alone. He must really hate how the original sounds, because he’s constantly fiddling with this track. It was subjected to at least eight awful dance remixes back in 1994, was remixed for the 25 Years compilation\/box set back in 2011 and he’s tinkered with it again for My Songs. This new version is effectively a mild dance mix that surgically removes most of the song’s personality. Something like a ‘Tin Tin Out’ remix from the late 1990s. The vocal sounds like the original to these ears, but the drums are now programmed. Who’d want to replace Omar Hakim with a drum machine? Kate Bush chose to do the opposite with Director’s Cut, replacing soulless programmed rhythms with Steve Gadd. You listen back to the original version of ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’ and absorb the wonderful organic arrangement with that Hammond, and the loose drums and the world class list of musicians (including Kenny Kirkland, Branford Marsalis) and can only shake your head in exasperation when you hear the new one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe beautiful “Shape of My Heart” (surprisingly, not a hit back in 1993) has a percussive ‘click’ not in the original and in this instance does have a new vocal. It is sung perfectly well, but I’m sorry, it’s simply not as good as the original. While fashions in production and musical styles may change for the better over time (or maybe not) what rarely improves is the human singing voice. Artists like Sting have a habit of trying to convince us that their voices are ‘more interesting’ in their later years (George Michael once said he found his singing voice in the 80s ‘boring’) but they’re surely kidding themselves – the unbridled range and power of the ‘early years’ is always going to be preferable. There’s no shame in losing some of your range when you get to your 50s or 60s but let’s get real… it’s not normally ‘better’. Apart from the inferior vocal, Shape Of My Heart doesn’t sound a whole lot different, which begs the question, why?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Every Breath You Take’ is fundamentally the same, although it now has a drum sound like someone hitting a cardboard box. Also, to the point above, the original had a very relaxed vocal during the verses, 35 years later Sting has to try harder and you can hear the effort. It’s not as relaxing a listen. Rather like watching your kid perform in the school play. You’re worried it’s all going to go wrong. This song exhibits the worst attributes of My Songs. It’s a new recording – and therefore ‘different’ – but is so similar as to be utterly pointless. There is literally NO reason to listen to this version above the original.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘I Can’t Stand Losing You’ is similar to ‘Every Breath You Take’. The youthful exuberance is sucked from the song as a bloke in his mid-sixties tries to recreate his youth. Meanwhile ‘Fields of Gold’ at least boasts a slightly different intro (and outro), although like ‘Shape of My Heart’ Sting is convinced the key to streaming success is to change the snare sound. Not a click this time but more of a ‘pfft’ sound. Other than that, it all sounds fairly similar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the album continues in the same vein. Sting rather over enunciates the lyrics to a facsimile ‘Englishman In New York’ and throws in some car horns beeping over that booming drum break (for no apparent reason), while ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith In You’ has lost all its balls; the synth pads and fat rhythm section are the skilled veterans made redundant and replaced with work experience team of light skipping percussion and ambient styling. ‘Faith’ is actually quite bad, to be honest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s sad that, as with Paul McCartney – who recently worked with Ryan Tedder for a few tracks on the Egypt Station sessions – Sting apparently wants to sound MORE GENERIC to ‘fit in’ with modern musical landscapes. Neither man, it seems, can switch off the desire to be a pop star and therefore they are driven to stay ‘popular’ and will do whatever is required, even if it means messing with rock\/pop classics (in Sting’s case) or releasing new material that’s close to embarrassing (McCartney).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s another element to all this. Re-recording your old material is often financially an astute move, if your label retains rights to the original recordings. It’s not clear if this is Sting’s motivation, but potentially, if a Sting-penned track is up for being used for a movie or TV, Sting’s representatives will be sure proffer the ‘My Songs’ version and potentially earn more for ’sync’ rights than if they used the original. Blondie re-recorded their old hits for similar reasons back in 2014, with their Greatest Hits Redux, but at least they had the decency to bundle it as a freebie with their new album at the time (Ghosts of Download). With Sting ‘My Songs’ IS the new album!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGood for Sting, he’s a canny operator, but it starts to dawn on you that this project is rather inward looking. It is all about Sting, what suits him, what works for his tour what gets him a (perceived) leg-up in the world of streaming and the yoof of today. Sting is the angler who buys his wife a fishing rod for Christmas, and expects her to be thrilled. We don’t really get what we want (new songs, or at least interesting rearrangements of old songs) but rather we have to force a smile as he hands over what he actually wants. Thank you for my present Sting, I really hope you enjoy it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Spill magazine by Taylor Hodgkins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting hardly needs an introduction, but if one is necessary, listening to My Songs would serve this purpose as to where the singer-songwriter and former frontman of The Police is at this point of his career.  For anyone even remotely familiar with Sting’s work, My Songs will make the listener think, “Yeah, these are his songs, alright.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting seems to be out to prove he has control of his career and the ability to secure any point of relevancy in the year of our Sting, 2019. The reworked version of “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” exhibits this thought pattern. The original version served as an introduction to Sting’s solo career after the breakup of The Police, he wanted you to know he was HERE, and if you loved the “old” Sting, set him FREE! The reworked version seems to say “If you loved anything about Sting’s sound, set it free, too. The idea of a club-friendly Sting sounded odd back in 1985, and the thought is difficult to digest now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe idea of Sting’s reworkings being difficult to digest continues throughout the record. The versions of beloved cuts by The Police are slightly better; “Walking On The Moon” makes an attempt, albeit a slight one, to acknowledge the influence of Stewart Copeland’s drumming. “Every Breath You Take”, however, is a parody of its original cheeseball nature; your friend’s wedding band did a better job!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOverall, if you love your back catalogue, please set it free!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155999166546,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/mysongsartwork1553677739_640.jpg?v=1758315266"},{"product_id":"my-songs-deluxe-edition","title":"My Songs (Deluxe Edition)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSpeaking on his approach to the album, Sting says: “‘My Songs’ is my life in songs. Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, but all of them with a contemporary focus.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ boasts modernized recordings, faithful to the original arrangements and celebrates Sting’s illustrious musical career as one of the world’s most distinctive and influential artists. Since forming The Police in 1977 with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, Sting has evolved into one of the world’s most iconic artists, selling 100 million records and earning the highest accolades along the way. Fans can expect to hear Sting’s own fresh approach to hits including “Englishman In New York,” “Fields Of Gold,” “Shape Of My Heart,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Roxanne,” “Message In A Bottle” and many more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album will also be accompanied by new liner notes written by Sting, in which he shares the personal stories behind each song and provides insight into how some of the most enduring songs of all time were written.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever one to stand still, in the summer of 2018, following his collaborative album release with Shaggy - the Grammy Award-winning chart-topping record ‘44\/876’ – the iconic duo launched a world tour through North America, South America, Eastern Europe and this year will extend to the UK for a series of intimate shows from May 19th - 25th. These collaborative performances will be followed by Sting’s own, solo ‘My Songs’ tour this summer - a dynamic show featuring the most beloved songs written by Sting spanning his prolific career, accompanied by an electric, rock ensemble. Tour itinerary and tickets can be found at www.sting.com.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ was produced and A\u0026amp;R’d by Martin Kierszenbaum (Sting, Lady Gaga, Robyn), Dave Audé (Bruno Mars, Selena Gomez) and Jerry Fuentes (The Last Bandoleros). The album was mixed by Robert Orton (Lana Del Rey, Mumford \u0026amp; Sons) and engineered by Tony Lake (Sting, Shaggy). \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ will be released on CD and vinyl, and a deluxe edition will be available including live recordings of ‘Synchronicity II’, ‘Next To You’, ‘Spirits In the Material World’ and ‘Fragile’. An exclusive edition for Japan will also feature a live recording of ‘I Can’t Stop Thinking About You’, and an exclusive for France is set to include an extended version of ‘Desert Rose’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr type=\"_moz\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arts Desk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr Sumner updates his impressive back catalogue... slightly\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome say that every successful rock star's career can be divided into three phases. First comes the youthful exuberance. Next, there's mature experimentation. Finally, the artist goes back over everything he's done. That's where Sting is now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis last solo album was a homage to the Police, and now he's \"re-imagined, refitted, and reshaped\" a selection of his greatest hits. Or, at least, that's how he puts it. In truth, you'd need a magnifying glass to tell the difference between most of these and the originals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou're not, for instance, going to find \"Roxanne\" rearranged with lutes. Nor are there any new or unreleased songs. Instead, we find a series of re-recordings and remixes. The Tantric One has teamed up with a trusty bunch of old collaborators and together they have conjured up a series of subtly alternative versions of songs. To be fair, you probably wouldn't have wanted to tamper with them too much anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIronically, the new recordings sound more like demo tracks. \"So Lonely\" has been pulled down half an octave, but guitarist Jerry Fuentes still manages to reproduce Andy Summers's guitar part note for note. \"Message in a Bottle\" is fractionally slower and a little gruffer. \"Walking on the Moon\" is most notable for how drummer Josh Freese manages to outdo Stewart Copeland's original stick-work. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe remixes are a little more varied. The least successful is \"If You Love Someone Set Them Free\", which has been fitted out with the kind of beats you might have heard in Ibiza in 1996. \"Fields of Gold\", by contrast, finds new depths in its more pastoral arrangement. And \"If I Ever Lose My Faith in You\" has been made bouncier and brighter. There's also one live version, \"Roxanne\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course, with so little that's new here many will question the point of this record. Partly, it's to herald a world tour and Las Vegas residency. Really though, it's just an excuse to revisit some great tunes. And why not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt isn’t clear why Sting felt the need to take old Police and solo favourites and re-record them in slightly different versions, but they are indeed his songs and many are fantastic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReggae\/pop-punk gems by the Police such as Message in a Bottle and Walking on the Moon are as beguiling as ever, while Englishman in New York is a reminder that, while he may forever be threatening to play the lute in the lotus position in a rainforest, naked, Sting remains a nuanced and literary songwriter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOccasional attempts to update the back catalogue prove unfortunate, particularly a cheesy dance-pop version of If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, but for the most part this is a pleasant if unnecessary reminder of Sting’s finest moments. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from SuperDeluxeEdition by Paul Sinclair\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting tinkering with his old classics is a pointless exercise...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf all the things Sting could do these days, putting out a solo album filled with new compositions doesn’t appear to be high in his list of priorities. Whilst he’s been quite busy in recent years, he has sought creative and personal satisfaction from his The Last Ship project, which was by nature rather collaborative, he’s made a record with Shaggy (which was actually a lot of fun) and even on tour Sting has teamed up with others to keep him company (Paul Simon and now Shaggy). 2016’s 57th \u0026amp; 9th is his only solo album in the last 15 years and after its somewhat tepid reception, Sting may well have thought ‘what’s the point?’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut hey, even if you easily sell out tours largely on the strength of your greatest hits, chances are your marketing ‘team’ will advise that you still need something new-sounding to hang it on, and if you haven’t got fresh songs or perhaps a reissue to promote, what other options are available to you? Step forward the idea of ‘revisiting’ old songs!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s My Songs is exactly such a project. He has re-recorded some of his old numbers, and it seems ‘deep cuts’ isn’t in his vocabulary – at least for this initiative. It includes massive Police hits like ‘Every Breath You Take’, ‘Message In A Bottle’ and solo favourites such as ‘Englishman In New York’ and ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’. Some songs are complete re-recordings, while others are a Brundlefly fusion of new and old. Describing the approach, Sting picks his words carefully, although not carefully enough to avoid sounding like a double-glazing salesman: “Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, and all of them with a contemporary focus.” Remember that last phrase.