STING

We all know I have impeccable taste in music. It's bloody obvious, really. And with my help readers of this site have also had their ears and minds exposed to some of the coolest sounds around. When people ask me what sort of music I like I hit 'em with the exotic and the eclectic, a list of names of bands so cool that Thurston Moore tries to rob my record collection and Julian Casablancas blags to girls that he has my mobile number in a bid to impress them. But, when pushed, I will admit to having two guilty pleasures. Generally, I loathe the lucrative kitsch music scene which sucks scores of undergraduates and ex-students into bleating on about just how 'great', say, Duran Duran are. But I have such great taste that I am allowed a rare lapse. As already documented, I quite like Bon Jovi. I also, brazen and perhaps irredeemably foolish as it may seem, quite like Sting's solo career. OK, we've heard his hits on the radio ten hillion blillion times but, you know, they're actually pretty good. Go on, admit it. I'm not saying I love his smarmy jazz in-jokes or sophorific easy-listening snooze-fests. In fact, I don't even like a lot of his irritating pop songs. But, I genuinely think it is fair to say a lot of the singles he released up until the early-nineties are easily the match, artistically or otherwise, of the best songs put out by the apparently much-superior Police. In other words, Sting's solo career is not drastically divorced from the ethos of the Police (certainly on their last album) and is only marginally inferior, for a decade anyway. One thing it is interesting to note, though, is that Sting actually became more singles-orientated as a solo artist. Despite his po-faced bleating and I'm-a-real-artist-me pretentious posturing his decent solo albums are mainly just a handful of great singles with dull-as-dishwater album tracks making up the numbers. In that way, I suppose it was inevitable Sting would become more of a pop artist in his older days than when he was in an, ahem, punk band during his, ahem, youth.

But you could perhaps say the same thing about Phil Collins (although you best not when I'm in the room) so what makes Sting that extra bit special? Why is he an adult contemporary artist that I have no shame in praising? The thing is, I respect Sting as a person. Seriously. Alright, he is a pretentious prick but then, what am I? Me and Sting, we're cut from the same cloth. We're both pompous middle-class Northeners that cannot prevent ourselves from boasting about our intellectual superiority whenever we open our mouths. So what if Sting thinks he is superior to you? Guess what, I think I am superior to you as well. Alright, it is unforgivably pretentious and even somewhat classless to name-drop the likes of Nabokov in song lyrics but do I really need to continuously drop in references to Proust, Nietzsche, or Dostoevsky in my reviews? I do it because I think it makes me look cool. It doesn't, of course, it makes me look like Sting. But, at the end of the day, that's a position I'm really quite proud of. You just know if I ever do get round to going with that pint with him (and if Sting is reading this, I promise I'll reply to that text soon) we'll soon be debating the differences between Nabakov's Russian and English-language fiction whilst neither of us dare to admit to have only having read Lolita.

Oh, and girls, Julian Casablancas doesn't have my mobile number. Don't fall for it.

