Sting

Sting's first solo album, released in 1985, was a triumph for the former Police frontman, driven by tuneful, jazz-tinged pop songs. "Fortress Around Your Heart" and "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" both saw their share of radio play and the album was earned both critical and financial success.

With 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 bestqualified Police imitator; what he
did instead smacks of brilliantly enlightened self-interest. Der 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 keybo... More >

Not since Paul Simon's dangling conversations has a pop hero made such a beeline for the middlebrow cliché. Romantically he runs the gamut from if-you-love-somebody-set-them-free to each-man-kills-the-thing-he-loves, and of course he doesn't ignore the cosmic side of things--"There is a deeper world than this/That you don't understand." Speaking of deeper worlds we don't understand, I'm pleased by his pro-miner sentiments, but wonder why he has to (my italics) "hope the Russians love their children too," since I've always assumed they do. And displacing the Police's sere dynamics we have bathtubs full of demijazz, drenching this self-aggrandizing and no doubt hitbound project in a whole new dimension of phony class. (Grade - C+)