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo what are these new versions like? It varies, but if there’s one thing these recordings have in common it’s that none of them improve on the originals. That need not render the My Songs initiative a pointless exercise, because there’s much pleasure to be had from creative explorations or getting to a finished song via an alternative route, but Sting really isn’t interested in that at this juncture. He’s eschewing any twisty musical B-roads and opting for the sitting-in-the-middle-lane of a straight and direct motorway. He’s has typed ‘contemporary focus’ into his sat nav and isn’t going to risk not reaching that destination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis goal, that destination, is about maximising the appeal of his back catalogue to a much younger, streaming-dominated generation. He’s really shoving a needle into the temples of some great pop songs and injecting a bit of botox; filling out what he perceives as some cragginess and making them (in his eyes) fit for purpose for young listeners.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo be fair, Sting’s arguments are thoughtfully presented. He told Billboard earlier this year that “sometimes songs are identified by the technology they were recorded with – recording techniques, the sound of synthesizers or the drum sound. They all date a song, so we just want to re-contemporise the stuff.” In other words, he feels that some of the production is dated and getting in the way of people hearing or enjoying his old Police and solo hits. Millennials scared off by the punky rawness of the late 1970s or the reverb and bombast of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe problem is, while I accept that no one is denying us access to the originals, Sting is effectively creating a marketplace with two versions of these songs, the songs as released and these ‘reframed\/refitted\/\u003cbr\u003ereconstructed’ versions. That could be confusing. Also, has anyone ever actually said “I really like ‘Every Breath You Take’ but I wish it didn’t sound so old-fashioned”?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet’s talk about some specifics. As far as I’m concerned “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” is one of Sting’s most enduring solo songs and should be left well alone. Alas, Mr Sumner is doing the opposite of leaving it alone. He must really hate how the original sounds, because he’s constantly fiddling with this track. It was subjected to at least eight awful dance remixes back in 1994, was remixed for the 25 Years compilation\/box set back in 2011 and he’s tinkered with it again for My Songs. This new version is effectively a mild dance mix that surgically removes most of the song’s personality. Something like a ‘Tin Tin Out’ remix from the late 1990s. The vocal sounds like the original to these ears, but the drums are now programmed. Who’d want to replace Omar Hakim with a drum machine? Kate Bush chose to do the opposite with Director’s Cut, replacing soulless programmed rhythms with Steve Gadd. You listen back to the original version of ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’ and absorb the wonderful organic arrangement with that Hammond, and the loose drums and the world class list of musicians (including Kenny Kirkland, Branford Marsalis) and can only shake your head in exasperation when you hear the new one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe beautiful “Shape of My Heart” (surprisingly, not a hit back in 1993) has a percussive ‘click’ not in the original and in this instance does have a new vocal. It is sung perfectly well, but I’m sorry, it’s simply not as good as the original. While fashions in production and musical styles may change for the better over time (or maybe not) what rarely improves is the human singing voice. Artists like Sting have a habit of trying to convince us that their voices are ‘more interesting’ in their later years (George Michael once said he found his singing voice in the 80s ‘boring’) but they’re surely kidding themselves – the unbridled range and power of the ‘early years’ is always going to be preferable. There’s no shame in losing some of your range when you get to your 50s or 60s but let’s get real… it’s not normally ‘better’. Apart from the inferior vocal, Shape Of My Heart doesn’t sound a whole lot different, which begs the question, why?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Every Breath You Take’ is fundamentally the same, although it now has a drum sound like someone hitting a cardboard box. Also, to the point above, the original had a very relaxed vocal during the verses, 35 years later Sting has to try harder and you can hear the effort. It’s not as relaxing a listen. Rather like watching your kid perform in the school play. You’re worried it’s all going to go wrong. This song exhibits the worst attributes of My Songs. It’s a new recording – and therefore ‘different’ – but is so similar as to be utterly pointless. There is literally NO reason to listen to this version above the original.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘I Can’t Stand Losing You’ is similar to ‘Every Breath You Take’. The youthful exuberance is sucked from the song as a bloke in his mid-sixties tries to recreate his youth. Meanwhile ‘Fields of Gold’ at least boasts a slightly different intro (and outro), although like ‘Shape of My Heart’ Sting is convinced the key to streaming success is to change the snare sound. Not a click this time but more of a ‘pfft’ sound. Other than that, it all sounds fairly similar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the album continues in the same vein. Sting rather over enunciates the lyrics to a facsimile ‘Englishman In New York’ and throws in some car horns beeping over that booming drum break (for no apparent reason), while ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith In You’ has lost all its balls; the synth pads and fat rhythm section are the skilled veterans made redundant and replaced with work experience team of light skipping percussion and ambient styling. ‘Faith’ is actually quite bad, to be honest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s sad that, as with Paul McCartney – who recently worked with Ryan Tedder for a few tracks on the Egypt Station sessions – Sting apparently wants to sound MORE GENERIC to ‘fit in’ with modern musical landscapes. Neither man, it seems, can switch off the desire to be a pop star and therefore they are driven to stay ‘popular’ and will do whatever is required, even if it means messing with rock\/pop classics (in Sting’s case) or releasing new material that’s close to embarrassing (McCartney).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s another element to all this. Re-recording your old material is often financially an astute move, if your label retains rights to the original recordings. It’s not clear if this is Sting’s motivation, but potentially, if a Sting-penned track is up for being used for a movie or TV, Sting’s representatives will be sure proffer the ‘My Songs’ version and potentially earn more for ’sync’ rights than if they used the original. Blondie re-recorded their old hits for similar reasons back in 2014, with their Greatest Hits Redux, but at least they had the decency to bundle it as a freebie with their new album at the time (Ghosts of Download). With Sting ‘My Songs’ IS the new album!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGood for Sting, he’s a canny operator, but it starts to dawn on you that this project is rather inward looking. It is all about Sting, what suits him, what works for his tour what gets him a (perceived) leg-up in the world of streaming and the yoof of today. Sting is the angler who buys his wife a fishing rod for Christmas, and expects her to be thrilled. We don’t really get what we want (new songs, or at least interesting rearrangements of old songs) but rather we have to force a smile as he hands over what he actually wants. Thank you for my present Sting, I really hope you enjoy it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Spill magazine by Taylor Hodgkins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting hardly needs an introduction, but if one is necessary, listening to My Songs would serve this purpose as to where the singer-songwriter and former frontman of The Police is at this point of his career.  For anyone even remotely familiar with Sting’s work, My Songs will make the listener think, “Yeah, these are his songs, alright.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting seems to be out to prove he has control of his career and the ability to secure any point of relevancy in the year of our Sting, 2019. The reworked version of “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” exhibits this thought pattern. The original version served as an introduction to Sting’s solo career after the breakup of The Police, he wanted you to know he was HERE, and if you loved the “old” Sting, set him FREE! The reworked version seems to say “If you loved anything about Sting’s sound, set it free, too. The idea of a club-friendly Sting sounded odd back in 1985, and the thought is difficult to digest now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe idea of Sting’s reworkings being difficult to digest continues throughout the record. The versions of beloved cuts by The Police are slightly better; “Walking On The Moon” makes an attempt, albeit a slight one, to acknowledge the influence of Stewart Copeland’s drumming. “Every Breath You Take”, however, is a parody of its original cheeseball nature; your friend’s wedding band did a better job!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOverall, if you love your back catalogue, please set it free!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155999199314,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/mysongsartwork1553678420_640.jpg?v=1758315268"},{"product_id":"sting-the-chill-mixes","title":"Sting: The Chill Mixes","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChill Mixes 12” vinyl, with four new remixes to classic Sting songs, created exclusively for Sting.com fan club members.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155999232082,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/chill1556102091_640.jpg?v=1758315268"},{"product_id":"my-songs-special-edition-japan","title":"My Songs : Special Edition (Japan)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSpeaking on his approach to the album, Sting says: “‘My Songs’ is my life in songs. Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, but all of them with a contemporary focus.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ boasts modernized recordings, faithful to the original arrangements and celebrates Sting’s illustrious musical career as one of the world’s most distinctive and influential artists. Since forming The Police in 1977 with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, Sting has evolved into one of the world’s most iconic artists, selling 100 million records and earning the highest accolades along the way. Fans can expect to hear Sting’s own fresh approach to hits including “Englishman In New York,” “Fields Of Gold,” “Shape Of My Heart,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Roxanne,” “Message In A Bottle” and many more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album will also be accompanied by new liner notes written by Sting, in which he shares the personal stories behind each song and provides insight into how some of the most enduring songs of all time were written.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever one to stand still, in the summer of 2018, following his collaborative album release with Shaggy - the Grammy Award-winning chart-topping record ‘44\/876’ – the iconic duo launched a world tour through North America, South America, Eastern Europe and this year will extend to the UK for a series of intimate shows from May 19th - 25th. These collaborative performances will be followed by Sting’s own, solo ‘My Songs’ tour this summer - a dynamic show featuring the most beloved songs written by Sting spanning his prolific career, accompanied by an electric, rock ensemble. Tour itinerary and tickets can be found at www.sting.com.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ was produced and A\u0026amp;R’d by Martin Kierszenbaum (Sting, Lady Gaga, Robyn), Dave Audé (Bruno Mars, Selena Gomez) and Jerry Fuentes (The Last Bandoleros). The album was mixed by Robert Orton (Lana Del Rey, Mumford \u0026amp; Sons) and engineered by Tony Lake (Sting, Shaggy). \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ will be released on CD and vinyl, and a deluxe edition will be available including live recordings of ‘Synchronicity II’, ‘Next To You’, ‘Spirits In the Material World’ and ‘Fragile’. An exclusive edition for Japan will also feature a live recording of ‘I Can’t Stop Thinking About You’, and an exclusive for France is set to include an extended version of ‘Desert Rose’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr type=\"_moz\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arts Desk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr Sumner updates his impressive back catalogue... slightly\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome say that every successful rock star's career can be divided into three phases. First comes the youthful exuberance. Next, there's mature experimentation. Finally, the artist goes back over everything he's done. That's where Sting is now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis last solo album was a homage to the Police, and now he's \"re-imagined, refitted, and reshaped\" a selection of his greatest hits. Or, at least, that's how he puts it. In truth, you'd need a magnifying glass to tell the difference between most of these and the originals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou're not, for instance, going to find \"Roxanne\" rearranged with lutes. Nor are there any new or unreleased songs. Instead, we find a series of re-recordings and remixes. The Tantric One has teamed up with a trusty bunch of old collaborators and together they have conjured up a series of subtly alternative versions of songs. To be fair, you probably wouldn't have wanted to tamper with them too much anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIronically, the new recordings sound more like demo tracks. \"So Lonely\" has been pulled down half an octave, but guitarist Jerry Fuentes still manages to reproduce Andy Summers's guitar part note for note. \"Message in a Bottle\" is fractionally slower and a little gruffer. \"Walking on the Moon\" is most notable for how drummer Josh Freese manages to outdo Stewart Copeland's original stick-work. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe remixes are a little more varied. The least successful is \"If You Love Someone Set Them Free\", which has been fitted out with the kind of beats you might have heard in Ibiza in 1996. \"Fields of Gold\", by contrast, finds new depths in its more pastoral arrangement. And \"If I Ever Lose My Faith in You\" has been made bouncier and brighter. There's also one live version, \"Roxanne\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course, with so little that's new here many will question the point of this record. Partly, it's to herald a world tour and Las Vegas residency. Really though, it's just an excuse to revisit some great tunes. And why not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt isn’t clear why Sting felt the need to take old Police and solo favourites and re-record them in slightly different versions, but they are indeed his songs and many are fantastic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReggae\/pop-punk gems by the Police such as Message in a Bottle and Walking on the Moon are as beguiling as ever, while Englishman in New York is a reminder that, while he may forever be threatening to play the lute in the lotus position in a rainforest, naked, Sting remains a nuanced and literary songwriter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOccasional attempts to update the back catalogue prove unfortunate, particularly a cheesy dance-pop version of If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, but for the most part this is a pleasant if unnecessary reminder of Sting’s finest moments. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from SuperDeluxeEdition by Paul Sinclair\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting tinkering with his old classics is a pointless exercise...