Although I think Sting's songwriting ability stayed pretty consistent up until the mid-nineties I have no problem accepting the Police were a lot more interesting music-wise than Sting's solo songs. Given Sting wrote about 80-90% of the Police's songs, and 99% of the best ones, this album is not really a completely different proposition from the Police LPs. He is simply backed up by a different band. (A point he labours in the sleeve-notes.) Unfortunately, talented though the likes of Kenny Kirkland and Branford Marsalis undoubtedly are as musicians, they simply do not come near to matching the proficient new wave of the Police's best work. Of course, Sting started out as a jazz musician and it is perhaps inevitable that an artist as pompous as himself would seek to go back to it. Now I'm a fan of jazz, to some lukewarm extent, but I just cannot see how it ever really translates seamlessly into pop music. Nick Drake and Van Morrison did a decent job of it, I suppose, but it isn't really where their strengths lie. Unfortunately, pretty much the whole of Sting's solo career is tainted by his futile and irredeemably dull attempts to write a pop melody based around a jazz arrangement. At this point, I now hold myself up as the biggest dickhead on the planet as I will go on to praise his jazzed-up rendition of "Shadows in the Rain", which originally appeared on the Police's Zenyetta Mondatta. I even think Zenyetta is the most musically interesting album of the Police's, although in terms of the quality of songs it is certainly the most inconsistent. On that album, "Shadows in the Rain" was atmospheric but forgettable, seemingly half-finished. On here, Sting just rips it up with a bit of lounge-core style swing, not so much revealing the melody as thrusting it pulsating into your face, whilst he grasps a glass of bourbon in one hand and an ash-laden cigarette in the other. It is arguably incredibly irritating (the 'what key is this in' intro is Sting at his most unbearably smug) but, I dunno, I just find it kinda fun. Of course, the smarmy smugness is later repeated, as if we didn't get it first time around, with the inconsequential instrumental title track that finishes with the band cracking up with laughter. Hee-larius. Sting ain't all jazzy in-jokes, though, and a lot of this material is the sort of sombre sermoning that we've come to expect from Sting. The best pick is the famous "Russians" which encapsulates almost every aspect of his solo career, with it being unintentionally hilarious, cloyingly pretentious, flatulently pompous and preachy, and - when all is said and done - a really enjoyable pop song. As Jeremy pointed out in Peep Show, it is kinda presumptious of Sting to question the Russian's devotion to their own children, although coming from a post-cold-war viewpoint I couldn't say whether you had to be there at the time. Anyway, it is just so outlandishly pretentious that you can't help but admire it. Credit where it is due, not many people would actually succeed in taking a classical score by Prokofiev and some ridiculously cumbersome words and thrashing a decent pop song of them but, by George, he does it. "Children's Crusade" and "We Work the Black Seam" are similarly sombre and solemn, with only the latter palatable, despite its just plain stupid verse about the dangers of nuclear power and glorification of old fashioned coal miners. But worry not, Sting can have a laugh as well and the goofy "Love is the Seventh Wave" is a popular single, even if I think it is rather too chirpy, and the glorious pop of "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" has become one of the most questioned sentiments in music, up there with Stephen Stills's "If You Can't Be With the One You Love, Love the One You're With". Still, it was a single that ensured Sting was to become even more popular as a solo artist than he was in the Police and, along with "Russians", proved he was still one of the best producers of pop songs around. That he became so whilst simultaneously establishing himself as one of the most pompous and pretentious artists around no doubt gave him added satisfaction. All together now: 'In Europe and America/There's a growing feeling of hysteria/Conditioned to respond to all the threats/ In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets...'

