By deleting the 1986 hits collection Every Breath You Take: The Singles and replacing it nearly ten years later with Every Breath You Take: The Classics, A&M improved the original set -- but only slightly. Instead of finally adding the missing hits that were mysteriously absent the first time around ("Synchronicity II," "Demolition Man," "So ...
Early 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: ...
Falling somewhere between the pop sensibilities of Ten Summoner's Tales and the searching ambition of The Soul Cages, Mercury Falling is one of Sting's tighter records, even if it fails to compel as much as his previous solo albums. Though he doesn't flaunt his jazz aspirations as he did in the mid-'80s, Mercury Falling feels more serious than The ...
The Police never really broke up, they just topped working together -- largely because they just couldn't stand playing together anymore and partially because Sting was itching to establish himself as a serious musician/songwriter on his own terms. Anxious to shed the mantle of pop star, he camped out at Eddy Grant's studio, picked up the guitar, ...
In the summer of 1997, Puff Daddy took "I'll Be Missing You," a sappy reworking of "Every Breath You Take," to the top of the charts across the world; it became the biggest rap single in history. The success of "I'll Be Missing You" had the bizarre by-product of making the Police hip again among both rock and rap artists. So, what better to ...
Emboldened by the enthusiastic response to the muted Nothing Like the Sun and reeling from the loss of his parents, Sting constructed The Soul Cages as a hushed mediation on mortality, loss, grief, and father/son relationships (the album is dedicated, in part, to his father; its predecessor was dedicated to his mother). Using the same basic band ...
If Dream of the Blue Turtles was an unabashedly pretentious affair, it looks positively lighthearted in comparison to Sting's sophomore effort, Nothing Like the Sun, one of the most doggedly serious pop albums ever recorded. This is an album where the only up-tempo track, the only trifle -- the cheerfully stiff white-funk "We'll Be Together" -- ...
While their subsequent chart-topping albums would contain far more ambitious songwriting and musicianship, the Police's 1978 debut, Outlandos d'Amour (translation: Outlaws of Love ) is by far their most direct and straightforward release. Although Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland were all superb instrumentalists with jazz backgrounds, it ...
Two Rooms is a wildly uneven star-studded tribute to a wildly uneven superstar songwriting team. Though Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote many of the best pop songs of the '70s and '80s, they have written more than their fair share of clunkers as well. Some of them were chosen for this collection. Tina Turner, for example, tackles the ludicrously ...
Inevitably, the first thing that strikes you about this benefit album for pediatric AIDS is the lineup: It contains selections by Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, and Barbra Streisand, among other top stars. When you realize that 17 of the 20 tracks were newly recorded, For Our Children quickly becomes a must-have for fans ...
Casual pronouncements are made every so often that the lute songs (the lute is a plucked stringed instrument, an early cousin to the guitar) and madrigals of Elizabethan and Jacobean England were the popular music of their day. And Sting, who alludes to the likes of Vladimir Nabokov in his lyrics, is hardly uneducated in the legacy of fine arts, ...
For their fourth album, 1981's Ghost in the Machine, the Police had streamlined their sound to focus more on their pop side and less on their trademark reggae-rock. Their jazz influence had become more prominent, as evidenced by the appearance of saxophones on several tracks. The production has more of a contemporary '80s sound to it (courtesy of ...
Now this is an interesting project; Brazilian standards and newly-composed music interpreted or transfigured by the old masters, rock stars and cutting-edge '90s musicians - with all the proceeds going to fight the spread of AIDS. What is so remarkable about this album is how wholeheartedly the younger musicians relate to the cruising Brazilian ...
Sting scored a moderate comeback success greater than most had imagined possible with 1999's Brand New Day, reestablishing himself as a viable commercial artist instead of merely settling for "living legend" status. Part of this success was due to "Desert Rose," featuring vocalist Farhat Bouallagui's careening cadences that garnered attention, ...
The purpose of Grammy Nominees 2000: Pop is pretty self-explanatory: It contains 13 highlights from the Grammy's 2000 nominees, which really are hits from 1999. Since space is limited to 13 songs, and a compilation of current hits, by its very nature, needs to be crosslicensed, it should come as no surprise that there are several noteworthy ...
The CD companion to the America: A Tribute to Heroes telethon, this double-disc set features all of the musical performances aired on the show, including Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "I Won't Back Down," Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind," and Paul Simon's "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Disc one features earnest, rousing performances like ...
After two albums of muted, mature jazz-inflected pop, the last being an explicit album about death, Sting created his first unapologetically pop album since the Police with Ten Summoner's Tales. The title, a rather awkward pun on his given last name, is significant, since it emphasizes that this album is a collection of songs, without any musical ...
By the late '90s, Sting had reached a point where he didn't have to prove his worth every time out; he had so ingrained himself in pop culture, he really had the freedom to do whatever he wanted. He had that attitude on Mercury Falling, but it was too somber and serious, everything that its successor, Brand New Day, is not. Light, even ...
1995 finally saw the release of the Police's long-rumored first official live album, the two-CD Live!. The first CD was recorded back in 1979 in Boston, for an FM broadcast during the tour for their second album, Reggatta de Blanc, while the second disc is from their final tour in 1983 during a tour stop in Atlanta. While the first disc is ...
By 1979's Reggatta de Blanc (translation: White Reggae ), nonstop touring had sharpened the Police's original blend of reggae-rock to perfection, resulting in breakthrough success. Containing a pair of massive hit singles -- the inspirational anthem "Message in a Bottle" and the spacious "Walking on the Moon" -- the album also signaled a change ...
Depending on whose report you believe, the Police recongregated in 1985 to either begin work on their sixth studio album or a greatest-hits collection that was to include all new, reworked versions of the hits. Neither ever materialized due to hostility between the members, and when all the trio could show for its work was an insipid remake of ...
Despite their legendary status, the Police only released five albums during their brief reign from 1978-1983. In addition, the trio had amassed a healthy amount of both studio and live B-sides, plus songs that only appeared on soundtracks. For the 1993 four-CD box set Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings, every single song the Police ever ...
Like its two predecessors, A Very Special Christmas, Vol. 3 is a charity album featuring new recordings by superstars. Like Vol. 2, Vol. 3 is a little weaker than the first collection, but there are still a number of fun holiday songs on the record, including cuts by Sheryl Crow, Chris Cornell, Smashing Pumpkins, Tracy Chapman, Hootie & the ...
Ally McBeal: For Once in My Life Featuring Vonda Shepard, the fourth quasi-soundtrack album tied to the hit TV series, was released on April 24, 2001. That night, actor Robert Downey Jr. had another of his drug-related run-ins with the law, and the next day, he was fired from the show. This was particularly unfortunate timing for an album that ...
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