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf all the things Sting could do these days, putting out a solo album filled with new compositions doesn’t appear to be high in his list of priorities. Whilst he’s been quite busy in recent years, he has sought creative and personal satisfaction from his The Last Ship project, which was by nature rather collaborative, he’s made a record with Shaggy (which was actually a lot of fun) and even on tour Sting has teamed up with others to keep him company (Paul Simon and now Shaggy). 2016’s 57th \u0026amp; 9th is his only solo album in the last 15 years and after its somewhat tepid reception, Sting may well have thought ‘what’s the point?’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut hey, even if you easily sell out tours largely on the strength of your greatest hits, chances are your marketing ‘team’ will advise that you still need something new-sounding to hang it on, and if you haven’t got fresh songs or perhaps a reissue to promote, what other options are available to you? Step forward the idea of ‘revisiting’ old songs!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s My Songs is exactly such a project. He has re-recorded some of his old numbers, and it seems ‘deep cuts’ isn’t in his vocabulary – at least for this initiative. It includes massive Police hits like ‘Every Breath You Take’, ‘Message In A Bottle’ and solo favourites such as ‘Englishman In New York’ and ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’. Some songs are complete re-recordings, while others are a Brundlefly fusion of new and old. Describing the approach, Sting picks his words carefully, although not carefully enough to avoid sounding like a double-glazing salesman: “Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, and all of them with a contemporary focus.” Remember that last phrase.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo what are these new versions like? It varies, but if there’s one thing these recordings have in common it’s that none of them improve on the originals. That need not render the My Songs initiative a pointless exercise, because there’s much pleasure to be had from creative explorations or getting to a finished song via an alternative route, but Sting really isn’t interested in that at this juncture. He’s eschewing any twisty musical B-roads and opting for the sitting-in-the-middle-lane of a straight and direct motorway. He’s has typed ‘contemporary focus’ into his sat nav and isn’t going to risk not reaching that destination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis goal, that destination, is about maximising the appeal of his back catalogue to a much younger, streaming-dominated generation. He’s really shoving a needle into the temples of some great pop songs and injecting a bit of botox; filling out what he perceives as some cragginess and making them (in his eyes) fit for purpose for young listeners.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo be fair, Sting’s arguments are thoughtfully presented. He told Billboard earlier this year that “sometimes songs are identified by the technology they were recorded with – recording techniques, the sound of synthesizers or the drum sound. They all date a song, so we just want to re-contemporise the stuff.” In other words, he feels that some of the production is dated and getting in the way of people hearing or enjoying his old Police and solo hits. Millennials scared off by the punky rawness of the late 1970s or the reverb and bombast of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe problem is, while I accept that no one is denying us access to the originals, Sting is effectively creating a marketplace with two versions of these songs, the songs as released and these ‘reframed\/refitted\/\u003cbr\u003ereconstructed’ versions. That could be confusing. Also, has anyone ever actually said “I really like ‘Every Breath You Take’ but I wish it didn’t sound so old-fashioned”?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet’s talk about some specifics. As far as I’m concerned “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” is one of Sting’s most enduring solo songs and should be left well alone. Alas, Mr Sumner is doing the opposite of leaving it alone. He must really hate how the original sounds, because he’s constantly fiddling with this track. It was subjected to at least eight awful dance remixes back in 1994, was remixed for the 25 Years compilation\/box set back in 2011 and he’s tinkered with it again for My Songs. This new version is effectively a mild dance mix that surgically removes most of the song’s personality. Something like a ‘Tin Tin Out’ remix from the late 1990s. The vocal sounds like the original to these ears, but the drums are now programmed. Who’d want to replace Omar Hakim with a drum machine? Kate Bush chose to do the opposite with Director’s Cut, replacing soulless programmed rhythms with Steve Gadd. You listen back to the original version of ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’ and absorb the wonderful organic arrangement with that Hammond, and the loose drums and the world class list of musicians (including Kenny Kirkland, Branford Marsalis) and can only shake your head in exasperation when you hear the new one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe beautiful “Shape of My Heart” (surprisingly, not a hit back in 1993) has a percussive ‘click’ not in the original and in this instance does have a new vocal. It is sung perfectly well, but I’m sorry, it’s simply not as good as the original. While fashions in production and musical styles may change for the better over time (or maybe not) what rarely improves is the human singing voice. Artists like Sting have a habit of trying to convince us that their voices are ‘more interesting’ in their later years (George Michael once said he found his singing voice in the 80s ‘boring’) but they’re surely kidding themselves – the unbridled range and power of the ‘early years’ is always going to be preferable. There’s no shame in losing some of your range when you get to your 50s or 60s but let’s get real… it’s not normally ‘better’. Apart from the inferior vocal, Shape Of My Heart doesn’t sound a whole lot different, which begs the question, why?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Every Breath You Take’ is fundamentally the same, although it now has a drum sound like someone hitting a cardboard box. Also, to the point above, the original had a very relaxed vocal during the verses, 35 years later Sting has to try harder and you can hear the effort. It’s not as relaxing a listen. Rather like watching your kid perform in the school play. You’re worried it’s all going to go wrong. This song exhibits the worst attributes of My Songs. It’s a new recording – and therefore ‘different’ – but is so similar as to be utterly pointless. There is literally NO reason to listen to this version above the original.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘I Can’t Stand Losing You’ is similar to ‘Every Breath You Take’. The youthful exuberance is sucked from the song as a bloke in his mid-sixties tries to recreate his youth. Meanwhile ‘Fields of Gold’ at least boasts a slightly different intro (and outro), although like ‘Shape of My Heart’ Sting is convinced the key to streaming success is to change the snare sound. Not a click this time but more of a ‘pfft’ sound. Other than that, it all sounds fairly similar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the album continues in the same vein. Sting rather over enunciates the lyrics to a facsimile ‘Englishman In New York’ and throws in some car horns beeping over that booming drum break (for no apparent reason), while ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith In You’ has lost all its balls; the synth pads and fat rhythm section are the skilled veterans made redundant and replaced with work experience team of light skipping percussion and ambient styling. ‘Faith’ is actually quite bad, to be honest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s sad that, as with Paul McCartney – who recently worked with Ryan Tedder for a few tracks on the Egypt Station sessions – Sting apparently wants to sound MORE GENERIC to ‘fit in’ with modern musical landscapes. Neither man, it seems, can switch off the desire to be a pop star and therefore they are driven to stay ‘popular’ and will do whatever is required, even if it means messing with rock\/pop classics (in Sting’s case) or releasing new material that’s close to embarrassing (McCartney).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s another element to all this. Re-recording your old material is often financially an astute move, if your label retains rights to the original recordings. It’s not clear if this is Sting’s motivation, but potentially, if a Sting-penned track is up for being used for a movie or TV, Sting’s representatives will be sure proffer the ‘My Songs’ version and potentially earn more for ’sync’ rights than if they used the original. Blondie re-recorded their old hits for similar reasons back in 2014, with their Greatest Hits Redux, but at least they had the decency to bundle it as a freebie with their new album at the time (Ghosts of Download). With Sting ‘My Songs’ IS the new album!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGood for Sting, he’s a canny operator, but it starts to dawn on you that this project is rather inward looking. It is all about Sting, what suits him, what works for his tour what gets him a (perceived) leg-up in the world of streaming and the yoof of today. Sting is the angler who buys his wife a fishing rod for Christmas, and expects her to be thrilled. We don’t really get what we want (new songs, or at least interesting rearrangements of old songs) but rather we have to force a smile as he hands over what he actually wants. Thank you for my present Sting, I really hope you enjoy it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Spill magazine by Taylor Hodgkins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting hardly needs an introduction, but if one is necessary, listening to My Songs would serve this purpose as to where the singer-songwriter and former frontman of The Police is at this point of his career.  For anyone even remotely familiar with Sting’s work, My Songs will make the listener think, “Yeah, these are his songs, alright.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting seems to be out to prove he has control of his career and the ability to secure any point of relevancy in the year of our Sting, 2019. The reworked version of “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” exhibits this thought pattern. The original version served as an introduction to Sting’s solo career after the breakup of The Police, he wanted you to know he was HERE, and if you loved the “old” Sting, set him FREE! The reworked version seems to say “If you loved anything about Sting’s sound, set it free, too. The idea of a club-friendly Sting sounded odd back in 1985, and the thought is difficult to digest now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe idea of Sting’s reworkings being difficult to digest continues throughout the record. The versions of beloved cuts by The Police are slightly better; “Walking On The Moon” makes an attempt, albeit a slight one, to acknowledge the influence of Stewart Copeland’s drumming. “Every Breath You Take”, however, is a parody of its original cheeseball nature; your friend’s wedding band did a better job!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOverall, if you love your back catalogue, please set it free!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155999297618,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/mysongsspecial1567845777_640.jpg?v=1758315270"},{"product_id":"my-songs-live-us-digital","title":"My Songs : Live (US - Digital)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSpeaking on his approach to the album, Sting says: “‘My Songs’ is my life in songs. Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, but all of them with a contemporary focus.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ boasts modernized recordings, faithful to the original arrangements and celebrates Sting’s illustrious musical career as one of the world’s most distinctive and influential artists. Since forming The Police in 1977 with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, Sting has evolved into one of the world’s most iconic artists, selling 100 million records and earning the highest accolades along the way. Fans can expect to hear Sting’s own fresh approach to hits including “Englishman In New York,” “Fields Of Gold,” “Shape Of My Heart,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Roxanne,” “Message In A Bottle” and many more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album will also be accompanied by new liner notes written by Sting, in which he shares the personal stories behind each song and provides insight into how some of the most enduring songs of all time were written.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever one to stand still, in the summer of 2018, following his collaborative album release with Shaggy - the Grammy Award-winning chart-topping record ‘44\/876’ – the iconic duo launched a world tour through North America, South America, Eastern Europe and this year will extend to the UK for a series of intimate shows from May 19th - 25th. These collaborative performances will be followed by Sting’s own, solo ‘My Songs’ tour this summer - a dynamic show featuring the most beloved songs written by Sting spanning his prolific career, accompanied by an electric, rock ensemble. Tour itinerary and tickets can be found at www.sting.com.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ was produced and A\u0026amp;R’d by Martin Kierszenbaum (Sting, Lady Gaga, Robyn), Dave Audé (Bruno Mars, Selena Gomez) and Jerry Fuentes (The Last Bandoleros). The album was mixed by Robert Orton (Lana Del Rey, Mumford \u0026amp; Sons) and engineered by Tony Lake (Sting, Shaggy). \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ will be released on CD and vinyl, and a deluxe edition will be available including live recordings of ‘Synchronicity II’, ‘Next To You’, ‘Spirits In the Material World’ and ‘Fragile’. An exclusive edition for Japan will also feature a live recording of ‘I Can’t Stop Thinking About You’, and an exclusive for France is set to include an extended version of ‘Desert Rose’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr type=\"_moz\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arts Desk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr Sumner updates his impressive back catalogue... slightly\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome say that every successful rock star's career can be divided into three phases. First comes the youthful exuberance. Next, there's mature experimentation. Finally, the artist goes back over everything he's done. That's where Sting is now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis last solo album was a homage to the Police, and now he's \"re-imagined, refitted, and reshaped\" a selection of his greatest hits. Or, at least, that's how he puts it. In truth, you'd need a magnifying glass to tell the difference between most of these and the originals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou're not, for instance, going to find \"Roxanne\" rearranged with lutes. Nor are there any new or unreleased songs. Instead, we find a series of re-recordings and remixes. The Tantric One has teamed up with a trusty bunch of old collaborators and together they have conjured up a series of subtly alternative versions of songs. To be fair, you probably wouldn't have wanted to tamper with them too much anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIronically, the new recordings sound more like demo tracks. \"So Lonely\" has been pulled down half an octave, but guitarist Jerry Fuentes still manages to reproduce Andy Summers's guitar part note for note. \"Message in a Bottle\" is fractionally slower and a little gruffer. \"Walking on the Moon\" is most notable for how drummer Josh Freese manages to outdo Stewart Copeland's original stick-work. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe remixes are a little more varied. The least successful is \"If You Love Someone Set Them Free\", which has been fitted out with the kind of beats you might have heard in Ibiza in 1996. \"Fields of Gold\", by contrast, finds new depths in its more pastoral arrangement. And \"If I Ever Lose My Faith in You\" has been made bouncier and brighter. There's also one live version, \"Roxanne\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course, with so little that's new here many will question the point of this record. Partly, it's to herald a world tour and Las Vegas residency. Really though, it's just an excuse to revisit some great tunes. And why not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt isn’t clear why Sting felt the need to take old Police and solo favourites and re-record them in slightly different versions, but they are indeed his songs and many are fantastic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReggae\/pop-punk gems by the Police such as Message in a Bottle and Walking on the Moon are as beguiling as ever, while Englishman in New York is a reminder that, while he may forever be threatening to play the lute in the lotus position in a rainforest, naked, Sting remains a nuanced and literary songwriter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOccasional attempts to update the back catalogue prove unfortunate, particularly a cheesy dance-pop version of If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, but for the most part this is a pleasant if unnecessary reminder of Sting’s finest moments. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from SuperDeluxeEdition by Paul Sinclair\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting tinkering with his old classics is a pointless exercise...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf all the things Sting could do these days, putting out a solo album filled with new compositions doesn’t appear to be high in his list of priorities. Whilst he’s been quite busy in recent years, he has sought creative and personal satisfaction from his The Last Ship project, which was by nature rather collaborative, he’s made a record with Shaggy (which was actually a lot of fun) and even on tour Sting has teamed up with others to keep him company (Paul Simon and now Shaggy). 2016’s 57th \u0026amp; 9th is his only solo album in the last 15 years and after its somewhat tepid reception, Sting may well have thought ‘what’s the point?’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut hey, even if you easily sell out tours largely on the strength of your greatest hits, chances are your marketing ‘team’ will advise that you still need something new-sounding to hang it on, and if you haven’t got fresh songs or perhaps a reissue to promote, what other options are available to you? Step forward the idea of ‘revisiting’ old songs!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s My Songs is exactly such a project. He has re-recorded some of his old numbers, and it seems ‘deep cuts’ isn’t in his vocabulary – at least for this initiative. It includes massive Police hits like ‘Every Breath You Take’, ‘Message In A Bottle’ and solo favourites such as ‘Englishman In New York’ and ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’. Some songs are complete re-recordings, while others are a Brundlefly fusion of new and old. Describing the approach, Sting picks his words carefully, although not carefully enough to avoid sounding like a double-glazing salesman: “Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, and all of them with a contemporary focus.” Remember that last phrase.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo what are these new versions like? It varies, but if there’s one thing these recordings have in common it’s that none of them improve on the originals. That need not render the My Songs initiative a pointless exercise, because there’s much pleasure to be had from creative explorations or getting to a finished song via an alternative route, but Sting really isn’t interested in that at this juncture. He’s eschewing any twisty musical B-roads and opting for the sitting-in-the-middle-lane of a straight and direct motorway. He’s has typed ‘contemporary focus’ into his sat nav and isn’t going to risk not reaching that destination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis goal, that destination, is about maximising the appeal of his back catalogue to a much younger, streaming-dominated generation. He’s really shoving a needle into the temples of some great pop songs and injecting a bit of botox; filling out what he perceives as some cragginess and making them (in his eyes) fit for purpose for young listeners.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo be fair, Sting’s arguments are thoughtfully presented. He told Billboard earlier this year that “sometimes songs are identified by the technology they were recorded with – recording techniques, the sound of synthesizers or the drum sound. They all date a song, so we just want to re-contemporise the stuff.” In other words, he feels that some of the production is dated and getting in the way of people hearing or enjoying his old Police and solo hits. Millennials scared off by the punky rawness of the late 1970s or the reverb and bombast of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe problem is, while I accept that no one is denying us access to the originals, Sting is effectively creating a marketplace with two versions of these songs, the songs as released and these ‘reframed\/refitted\/\u003cbr\u003ereconstructed’ versions. That could be confusing. Also, has anyone ever actually said “I really like ‘Every Breath You Take’ but I wish it didn’t sound so old-fashioned”?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet’s talk about some specifics. As far as I’m concerned “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” is one of Sting’s most enduring solo songs and should be left well alone. Alas, Mr Sumner is doing the opposite of leaving it alone. He must really hate how the original sounds, because he’s constantly fiddling with this track. It was subjected to at least eight awful dance remixes back in 1994, was remixed for the 25 Years compilation\/box set back in 2011 and he’s tinkered with it again for My Songs. This new version is effectively a mild dance mix that surgically removes most of the song’s personality. Something like a ‘Tin Tin Out’ remix from the late 1990s. The vocal sounds like the original to these ears, but the drums are now programmed. Who’d want to replace Omar Hakim with a drum machine? Kate Bush chose to do the opposite with Director’s Cut, replacing soulless programmed rhythms with Steve Gadd. You listen back to the original version of ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’ and absorb the wonderful organic arrangement with that Hammond, and the loose drums and the world class list of musicians (including Kenny Kirkland, Branford Marsalis) and can only shake your head in exasperation when you hear the new one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe beautiful “Shape of My Heart” (surprisingly, not a hit back in 1993) has a percussive ‘click’ not in the original and in this instance does have a new vocal. It is sung perfectly well, but I’m sorry, it’s simply not as good as the original. While fashions in production and musical styles may change for the better over time (or maybe not) what rarely improves is the human singing voice. Artists like Sting have a habit of trying to convince us that their voices are ‘more interesting’ in their later years (George Michael once said he found his singing voice in the 80s ‘boring’) but they’re surely kidding themselves – the unbridled range and power of the ‘early years’ is always going to be preferable. There’s no shame in losing some of your range when you get to your 50s or 60s but let’s get real… it’s not normally ‘better’. Apart from the inferior vocal, Shape Of My Heart doesn’t sound a whole lot different, which begs the question, why?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Every Breath You Take’ is fundamentally the same, although it now has a drum sound like someone hitting a cardboard box. Also, to the point above, the original had a very relaxed vocal during the verses, 35 years later Sting has to try harder and you can hear the effort. It’s not as relaxing a listen. Rather like watching your kid perform in the school play. You’re worried it’s all going to go wrong. This song exhibits the worst attributes of My Songs. It’s a new recording – and therefore ‘different’ – but is so similar as to be utterly pointless. There is literally NO reason to listen to this version above the original.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘I Can’t Stand Losing You’ is similar to ‘Every Breath You Take’. The youthful exuberance is sucked from the song as a bloke in his mid-sixties tries to recreate his youth. Meanwhile ‘Fields of Gold’ at least boasts a slightly different intro (and outro), although like ‘Shape of My Heart’ Sting is convinced the key to streaming success is to change the snare sound. Not a click this time but more of a ‘pfft’ sound. Other than that, it all sounds fairly similar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the album continues in the same vein. Sting rather over enunciates the lyrics to a facsimile ‘Englishman In New York’ and throws in some car horns beeping over that booming drum break (for no apparent reason), while ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith In You’ has lost all its balls; the synth pads and fat rhythm section are the skilled veterans made redundant and replaced with work experience team of light skipping percussion and ambient styling. ‘Faith’ is actually quite bad, to be honest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s sad that, as with Paul McCartney – who recently worked with Ryan Tedder for a few tracks on the Egypt Station sessions – Sting apparently wants to sound MORE GENERIC to ‘fit in’ with modern musical landscapes. Neither man, it seems, can switch off the desire to be a pop star and therefore they are driven to stay ‘popular’ and will do whatever is required, even if it means messing with rock\/pop classics (in Sting’s case) or releasing new material that’s close to embarrassing (McCartney).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s another element to all this. Re-recording your old material is often financially an astute move, if your label retains rights to the original recordings. It’s not clear if this is Sting’s motivation, but potentially, if a Sting-penned track is up for being used for a movie or TV, Sting’s representatives will be sure proffer the ‘My Songs’ version and potentially earn more for ’sync’ rights than if they used the original. Blondie re-recorded their old hits for similar reasons back in 2014, with their Greatest Hits Redux, but at least they had the decency to bundle it as a freebie with their new album at the time (Ghosts of Download). With Sting ‘My Songs’ IS the new album!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGood for Sting, he’s a canny operator, but it starts to dawn on you that this project is rather inward looking. It is all about Sting, what suits him, what works for his tour what gets him a (perceived) leg-up in the world of streaming and the yoof of today. Sting is the angler who buys his wife a fishing rod for Christmas, and expects her to be thrilled. We don’t really get what we want (new songs, or at least interesting rearrangements of old songs) but rather we have to force a smile as he hands over what he actually wants. Thank you for my present Sting, I really hope you enjoy it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Spill magazine by Taylor Hodgkins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting hardly needs an introduction, but if one is necessary, listening to My Songs would serve this purpose as to where the singer-songwriter and former frontman of The Police is at this point of his career.  For anyone even remotely familiar with Sting’s work, My Songs will make the listener think, “Yeah, these are his songs, alright.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting seems to be out to prove he has control of his career and the ability to secure any point of relevancy in the year of our Sting, 2019. The reworked version of “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” exhibits this thought pattern. The original version served as an introduction to Sting’s solo career after the breakup of The Police, he wanted you to know he was HERE, and if you loved the “old” Sting, set him FREE! The reworked version seems to say “If you loved anything about Sting’s sound, set it free, too. The idea of a club-friendly Sting sounded odd back in 1985, and the thought is difficult to digest now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe idea of Sting’s reworkings being difficult to digest continues throughout the record. The versions of beloved cuts by The Police are slightly better; “Walking On The Moon” makes an attempt, albeit a slight one, to acknowledge the influence of Stewart Copeland’s drumming. “Every Breath You Take”, however, is a parody of its original cheeseball nature; your friend’s wedding band did a better job!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOverall, if you love your back catalogue, please set it free!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155999330386,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/live_1570167450_640.jpg?v=1758315273"},{"product_id":"my-songs-special-edition-worldwide","title":"My Songs : Special Edition (Worldwide)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSpeaking on his approach to the album, Sting says: “‘My Songs’ is my life in songs. Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, but all of them with a contemporary focus.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ boasts modernized recordings, faithful to the original arrangements and celebrates Sting’s illustrious musical career as one of the world’s most distinctive and influential artists. Since forming The Police in 1977 with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, Sting has evolved into one of the world’s most iconic artists, selling 100 million records and earning the highest accolades along the way. Fans can expect to hear Sting’s own fresh approach to hits including “Englishman In New York,” “Fields Of Gold,” “Shape Of My Heart,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Roxanne,” “Message In A Bottle” and many more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album will also be accompanied by new liner notes written by Sting, in which he shares the personal stories behind each song and provides insight into how some of the most enduring songs of all time were written.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever one to stand still, in the summer of 2018, following his collaborative album release with Shaggy - the Grammy Award-winning chart-topping record ‘44\/876’ – the iconic duo launched a world tour through North America, South America, Eastern Europe and this year will extend to the UK for a series of intimate shows from May 19th - 25th. These collaborative performances will be followed by Sting’s own, solo ‘My Songs’ tour this summer - a dynamic show featuring the most beloved songs written by Sting spanning his prolific career, accompanied by an electric, rock ensemble. Tour itinerary and tickets can be found at www.sting.com.