Sting's second album is just about as quintessentially Sting solo as you are ever likely to get. Everything about the big man that makes him such a loved, loathed, and, I guess, frustrating figure can be found here. Firstly, we have the title, apparently a Shakespearean quote, which Sting gleefully points out in the sleevenotes. We have the easy-listening jazz boreathons. We have the worthy yet absolutely unbearably preachy sermoning. We even have the fact that he decided to re-record the entire album in Spanish and re-release it as Nada Como El Sol. (He really surpassed himself with that one.) Oh, and we have a handful of really good songs, including perhaps the best, and certainly one of the most popular, he ever wrote. He does get to live out one of his wet dreams by collaborating with Gil Evans on his way through death's door and rather strangely chooses to do so on a cover of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing. There is something rather mysterious about that song, as if every time you hear a cover of it it turns into a different, inferior song. Like Derek and the Dominos' version the melody seems slow and sloppy and its emotional power is drained away. I am sure it was nice for Sting and all but one suspects he finds it all far more fascinating than 99% of the listeners. To tell the truth, although this album is almost brazenly patchy, it would be erroneous to extricate just the singles and ditch the rest as two of his most irritating hits are contained within. I am sure old man Pinochet was an horrendous tyrant and all round stain on the human race but I find all sympathy for his victims slipping away as Sting lectures his way through the seven minute dreary ethnic jazz drone of "They Dance Alone". I suppose one could take the view that it is really, really commendable to present such people's plight on Top of the Pops but, unfortunately, it ain't gonna be me. On a completely different tack but similarly awful is the snare-cracking eighties pop wank of "We'll Be Together" which, with the help of the grating backing singers, jostles its way through to the front of the rather crowded collection of Sting's most irritating songs. So, instead, I will hold out the opening "The Lazarus Heart" as a rare example of one of Sting's better songs not becoming a world-wide smash hit. It ain't exactly a work of genius but the descending melody is kinda clever and it can accurately be described as being both catchy and subtle. The downbeat "Be Still My Beating Heart" and the Synchronicity-esque "Straight to My Heart" I can also tolerate somewhat, particularly in comparison to the dreadful reggae of "History Will Teach Us Nothing" (irrespective of my sympathy towards the sentiments) and the smarmy bebop of "Rock Steady". This is all by-the-by really, though, as we all know everyone came for just two songs - the eerily pertinent "Fragile" and the classic "Englishman in New York". I know Sting is a preachy twat but I will hold my hand up and say his statement on "Fragile" that 'nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could' is one of the most inherently true and sensible lyrics ever to grace the top ten. And, of course, we have "Englishman in New York", a song everyone has heard more times than a clock's chime, but still it is a delightfully cute adult pop song and the closest Sting ever got to perfecting his elusive combination between jazz and pop. Carve it up any way you like, the fact remains it is a crystalised nugget of Sting's genius and worthy in itself of supporting his decision to go solo. It is also appropriate that it features on this album, given so much of the other material is Sting's patented pretentious dull jazz dross. Indeed, I am going to go out on a limb and say this is perhaps not the best album Gil Evans ever contributed towards. Still, at least Pinochet knows he's got some very powerful enemies.

As with his unsuccessful Pinochet baiting on "They Dance Alone" it is rather typically Sting that he can take the universally emotional concept of one's father dying and still manage to deprive himself of all sympathy from the listener. It is perhaps a slight overstatement, as the single "All This Time" makes for a quietly poignant hit, but Sting is just such a dislikeable man that it is hard to really sympathise with any of his emotions, be them genuine or fatuous. His message is not helped by the fact that he deliberately decided against writing any more pop tunes. Instead, he decided to release his 'serious' album, the quiet, introspective masterpiece that would disappoint his enormous fanbase but begrudgingly win the admiration of the critics. To be fair to Sting, it certainly achieved the former. The critics, however, did not necessarily take the public's disillusionment as the sign to jump to Sting's defence. Thus, this album kinda slipped into obscurity and everybody just wanked themselves off over Ten Summoner's Tales instead. Given this had the reputation of being Sting's forgotten album I half-expected to really like it. Unfortunately, I am more or less compelled to agree with the critical assessment of it being just rather boring. It is certainly the least irritating of his albums, the least smug, and the least patchy. But, despite the fact it does not contain any real stinkers, it just cannot really be described as anything other than a bit dull. That said, it does start strongly. "Island of the Souls" is an unnerving opening with the dramatic orchestral sweeps enhancing Sting's narrative about Billy (?) losing his ship-building father. Funnily enough, it actually calls to mind Alan Shearer (and his famous 'son of a sheet-metal worker from Newcastle' speech) and it seems to me that as Newcastle's second greatest living celebrity gets older the more he seems to be morphing into Sting - a dislikeable but indisputably talented Geordie. He has even started to look like him. Anyway, I am guessing that Sting's father was a ship builder judging by the lyrical references and it is for that reason that I find the most genuinely affecting moment in Sting's entire career is his cathartic promise to 'bury his old man at sea' at the end of "All This Time"'s chorus. It is indicative that "All This Time" barely registers on Sting's Greatest Hits compilations but on here it stands out by a mile as the most arresting track. Indeed, some of these songs are about as grabbing as Abu Hamza without his hook and I'll be damned if I can ever remember a single thing about, for instance, the closing "When the Angels Fall". The highlights are therefore muted but the somewhat overwrought "Why Should I Cry for You?" at least sees Sting expressing some of his rawest emotions and the darkened tango of "Mad About You" is one of his less irritating jazz crossovers. I suppose this album at least shows a side of Sting that doesn't instantly demand to be slapped. He was clearly feeling pretty down when he wrote it and some of his emotions do rise to the surface in predictably articulate form. It is just a shame that the whole experience is just kinda dull. By coincidence, it is one of my father's all-time favourite albums so Sting should perhaps expect a tear-stained letter of apology from me when my old man pops it and I listen to it on repeat for every waking hour of the day. My God, that thought is depressing on so many levels.

Say what you like about Sting he ain't a stubborn man. When some artists disappoint their fanbase with an intensely personal work they'll throw themselves into a whirlwind of seething petulant rage and release all kinds of irredeemable crap like - oh, I dunno - a double album consisting solely of feedback. Sting realised his legions of affluent baby boomer fans were pretty non-plussed with his tear-stained, emotionally raw, heart-wrenching, introspective statement of grief. So what did he do? He wrote a load of meaningless pop songs, sat back, and watched the money pour in. Hurrah for Sting! Like his first two albums this is essentially just a collection of great singles mixed in with crappy album tracks but the singles he included on this release are arguably some of his best and certainly his most frequently played. Has anyone - ever - in the whole wide world - NOT heard "Fields of Gold"? I'm telling you, there's a man on a small rock just off the coast of Indonesia singing it RIGHT NOW. Listen closely and you'll hear him mangle the line about 'fields of barley'. I know it is a cheesey song, you know it's a cheesey song, but what we gonna do? Ignore it? The fact is it is simply a really catchy and really classy adult contemporary pop song. Let's just admit it and move on. Two of the other hits from the album, though, I ain't even gonna apologise over. "Seven Days" has always been one of my favourite Sting songs. The lyrics are quite clever, if perhaps not THAT clever, and the cheeky jazz verses contrast wonderfully with the unashamedly catchy chorus hook. It is a simple combination but rather ingenious nonetheless. And then we have "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" which, like Bon Jovi's "In These Arms", I will fight to the death over my right to call them two of the best singles of the decade. Coincidently, they are also two of the best love songs of the decade, as the elder statesmen were forced to take a stand against grunge's maudlin self-obsession. It is a simple song but just so, so devastatingly, gloriously effective. Quite frankly, I think one would be hard pushed to name a better, more perfect chorus in Sting's entire repetoire. That said, like all of his albums there is still a hit single on here that is nothing but a stinker. I actually believe the closing "Nothin' 'bout Me" was used for the soundtrack to 'Lethal Weapon' or something similarly inappropriate but, in any event, it has got to be one of his most irritating singles, not least when he betrays his inherent Englishness by pronouncing the letter 'z' as 'zee'. Recompense is made, though, by the underrated (or at least underplayed) "Shape of My Heart" which also appeared on a soundtrack, again incongruously, appearing at the end of 'Leon'. For whatever reason, though, it wasn't until hearing it play at the end of the film that I realised what a nice song it is. Like "Fragile", it is underplayed and folky and contains some pleasantly downbeat sentiments. And with that we're more or less finished with the album. "Something the Boy Said" has a decent hook at some point (the bit about being food for a crow) and "St. Augustine in Hell" is the worst song, yet again displaying Sting's smug core in all its hideous ugliness. That said, I take great pride in being featured not once but twice in his representation of the population of Hell - as a barrister and as a music critic. Of course, the irony is that nearly everyone else's vision of Hell would have Sting included as a founder member. Not me, though. I like him. Mind you, I can't help but feel I have just reviewed four albums for no greater purpose than simply highlighting six or seven great songs. You could buy this album but, to be honest, even I'd struggle not to just recommend his Greatest Hits. You will also notice that throughout this page I haven't made one joke about tantric sex - practically unheard of for an article about Sting. To be utterly truthful, I just don't really understand what it is.

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