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ was produced and A\u0026amp;R’d by Martin Kierszenbaum (Sting, Lady Gaga, Robyn), Dave Audé (Bruno Mars, Selena Gomez) and Jerry Fuentes (The Last Bandoleros). The album was mixed by Robert Orton (Lana Del Rey, Mumford \u0026amp; Sons) and engineered by Tony Lake (Sting, Shaggy). \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘My Songs’ will be released on CD and vinyl, and a deluxe edition will be available including live recordings of ‘Synchronicity II’, ‘Next To You’, ‘Spirits In the Material World’ and ‘Fragile’. An exclusive edition for Japan will also feature a live recording of ‘I Can’t Stop Thinking About You’, and an exclusive for France is set to include an extended version of ‘Desert Rose’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr type=\"_moz\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Arts Desk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr Sumner updates his impressive back catalogue... slightly\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome say that every successful rock star's career can be divided into three phases. First comes the youthful exuberance. Next, there's mature experimentation. Finally, the artist goes back over everything he's done. That's where Sting is now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis last solo album was a homage to the Police, and now he's \"re-imagined, refitted, and reshaped\" a selection of his greatest hits. Or, at least, that's how he puts it. In truth, you'd need a magnifying glass to tell the difference between most of these and the originals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou're not, for instance, going to find \"Roxanne\" rearranged with lutes. Nor are there any new or unreleased songs. Instead, we find a series of re-recordings and remixes. The Tantric One has teamed up with a trusty bunch of old collaborators and together they have conjured up a series of subtly alternative versions of songs. To be fair, you probably wouldn't have wanted to tamper with them too much anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIronically, the new recordings sound more like demo tracks. \"So Lonely\" has been pulled down half an octave, but guitarist Jerry Fuentes still manages to reproduce Andy Summers's guitar part note for note. \"Message in a Bottle\" is fractionally slower and a little gruffer. \"Walking on the Moon\" is most notable for how drummer Josh Freese manages to outdo Stewart Copeland's original stick-work. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe remixes are a little more varied. The least successful is \"If You Love Someone Set Them Free\", which has been fitted out with the kind of beats you might have heard in Ibiza in 1996. \"Fields of Gold\", by contrast, finds new depths in its more pastoral arrangement. And \"If I Ever Lose My Faith in You\" has been made bouncier and brighter. There's also one live version, \"Roxanne\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course, with so little that's new here many will question the point of this record. Partly, it's to herald a world tour and Las Vegas residency. Really though, it's just an excuse to revisit some great tunes. And why not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt isn’t clear why Sting felt the need to take old Police and solo favourites and re-record them in slightly different versions, but they are indeed his songs and many are fantastic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReggae\/pop-punk gems by the Police such as Message in a Bottle and Walking on the Moon are as beguiling as ever, while Englishman in New York is a reminder that, while he may forever be threatening to play the lute in the lotus position in a rainforest, naked, Sting remains a nuanced and literary songwriter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOccasional attempts to update the back catalogue prove unfortunate, particularly a cheesy dance-pop version of If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, but for the most part this is a pleasant if unnecessary reminder of Sting’s finest moments. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from SuperDeluxeEdition by Paul Sinclair\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting tinkering with his old classics is a pointless exercise...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf all the things Sting could do these days, putting out a solo album filled with new compositions doesn’t appear to be high in his list of priorities. Whilst he’s been quite busy in recent years, he has sought creative and personal satisfaction from his The Last Ship project, which was by nature rather collaborative, he’s made a record with Shaggy (which was actually a lot of fun) and even on tour Sting has teamed up with others to keep him company (Paul Simon and now Shaggy). 2016’s 57th \u0026amp; 9th is his only solo album in the last 15 years and after its somewhat tepid reception, Sting may well have thought ‘what’s the point?’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut hey, even if you easily sell out tours largely on the strength of your greatest hits, chances are your marketing ‘team’ will advise that you still need something new-sounding to hang it on, and if you haven’t got fresh songs or perhaps a reissue to promote, what other options are available to you? Step forward the idea of ‘revisiting’ old songs!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting’s My Songs is exactly such a project. He has re-recorded some of his old numbers, and it seems ‘deep cuts’ isn’t in his vocabulary – at least for this initiative. It includes massive Police hits like ‘Every Breath You Take’, ‘Message In A Bottle’ and solo favourites such as ‘Englishman In New York’ and ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’. Some songs are complete re-recordings, while others are a Brundlefly fusion of new and old. Describing the approach, Sting picks his words carefully, although not carefully enough to avoid sounding like a double-glazing salesman: “Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, and all of them with a contemporary focus.” Remember that last phrase.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo what are these new versions like? It varies, but if there’s one thing these recordings have in common it’s that none of them improve on the originals. That need not render the My Songs initiative a pointless exercise, because there’s much pleasure to be had from creative explorations or getting to a finished song via an alternative route, but Sting really isn’t interested in that at this juncture. He’s eschewing any twisty musical B-roads and opting for the sitting-in-the-middle-lane of a straight and direct motorway. He’s has typed ‘contemporary focus’ into his sat nav and isn’t going to risk not reaching that destination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis goal, that destination, is about maximising the appeal of his back catalogue to a much younger, streaming-dominated generation. He’s really shoving a needle into the temples of some great pop songs and injecting a bit of botox; filling out what he perceives as some cragginess and making them (in his eyes) fit for purpose for young listeners.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo be fair, Sting’s arguments are thoughtfully presented. He told Billboard earlier this year that “sometimes songs are identified by the technology they were recorded with – recording techniques, the sound of synthesizers or the drum sound. They all date a song, so we just want to re-contemporise the stuff.” In other words, he feels that some of the production is dated and getting in the way of people hearing or enjoying his old Police and solo hits. Millennials scared off by the punky rawness of the late 1970s or the reverb and bombast of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe problem is, while I accept that no one is denying us access to the originals, Sting is effectively creating a marketplace with two versions of these songs, the songs as released and these ‘reframed\/refitted\/\u003cbr\u003ereconstructed’ versions. That could be confusing. Also, has anyone ever actually said “I really like ‘Every Breath You Take’ but I wish it didn’t sound so old-fashioned”?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet’s talk about some specifics. As far as I’m concerned “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” is one of Sting’s most enduring solo songs and should be left well alone. Alas, Mr Sumner is doing the opposite of leaving it alone. He must really hate how the original sounds, because he’s constantly fiddling with this track. It was subjected to at least eight awful dance remixes back in 1994, was remixed for the 25 Years compilation\/box set back in 2011 and he’s tinkered with it again for My Songs. This new version is effectively a mild dance mix that surgically removes most of the song’s personality. Something like a ‘Tin Tin Out’ remix from the late 1990s. The vocal sounds like the original to these ears, but the drums are now programmed. Who’d want to replace Omar Hakim with a drum machine? Kate Bush chose to do the opposite with Director’s Cut, replacing soulless programmed rhythms with Steve Gadd. You listen back to the original version of ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’ and absorb the wonderful organic arrangement with that Hammond, and the loose drums and the world class list of musicians (including Kenny Kirkland, Branford Marsalis) and can only shake your head in exasperation when you hear the new one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe beautiful “Shape of My Heart” (surprisingly, not a hit back in 1993) has a percussive ‘click’ not in the original and in this instance does have a new vocal. It is sung perfectly well, but I’m sorry, it’s simply not as good as the original. While fashions in production and musical styles may change for the better over time (or maybe not) what rarely improves is the human singing voice. Artists like Sting have a habit of trying to convince us that their voices are ‘more interesting’ in their later years (George Michael once said he found his singing voice in the 80s ‘boring’) but they’re surely kidding themselves – the unbridled range and power of the ‘early years’ is always going to be preferable. There’s no shame in losing some of your range when you get to your 50s or 60s but let’s get real… it’s not normally ‘better’. Apart from the inferior vocal, Shape Of My Heart doesn’t sound a whole lot different, which begs the question, why?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Every Breath You Take’ is fundamentally the same, although it now has a drum sound like someone hitting a cardboard box. Also, to the point above, the original had a very relaxed vocal during the verses, 35 years later Sting has to try harder and you can hear the effort. It’s not as relaxing a listen. Rather like watching your kid perform in the school play. You’re worried it’s all going to go wrong. This song exhibits the worst attributes of My Songs. It’s a new recording – and therefore ‘different’ – but is so similar as to be utterly pointless. There is literally NO reason to listen to this version above the original.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘I Can’t Stand Losing You’ is similar to ‘Every Breath You Take’. The youthful exuberance is sucked from the song as a bloke in his mid-sixties tries to recreate his youth. Meanwhile ‘Fields of Gold’ at least boasts a slightly different intro (and outro), although like ‘Shape of My Heart’ Sting is convinced the key to streaming success is to change the snare sound. Not a click this time but more of a ‘pfft’ sound. Other than that, it all sounds fairly similar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the album continues in the same vein. Sting rather over enunciates the lyrics to a facsimile ‘Englishman In New York’ and throws in some car horns beeping over that booming drum break (for no apparent reason), while ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith In You’ has lost all its balls; the synth pads and fat rhythm section are the skilled veterans made redundant and replaced with work experience team of light skipping percussion and ambient styling. ‘Faith’ is actually quite bad, to be honest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s sad that, as with Paul McCartney – who recently worked with Ryan Tedder for a few tracks on the Egypt Station sessions – Sting apparently wants to sound MORE GENERIC to ‘fit in’ with modern musical landscapes. Neither man, it seems, can switch off the desire to be a pop star and therefore they are driven to stay ‘popular’ and will do whatever is required, even if it means messing with rock\/pop classics (in Sting’s case) or releasing new material that’s close to embarrassing (McCartney).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s another element to all this. Re-recording your old material is often financially an astute move, if your label retains rights to the original recordings. It’s not clear if this is Sting’s motivation, but potentially, if a Sting-penned track is up for being used for a movie or TV, Sting’s representatives will be sure proffer the ‘My Songs’ version and potentially earn more for ’sync’ rights than if they used the original. Blondie re-recorded their old hits for similar reasons back in 2014, with their Greatest Hits Redux, but at least they had the decency to bundle it as a freebie with their new album at the time (Ghosts of Download). With Sting ‘My Songs’ IS the new album!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGood for Sting, he’s a canny operator, but it starts to dawn on you that this project is rather inward looking. It is all about Sting, what suits him, what works for his tour what gets him a (perceived) leg-up in the world of streaming and the yoof of today. Sting is the angler who buys his wife a fishing rod for Christmas, and expects her to be thrilled. We don’t really get what we want (new songs, or at least interesting rearrangements of old songs) but rather we have to force a smile as he hands over what he actually wants. Thank you for my present Sting, I really hope you enjoy it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Spill magazine by Taylor Hodgkins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting hardly needs an introduction, but if one is necessary, listening to My Songs would serve this purpose as to where the singer-songwriter and former frontman of The Police is at this point of his career.  For anyone even remotely familiar with Sting’s work, My Songs will make the listener think, “Yeah, these are his songs, alright.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting seems to be out to prove he has control of his career and the ability to secure any point of relevancy in the year of our Sting, 2019. The reworked version of “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” exhibits this thought pattern. The original version served as an introduction to Sting’s solo career after the breakup of The Police, he wanted you to know he was HERE, and if you loved the “old” Sting, set him FREE! The reworked version seems to say “If you loved anything about Sting’s sound, set it free, too. The idea of a club-friendly Sting sounded odd back in 1985, and the thought is difficult to digest now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe idea of Sting’s reworkings being difficult to digest continues throughout the record. The versions of beloved cuts by The Police are slightly better; “Walking On The Moon” makes an attempt, albeit a slight one, to acknowledge the influence of Stewart Copeland’s drumming. “Every Breath You Take”, however, is a parody of its original cheeseball nature; your friend’s wedding band did a better job!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOverall, if you love your back catalogue, please set it free!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42155999395922,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/special1570168392_640.jpg?v=1758315274"},{"product_id":"duets-cd","title":"Duets (CD)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlways known as a musical explorer, pioneering genre-bending sounds and collaborations, 17-time Grammy Award winner Sting will release a new album, entitled Duets, on March 19, 2021. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the melismatic longing of “Desert Rose” with Rai music singer Cheb Mami and sultry groove of “It’s Probably Me” with Eric Clapton to the uplifting 44\/876 with Shaggy, which yielded his most recent and 17th GRAMMY award, Sting’s collaborations have become nothing short of cornerstones in the canon of popular music. To celebrate some of these joint-works, he has compiled a special collection to include some of his most beloved duets with collaborators such as Mary J. Blige, Herbie Hancock, Eric Clapton, Annie Lennox, Charles Aznavour, Mylène Farmer, Shaggy, Melody Gardot, Gashi and more. The Duets album will also include the brand new, never-before-released song, “September” with Italian icon Zucchero, produced by Sting himself and mixed by 4-time Grammy Award winner Robert Orton.  Full album track listing is included below. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuets was Executive Produced and A\u0026amp;R’d by Guénaël “GG” Geay \u0026amp; Martin Kierszenbaum with all songs mastered by Gene Grimaldi at Oasis Mastering, Los Angeles, United States.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from RIFF Magazine by Alexander Baechle\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt 69 years of age and over 7 million monthly listeners on Spotify, English musician Sting would appear to have a fair amount of pull in the music industry. A look at the guest performers on his new compilation album, Duets, confirms the distinctive vocalist’s tenured clout as a musician’s musician.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuets covers roughly the past 20 years, exclusively focusing on Sting’s work with other major recording artists. During this period, hit songs were a rarity for Sting, but collaborations were frequent and fruitful. Duets nicely places more adventurous, obscure material alongside successful singles and unit shifters. Sting ventures into jazz, soul and international beats, highlighting lesser-known talents like Algerian raï artist Cheb Mami on “Desert Rose.” This sits alongside “Don’t Make Me Wait,” a song from his 2018 joint album with Shaggy, 44\/876, a record which revitalized both artists’ sales.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s not within the scope of Duets to present a particular musical direction or storytelling arc. The anthology is certainly no concept album, nor does it attempt to work from a theorem or happenstance to explore a particular mood or atmosphere. Instead it offers a collection of carefully cultivated pop vocal performances. As such, the songs should be appreciated individually as singular works.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe record succeeds in emphasizing collaborative magic over star power. More under-the-radar artists like Melody Gardot and Mylène Farmer appear early in the running order, while heavy hitters like Annie Lennox and Shaggy emerge in the middle of the album. The songs on Duets cannot easily be categorized as belonging wholly to Sting. Each takes on a life of its own, and infuses the character of its guest performer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis emphasis on channeling charismatic and lionized performers of the past half-century brings real joy to the proceedings. Highlight “None Of Us Are Free” boasts a powerful vocal from the legendary Sam Moore of Sam \u0026amp; Dave fame. The weary but determined blues vibe of the song also provides a reprieve from the collection’s tendency toward driving, modern beats.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSimilarly, the undeniable Mary J. Blige oozes exuberance on “Whenever I Say Your Name.” Both Blige and Sting take the opportunity to play to their strengths. Sting begins the tune with a characteristically moody, subtle verse. Imperceptibly, the song morphs into a borderline funk romp, pushing Blige’s power vocals to the fore.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough vocalists are emphasized, a handful of guests make their contributions instrumentally. Jazz trumpeter Chris Botti pops up on the closing track. Sting dusts off show-tune “My Funny Valentine” with a tasteful contribution from one of the greats, Herbie Hancock. On the smoky “It’s Probably Me,” a duet for voice and electric guitar, rock legend Eric Clapton appears providing restrained blues licks and evocative phrasings. Nominated for a Grammy in 1993, “It’s Probably Me” perfectly captures Sting’s bourgeois-hippie appeal. Baroque scales and acoustic instruments echo like a chamber performance at some shadowy vineyard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElsewhere, Sting makes songs better by hanging back to swell the progress. Sleeper “Practical Arrangement” works well as a film-musical plot piece. Guest vocalist Jo Lawry channels the hard-won convictions of the female lead. Through back and forth conversational lyrics, Lawry and Sting highlight the difficulty of embarking on a mutually committed journey. Sting’s character asks for responsibility and trust, but is rebuked with penetrating questions. Yet Lawry’s believable treatment of appropriate boundary-setting still carries enough warmth to hint at redemption.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch organic pithiness underpins the majority of Duets’ songs and performances. At a certain point, or for certain listeners, it’s not enough to save the record from its glistening production value. Though no less than we’d expect from Sting at this point, a few songs come across as hookless and overproduced. Sterile dance beats creep in where they aren’t particularly needed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe strangely cold “September,” for example, wavers between pastoral musing and dance-floor pep. Continental bluesman Zucchero matches the timbre of Sting’s voice in Italian, but a viscous under-beat recurs to interrupt the pretty daydream. “Reste,” with GIMS, feels like a mismatch of vocalists and styles. “Rise And Fall” verges on the painful—Craig David’s cloying, overly busy vocals detract from the aching classical guitar hook borrowed from Ten Summoner’s Tales’ superior song, “Shape Of My Heart.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHowever, on the whole, Duets portrays Sting as a conduit for passionate performances. On many of the songs, his contribution is understated and uncertain, serving to push the featured artist forward. Yet the fact that each song is of such polished and refined quality speaks to Sting’s subtle knack for engineering holistic, arty pop songs. Though he sacrifices some amount of the spotlight, the songs, the artists and listeners benefit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Independent by Rachel Brodsky\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCompilation album is a generous reminder of The Police star’s incalculable range.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sting and Shaggy Know You’re Confused” read a headline in Forbes when the former Police frontman and reggae mainstay released a collaborative album 44\/876, in 2018. From a bird’s-eye view, the pair’s collaboration seemed unlikely, with Sting and The Police being at the forefront of Britain’s 1980s new wave movement and Shaggy being synonymous with a 2000s single about denying infidelity. And yet, anyone intimately familiar with Sting - both as a solo artist and leader of The Police - knows of his decades-long history melding sounds, dabbling in everything from rock to jazz, new-age, the West African raï genre, classical, reggae - the list goes on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, all of Sting‘s decade-spanning collaborations, starting from the early 1990s and up to the present, have been placed together in a wonderful compilation, simply titled Duets, featuring recordings with Mary J. Blige (“Whenever I Say Your Name”), Herbie Hancock (“My Funny Valentine”), Eric Clapton (“It’s Probably Me”), Annie Lennox (“We’ll Be Together”), Charles Aznavour (“L’amour C’est COmme Un Jour”), Mylène Farmer (“Stolen Car”), Shaggy (“Don’t Make Me Wait”), Melody Gardot (“Little Something”), Cheb Mami (“Desert Rose”), and more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a welcome opportunity to revisit Sting‘s lengthy collaborative resume; if anything, Duets serves as a reminder that not only has the man been doing this for a long time, but when he does team up with a new artist, he strikes just the right balance in letting the featured player shine, and letting the song belong to them as well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is generally known that Sting likes to collaborate with artists from all over the map, literally and from a genre perspective. But the point is driven home on Duets and should clear up any so-called “confusion” casual listeners might have the next time he drops a joint effort.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Glide magazine by Victor Vargas\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSting Showcases Dynamic Range Via Collaborations On ‘Duets’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith his fifteenth solo album, Sting’s Duets is a fluid journey between other collaborators with touches of inspiration from a plethora of genres, all while boasting that finesse and swagger that’s immortalized in his past work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe collection opens up with a strong three-punch of songs with Melody Gardot, Eric Clapton, and Mylène Farmer. The opener, “Little Something,” with Gardot sets the tone for the project with a quarantine-recorded song that’s fun and beaming with a suave melody. Its bright and uplifting sound is something that is mirrored with the chemistry boasted by the two on the track.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the project continues on, Sting moves to sample some of his own work on the album’s fifth track with Craig David. It samples his own fingerpicking from 1993’s “Shape Of My Heart”. Repurposing older works and reliving older songs via covers are what make Duets an album that will speak to fans of Sting’s earliest solo work and fans of The Police. Its merit lay in how these songs are able to explore the collaborative efforts between all sorts of artists from different generations and backgrounds. This idea is echoed on “Desert Rose” with Cheb Mami or “Fragile” with Julio Iglesias.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn keeping with the duet nature of the album, songs with other notable figures emerge such as the celebrated “Reste” with GIMS, or “Don’t Me Wait” with Shaggy. The latter having originally appeared on 2018’s joint project with Shaggy, renews the notion that this album is a collection of great collaborations and cannot be treated as a cohesive body of work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis collection of tracks that crosses genres and languages is the heart of Duets. Whether it’s covers, rejuvenating his older works, or bringing someone from a different language onto the track, Duets is a space where the music is about having fun and sounding good.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Clash magazine by Emma Harrison\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA solid return from the songwriting legend...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith one of the most impressive bodies of work both as a solo artist and as front man of The Police and with over seven million (!) monthly listeners on Spotify, Sting continues to demonstrate his musical acumen and clout as one of the UK’s top male vocalists and songwriters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Duets' takes a retrospective and reflective look at his work collaborating with other guest artists over the last twenty years featuring the likes of Eric Clapton, Annie Lennox, Herbie Hancock, Mary J. Blige and Shaggy amongst others. Sting has never shied away from creative diversity, spanning different genres, and showcasing artists who wouldn’t necessarily have a platform for a more traditional mainstream audience such as a lesser-known talent like Algerian raï artist Cheb Mami.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA handful of guests make their contributions instrumentally such as jazz trumpeter Chris Botti on ‘In 'The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning’ and Herbie Hancock lends his incredible keys to a heart- warming interpretation of the show tune ‘My Funny Valentine’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEach track needs to be appreciated individually as a singular piece of work that takes on a life of its own and embodies the character of its guest performer. One of the highlights must be ‘Rise \u0026amp; Fall’ with the fantastic Craig David which was originally released in 2002 featuring a sample of Sting’s 1993 track ‘Shape Of My Heart’. The bluesy Grammy award winning sultry groove ‘It’s Probably Me’, with rock legend Eric Clapton is also a standout track.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are new additions to his collection which were recorded remotely in lockdown such as ‘September’ where he collaborates with Italian singing icon Zucchero, and ‘Little Something’ with Melody Gardot which was released in 2020.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSpanning an array of genres including worldbeat, jazz, classical, blues, rock and new-age, 'Duets' is an solid collection from one of the UK’s most prolific singer-songwriters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Cryptic Rock by Michele Johnson\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBass guitar god and Rock music staple Sting, AKA Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, has dabbled in Blues, Jazz, Spanish Flamenco, and even Broadway over the years. In the late ‘70s, he took the world by storm with the Police, lasting into the mid 1980s and continuing to reunite once every blue moon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTowards the end of the band, he sought to go his own way with the release of The Dream of the Blue Turtles in 1985, and created buzz with his first single, “Fortress Around Your Heart.” Success continued with … Nothing Like the Sun (1986), then he embraced a Spanish guitar\/’90s Rock influence with Ten Summoner’s Tales (1993), took a millennial turn in Brand New Day (1999), and went on to offer up so many other classics, including a Broadway composed The Last Ship in 2013. With his most recent release of My Songs in 2019, Sting fans were, and always will be, dying to hear more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith such an expansive catalogue to go through, Sting compiled his best duets for his album of the same title, which was released on Cherrytree Records on Friday, March 19, 2021. Duets highlights his ability as an artist to be open-minded and work with people of all genres and ages; from every country possible, from France to Africa. Sting is a renaissance man of music and Duets is here to remind us of that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOpener and classic track, “Little Something,” is a jazzy collab with New Jersey native Melody Gardot. A head bopper that gives off sultry, acoustic vibes, it draws some Flamenco influence, as well. Then “It’s Probably Me,” from Ten Summoner’s Tales, displays the work of guitar god Eric Clapton.  Showing Sting’s versatility, “Stolen Car” features French-Canadian enchantress Mylene Farmer and takes more of a Pop spin, creating an underground club atmosphere, musically speaking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs we already know, Sting took a beautiful new musical direction on “Brand New Day,” the song and the album, much in thanks to Algerian singer Cheb Mam. With Middle Eastern style singing and stunning instrumentation, he creates a sensual feel along with an easily danceable beat. And it comes from a truly standout album in his career! Next, in another stylistic turn of events, he duets with British R\u0026amp;B crooner Craig David, intertwining his acoustic hook for “Shape of My Heart” to make David’s soul-searching single “Rise and Fall.” The result places a totally different spin on his music vibrancy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe incomparable Mary J. Blige gives her soul on “Whenever I Say Your Name,” from 2013’s Sacred Love, and it’s worth praise as lofty as its background vocals. Another artist who needs no introduction, Shaggy gives off his signature Jamaican flare on “Don’t Make Me Wait,” from 2018’s 44\/876. A jam of a love plea, it contrasts beautifully with the sadness and obsession of “Reste,” which features French-Congolese Hip-Hop artist GIMS and shows that Sting can keep up with the times while still providing a great hook.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA flashback to Sting’s early career, his collaboration with Annie Lennox and their song “We’ll Be Together,” from his debut, creates a funky beat and uses Lennox’s voice to create a beautifully drawn contrast while sounding like a good time. Then, “L’Amour C’est Comme Un Jour” (Love is Like a Day) with French-Armenian singer\/songwriter\/diplomat Charles Aznavour takes more of a classic approach with Sting singing in delicate French for the first time on the record. Meanwhile, “My Funny Valentine,” with Pianist Herbie Hancock, could easily be heard at any Jazz club, and yet Sting chooses to put his own spin on the classic without taking too much away from its original beauty. All of this before Julio Iglesias takes his own approach to Sting’s Spanish guitar classic “Fragile,” and Sting takes to it with subtlety, allowing Iglesias to have the spotlight.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn recent collaborations, Brooklyn Pop\/Hip Hop artist GASHI collaborates on the single “Mama,” again proving that Sting is still being heard by newer generations in unexpected ways, and with danceable beats to boot. In fact, just for the Duets record he released a single called “September” with Italian Singer-Songwriter Zucchero. It is a song that harkens back to Sting’s musical career in the 1990s, having simple, beautifully delicate instrumentation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe continues this lovely minimalism with “Practical Arrangement,” originally from The Last Ship. Featuring Australian Singer-Songwriter Jo Lawry, the Broadway-ready track intertwines a Jazz influence with Sting’s beautiful falsetto. But he takes a soulful turn when he is joined by R\u0026amp;B great Sam Moore and percussion great Sheila E on “None of Us Are Free.” Using Blues’ lyrical patterns, it relays a feel of great  inner grit and turmoil. Then, closing track “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” with Jazz great Chris Botti, sees the pair of artists playing calmly and cooperatively with one another. A Jazz fan’s dream, it also features some Pop elements, as well as orchestration, creating a well-rounded presentation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn short, Sting has proven countless times that he is a musician’s musician when it comes to collaborations. Celebrating countless styles, he has never stuck within a particular schtick, working with current artists, as we have seen with GIMS and GASHI, and even Steve Aoki, who is shamefully not on this album. Due to this eclecticism Duets has something for everyone, young and old. Coming from someone of the millennial generation, he can still be truly appreciated for his open-mindedness and he has the catalogue to back that up. His forays into Jazz, Hip Hop, and Classical, among many other genres, prove his talent and versatility. For this, Cryptic Rock gives Sting’s Duets 4 out of 5 stars.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from GuitarsExchange by Paul Rigg\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo’s Company \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting is musically restless in the same way that Elvis Costello is; having emerged as leaders of hugely successful new wave bands in the later 1970s they both established strong solo careers and then leveraged their status to make collaborations and explore vastly different styles.   \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow approaching 70, Sting’s 15th solo album, Duets (19 March, 2021; A\u0026amp;M\/Polydor) confirms that the Police frontman’s journey has been an extraordinary one. Perhaps because of the Police’s reggae infused sound it was not so unexpected that the singer collaborated with Shaggy on the album 44\/876, which went on to win a Grammy for Best Reggae Album in 2019. However as this compilation record confirms this is just one genre that the 17-time Grammy winner has explored, as Duets contains elements of rock, jazz, new-age, worldbeat, classical, soul and – how not? - West African raï.   \u003cbr\u003e    \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProduced by Sting, Guénaël “GG” Geay and Martin Kierszenbaum, Sting’s work on Duets is extraordinary because he gives each collaborating artist space to be themselves and, in some ways, even lead the development of the song. Sometimes the Englishman simply adds a vocal, while on many others he contributes with his acoustic guitar, perhaps choosing from his Martin Ditson, Martin 5-18 Terz G, Gibson or Chet Atkins CE.  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt would be pointless to try to seek coherence in this album beyond Sting’s unifying presence; it’s diversity is what makes it stand out.   \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe collection begins with the pop and flamenco-tinged Little Something, with Sting and Melody Gardot collaborating on an upbeat but soothing melody. Eric Clapton’s restrained contribution on the bluesy It’s Probably Me, which was nominated for a Grammy in 1993, is one of the album highlights, before the less familiar name of Mylène Farmer makes an appearance by joining a heavily-bearded Sting on Stolen Car.     \u003cbr\u003e    \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCollaborations with Craig David (Rise \u0026amp; Fall), Herbie Hancock (My Funny Valentine), Annie Lennox (We'll Be Together) and Julio Iglesias (Fragile) emerge around the middle of the album but it is his songs with Shaggy and Algerian artist Cheb Mami that really sparkle here. Don’t Make Me Wait is taken from the former’s 2018 album, 44\/876, while Desert Rose brought raï music into the mainstream.    \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThree songs further highlight the album’s diversity in this middle section, with Sting introducing other languages into the mix with Charles Aznavour’s L'amour C'est Comme Un Jour and Italian icon Zucchero’s September. The third curveball here is undoutedly his pairing with Mary J. Blige, who funks things up on Whenever I Say Your Name.   \u003cbr\u003e    \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs the album draws to a close, another gem appears in the shape of the blues-driven None Of Us Are Free, with vocal accompaniment provided by the legendary Sam Moore, of Sam \u0026amp; Dave renown. The final track is In The Wee Small Hours, with a warm and sultry contribution by jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, which makes you feel like you are lost in a New York bar at 3am, somewhat the worse for wear.   \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this way Duets dances around the globe, radically shifting moods and musical styles as it goes. Sting pulls off the considerable achievement of being very present on each cut but never imposing himself, which means that the featured artist is allowed to shine and bring their unique characteristics to the table. As the saying goes, Two’s Company – and for Sting, on this album, that is the perfect number... \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42156001067090,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/duets4001603861103_640.jpg?v=1758315288"},{"product_id":"duets-vinyl","title":"Duets (Vinyl)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eSoundbites\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlways known as a musical explorer, pioneering genre-bending sounds and collaborations, 17-time Grammy Award winner STING will release a new album, entitled Duets, on March 19, 2021. Fans can pre-order this special collection now: https:\/\/sting.lnk.to\/Duets\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the melismatic longing of “Desert Rose” with Rai music singer Cheb Mami and sultry groove of “It’s Probably Me” with Eric Clapton to the uplifting 44\/876 with Shaggy, which yielded his most recent and 17th GRAMMY award, Sting’s collaborations have become nothing short of cornerstones in the canon of popular music. To celebrate some of these joint-works, he has compiled a special collection to include some of his most beloved duets with collaborators such as Mary J. Blige, Herbie Hancock, Eric Clapton, Annie Lennox, Charles Aznavour, Mylène Farmer, Shaggy, Melody Gardot, Gashi and more. The Duets album will also include the brand new, never-before-released song, “September” with Italian icon Zucchero, produced by Sting himself and mixed by 4-time Grammy Award winner Robert Orton.  Full album track listing is included below. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuets was Executive Produced and A\u0026amp;R’d by Guénaël “GG” Geay \u0026amp; Martin Kierszenbaum with all songs mastered by Gene Grimaldi at Oasis Mastering, Los Angeles, United States.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \n                            \u003cdiv class=\"albumSection__albumInfo\"\u003e\n                    \u003cdiv class=\"infoLabel\"\u003e\u003ch4\u003eBackgrounder\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from RIFF Magazine by Alexander Baechle\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt 69 years of age and over 7 million monthly listeners on Spotify, English musician Sting would appear to have a fair amount of pull in the music industry. A look at the guest performers on his new compilation album, Duets, confirms the distinctive vocalist’s tenured clout as a musician’s musician.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuets covers roughly the past 20 years, exclusively focusing on Sting’s work with other major recording artists. During this period, hit songs were a rarity for Sting, but collaborations were frequent and fruitful. Duets nicely places more adventurous, obscure material alongside successful singles and unit shifters. Sting ventures into jazz, soul and international beats, highlighting lesser-known talents like Algerian raï artist Cheb Mami on “Desert Rose.” This sits alongside “Don’t Make Me Wait,” a song from his 2018 joint album with Shaggy, 44\/876, a record which revitalized both artists’ sales.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s not within the scope of Duets to present a particular musical direction or storytelling arc. The anthology is certainly no concept album, nor does it attempt to work from a theorem or happenstance to explore a particular mood or atmosphere. Instead it offers a collection of carefully cultivated pop vocal performances. As such, the songs should be appreciated individually as singular works.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe record succeeds in emphasizing collaborative magic over star power. More under-the-radar artists like Melody Gardot and Mylène Farmer appear early in the running order, while heavy hitters like Annie Lennox and Shaggy emerge in the middle of the album. The songs on Duets cannot easily be categorized as belonging wholly to Sting. Each takes on a life of its own, and infuses the character of its guest performer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis emphasis on channeling charismatic and lionized performers of the past half-century brings real joy to the proceedings. Highlight “None Of Us Are Free” boasts a powerful vocal from the legendary Sam Moore of Sam \u0026amp; Dave fame. The weary but determined blues vibe of the song also provides a reprieve from the collection’s tendency toward driving, modern beats.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSimilarly, the undeniable Mary J. Blige oozes exuberance on “Whenever I Say Your Name.” Both Blige and Sting take the opportunity to play to their strengths. Sting begins the tune with a characteristically moody, subtle verse. Imperceptibly, the song morphs into a borderline funk romp, pushing Blige’s power vocals to the fore.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough vocalists are emphasized, a handful of guests make their contributions instrumentally. Jazz trumpeter Chris Botti pops up on the closing track. Sting dusts off show-tune “My Funny Valentine” with a tasteful contribution from one of the greats, Herbie Hancock. On the smoky “It’s Probably Me,” a duet for voice and electric guitar, rock legend Eric Clapton appears providing restrained blues licks and evocative phrasings. Nominated for a Grammy in 1993, “It’s Probably Me” perfectly captures Sting’s bourgeois-hippie appeal. Baroque scales and acoustic instruments echo like a chamber performance at some shadowy vineyard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElsewhere, Sting makes songs better by hanging back to swell the progress. Sleeper “Practical Arrangement” works well as a film-musical plot piece. Guest vocalist Jo Lawry channels the hard-won convictions of the female lead. Through back and forth conversational lyrics, Lawry and Sting highlight the difficulty of embarking on a mutually committed journey. Sting’s character asks for responsibility and trust, but is rebuked with penetrating questions. Yet Lawry’s believable treatment of appropriate boundary-setting still carries enough warmth to hint at redemption.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch organic pithiness underpins the majority of Duets’ songs and performances. At a certain point, or for certain listeners, it’s not enough to save the record from its glistening production value. Though no less than we’d expect from Sting at this point, a few songs come across as hookless and overproduced. Sterile dance beats creep in where they aren’t particularly needed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe strangely cold “September,” for example, wavers between pastoral musing and dance-floor pep. Continental bluesman Zucchero matches the timbre of Sting’s voice in Italian, but a viscous under-beat recurs to interrupt the pretty daydream. “Reste,” with GIMS, feels like a mismatch of vocalists and styles. “Rise And Fall” verges on the painful—Craig David’s cloying, overly busy vocals detract from the aching classical guitar hook borrowed from Ten Summoner’s Tales’ superior song, “Shape Of My Heart.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHowever, on the whole, Duets portrays Sting as a conduit for passionate performances. On many of the songs, his contribution is understated and uncertain, serving to push the featured artist forward. Yet the fact that each song is of such polished and refined quality speaks to Sting’s subtle knack for engineering holistic, arty pop songs. Though he sacrifices some amount of the spotlight, the songs, the artists and listeners benefit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from The Independent by Rachel Brodsky\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCompilation album is a generous reminder of The Police star’s incalculable range.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sting and Shaggy Know You’re Confused” read a headline in Forbes when the former Police frontman and reggae mainstay released a collaborative album 44\/876, in 2018. From a bird’s-eye view, the pair’s collaboration seemed unlikely, with Sting and The Police being at the forefront of Britain’s 1980s new wave movement and Shaggy being synonymous with a 2000s single about denying infidelity. And yet, anyone intimately familiar with Sting - both as a solo artist and leader of The Police - knows of his decades-long history melding sounds, dabbling in everything from rock to jazz, new-age, the West African raï genre, classical, reggae - the list goes on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, all of Sting‘s decade-spanning collaborations, starting from the early 1990s and up to the present, have been placed together in a wonderful compilation, simply titled Duets, featuring recordings with Mary J. Blige (“Whenever I Say Your Name”), Herbie Hancock (“My Funny Valentine”), Eric Clapton (“It’s Probably Me”), Annie Lennox (“We’ll Be Together”), Charles Aznavour (“L’amour C’est COmme Un Jour”), Mylène Farmer (“Stolen Car”), Shaggy (“Don’t Make Me Wait”), Melody Gardot (“Little Something”), Cheb Mami (“Desert Rose”), and more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a welcome opportunity to revisit Sting‘s lengthy collaborative resume; if anything, Duets serves as a reminder that not only has the man been doing this for a long time, but when he does team up with a new artist, he strikes just the right balance in letting the featured player shine, and letting the song belong to them as well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is generally known that Sting likes to collaborate with artists from all over the map, literally and from a genre perspective. But the point is driven home on Duets and should clear up any so-called “confusion” casual listeners might have the next time he drops a joint effort.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Glide magazine by Victor Vargas\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSting Showcases Dynamic Range Via Collaborations On ‘Duets’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith his fifteenth solo album, Sting’s Duets is a fluid journey between other collaborators with touches of inspiration from a plethora of genres, all while boasting that finesse and swagger that’s immortalized in his past work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe collection opens up with a strong three-punch of songs with Melody Gardot, Eric Clapton, and Mylène Farmer. The opener, “Little Something,” with Gardot sets the tone for the project with a quarantine-recorded song that’s fun and beaming with a suave melody. Its bright and uplifting sound is something that is mirrored with the chemistry boasted by the two on the track.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the project continues on, Sting moves to sample some of his own work on the album’s fifth track with Craig David. It samples his own fingerpicking from 1993’s “Shape Of My Heart”. Repurposing older works and reliving older songs via covers are what make Duets an album that will speak to fans of Sting’s earliest solo work and fans of The Police. Its merit lay in how these songs are able to explore the collaborative efforts between all sorts of artists from different generations and backgrounds. This idea is echoed on “Desert Rose” with Cheb Mami or “Fragile” with Julio Iglesias.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn keeping with the duet nature of the album, songs with other notable figures emerge such as the celebrated “Reste” with GIMS, or “Don’t Me Wait” with Shaggy. The latter having originally appeared on 2018’s joint project with Shaggy, renews the notion that this album is a collection of great collaborations and cannot be treated as a cohesive body of work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis collection of tracks that crosses genres and languages is the heart of Duets. Whether it’s covers, rejuvenating his older works, or bringing someone from a different language onto the track, Duets is a space where the music is about having fun and sounding good.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Clash magazine by Emma Harrison\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA solid return from the songwriting legend...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith one of the most impressive bodies of work both as a solo artist and as front man of The Police and with over seven million (!) monthly listeners on Spotify, Sting continues to demonstrate his musical acumen and clout as one of the UK’s top male vocalists and songwriters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Duets' takes a retrospective and reflective look at his work collaborating with other guest artists over the last twenty years featuring the likes of Eric Clapton, Annie Lennox, Herbie Hancock, Mary J. Blige and Shaggy amongst others. Sting has never shied away from creative diversity, spanning different genres, and showcasing artists who wouldn’t necessarily have a platform for a more traditional mainstream audience such as a lesser-known talent like Algerian raï artist Cheb Mami.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA handful of guests make their contributions instrumentally such as jazz trumpeter Chris Botti on ‘In 'The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning’ and Herbie Hancock lends his incredible keys to a heart- warming interpretation of the show tune ‘My Funny Valentine’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEach track needs to be appreciated individually as a singular piece of work that takes on a life of its own and embodies the character of its guest performer. One of the highlights must be ‘Rise \u0026amp; Fall’ with the fantastic Craig David which was originally released in 2002 featuring a sample of Sting’s 1993 track ‘Shape Of My Heart’. The bluesy Grammy award winning sultry groove ‘It’s Probably Me’, with rock legend Eric Clapton is also a standout track.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are new additions to his collection which were recorded remotely in lockdown such as ‘September’ where he collaborates with Italian singing icon Zucchero, and ‘Little Something’ with Melody Gardot which was released in 2020.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSpanning an array of genres including worldbeat, jazz, classical, blues, rock and new-age, 'Duets' is an solid collection from one of the UK’s most prolific singer-songwriters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from Cryptic Rock by Michele Johnson\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBass guitar god and Rock music staple Sting, AKA Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, has dabbled in Blues, Jazz, Spanish Flamenco, and even Broadway over the years. In the late ‘70s, he took the world by storm with the Police, lasting into the mid 1980s and continuing to reunite once every blue moon.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTowards the end of the band, he sought to go his own way with the release of The Dream of the Blue Turtles in 1985, and created buzz with his first single, “Fortress Around Your Heart.” Success continued with … Nothing Like the Sun (1986), then he embraced a Spanish guitar\/’90s Rock influence with Ten Summoner’s Tales (1993), took a millennial turn in Brand New Day (1999), and went on to offer up so many other classics, including a Broadway composed The Last Ship in 2013. With his most recent release of My Songs in 2019, Sting fans were, and always will be, dying to hear more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith such an expansive catalogue to go through, Sting compiled his best duets for his album of the same title, which was released on Cherrytree Records on Friday, March 19, 2021. Duets highlights his ability as an artist to be open-minded and work with people of all genres and ages; from every country possible, from France to Africa. Sting is a renaissance man of music and Duets is here to remind us of that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOpener and classic track, “Little Something,” is a jazzy collab with New Jersey native Melody Gardot. A head bopper that gives off sultry, acoustic vibes, it draws some Flamenco influence, as well. Then “It’s Probably Me,” from Ten Summoner’s Tales, displays the work of guitar god Eric Clapton.  Showing Sting’s versatility, “Stolen Car” features French-Canadian enchantress Mylene Farmer and takes more of a Pop spin, creating an underground club atmosphere, musically speaking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs we already know, Sting took a beautiful new musical direction on “Brand New Day,” the song and the album, much in thanks to Algerian singer Cheb Mam. With Middle Eastern style singing and stunning instrumentation, he creates a sensual feel along with an easily danceable beat. And it comes from a truly standout album in his career! Next, in another stylistic turn of events, he duets with British R\u0026amp;B crooner Craig David, intertwining his acoustic hook for “Shape of My Heart” to make David’s soul-searching single “Rise and Fall.” The result places a totally different spin on his music vibrancy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe incomparable Mary J. Blige gives her soul on “Whenever I Say Your Name,” from 2013’s Sacred Love, and it’s worth praise as lofty as its background vocals. Another artist who needs no introduction, Shaggy gives off his signature Jamaican flare on “Don’t Make Me Wait,” from 2018’s 44\/876. A jam of a love plea, it contrasts beautifully with the sadness and obsession of “Reste,” which features French-Congolese Hip-Hop artist GIMS and shows that Sting can keep up with the times while still providing a great hook.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA flashback to Sting’s early career, his collaboration with Annie Lennox and their song “We’ll Be Together,” from his debut, creates a funky beat and uses Lennox’s voice to create a beautifully drawn contrast while sounding like a good time. Then, “L’Amour C’est Comme Un Jour” (Love is Like a Day) with French-Armenian singer\/songwriter\/diplomat Charles Aznavour takes more of a classic approach with Sting singing in delicate French for the first time on the record. Meanwhile, “My Funny Valentine,” with Pianist Herbie Hancock, could easily be heard at any Jazz club, and yet Sting chooses to put his own spin on the classic without taking too much away from its original beauty. All of this before Julio Iglesias takes his own approach to Sting’s Spanish guitar classic “Fragile,” and Sting takes to it with subtlety, allowing Iglesias to have the spotlight.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn recent collaborations, Brooklyn Pop\/Hip Hop artist GASHI collaborates on the single “Mama,” again proving that Sting is still being heard by newer generations in unexpected ways, and with danceable beats to boot. In fact, just for the Duets record he released a single called “September” with Italian Singer-Songwriter Zucchero. It is a song that harkens back to Sting’s musical career in the 1990s, having simple, beautifully delicate instrumentation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe continues this lovely minimalism with “Practical Arrangement,” originally from The Last Ship. Featuring Australian Singer-Songwriter Jo Lawry, the Broadway-ready track intertwines a Jazz influence with Sting’s beautiful falsetto. But he takes a soulful turn when he is joined by R\u0026amp;B great Sam Moore and percussion great Sheila E on “None of Us Are Free.” Using Blues’ lyrical patterns, it relays a feel of great  inner grit and turmoil. Then, closing track “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” with Jazz great Chris Botti, sees the pair of artists playing calmly and cooperatively with one another. A Jazz fan’s dream, it also features some Pop elements, as well as orchestration, creating a well-rounded presentation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn short, Sting has proven countless times that he is a musician’s musician when it comes to collaborations. Celebrating countless styles, he has never stuck within a particular schtick, working with current artists, as we have seen with GIMS and GASHI, and even Steve Aoki, who is shamefully not on this album. Due to this eclecticism Duets has something for everyone, young and old. Coming from someone of the millennial generation, he can still be truly appreciated for his open-mindedness and he has the catalogue to back that up. His forays into Jazz, Hip Hop, and Classical, among many other genres, prove his talent and versatility. For this, Cryptic Rock gives Sting’s Duets 4 out of 5 stars.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview from GuitarsExchange by Paul Rigg\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo’s Company \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSting is musically restless in the same way that Elvis Costello is; having emerged as leaders of hugely successful new wave bands in the later 1970s they both established strong solo careers and then leveraged their status to make collaborations and explore vastly different styles.   \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow approaching 70, Sting’s 15th solo album, Duets (19 March, 2021; A\u0026amp;M\/Polydor) confirms that the Police frontman’s journey has been an extraordinary one. Perhaps because of the Police’s reggae infused sound it was not so unexpected that the singer collaborated with Shaggy on the album 44\/876, which went on to win a Grammy for Best Reggae Album in 2019. However as this compilation record confirms this is just one genre that the 17-time Grammy winner has explored, as Duets contains elements of rock, jazz, new-age, worldbeat, classical, soul and – how not? - West African raï.   \u003cbr\u003e    \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProduced by Sting, Guénaël “GG” Geay and Martin Kierszenbaum, Sting’s work on Duets is extraordinary because he gives each collaborating artist space to be themselves and, in some ways, even lead the development of the song. Sometimes the Englishman simply adds a vocal, while on many others he contributes with his acoustic guitar, perhaps choosing from his Martin Ditson, Martin 5-18 Terz G, Gibson or Chet Atkins CE.  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt would be pointless to try to seek coherence in this album beyond Sting’s unifying presence; it’s diversity is what makes it stand out.   \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe collection begins with the pop and flamenco-tinged Little Something, with Sting and Melody Gardot collaborating on an upbeat but soothing melody. Eric Clapton’s restrained contribution on the bluesy It’s Probably Me, which was nominated for a Grammy in 1993, is one of the album highlights, before the less familiar name of Mylène Farmer makes an appearance by joining a heavily-bearded Sting on Stolen Car.     \u003cbr\u003e    \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCollaborations with Craig David (Rise \u0026amp; Fall), Herbie Hancock (My Funny Valentine), Annie Lennox (We'll Be Together) and Julio Iglesias (Fragile) emerge around the middle of the album but it is his songs with Shaggy and Algerian artist Cheb Mami that really sparkle here. Don’t Make Me Wait is taken from the former’s 2018 album, 44\/876, while Desert Rose brought raï music into the mainstream.    \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThree songs further highlight the album’s diversity in this middle section, with Sting introducing other languages into the mix with Charles Aznavour’s L'amour C'est Comme Un Jour and Italian icon Zucchero’s September. The third curveball here is undoutedly his pairing with Mary J. Blige, who funks things up on Whenever I Say Your Name.   \u003cbr\u003e    \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs the album draws to a close, another gem appears in the shape of the blues-driven None Of Us Are Free, with vocal accompaniment provided by the legendary Sam Moore, of Sam \u0026amp; Dave renown. The final track is In The Wee Small Hours, with a warm and sultry contribution by jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, which makes you feel like you are lost in a New York bar at 3am, somewhat the worse for wear.   \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this way Duets dances around the globe, radically shifting moods and musical styles as it goes. Sting pulls off the considerable achievement of being very present on each cut but never imposing himself, which means that the featured artist is allowed to shine and bring their unique characteristics to the table. As the saying goes, Two’s Company – and for Sting, on this album, that is the perfect number... \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Sting FC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42156001165394,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0577\/0549\/6658\/files\/duets4001603862558_640.jpg?v=1758315288"}],"url":"https:\/\/sting.com\/collections\/albums.oembed?id=128","provider":"Sting.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}