Sting

Sting had been playing in a fusion jazz band when he was spotted by drummer Stewart Copeland and recruited into the Police, so it's hardly surprising that his first post-Police project would be built around jazz musicians. He had quite an ear for talent, recruiting future Tonight Show bandleader Branford Mar-salis and eventual Rolling Stones bassist Daryl Jones, among others. But his writing style remained anchored in pop, and it's the balance between the me-lodic appeal of his songs and the improvisational fire of his band that gives The Dream of the Blue Turtles its distinctive character. How that works varies somewhat from song to song, but for the most part it's a matter of mood in which the arrangements set the emotional context for each song, like the chilly anxiety of "Russians" or the jazzy melancholy of "Moon Over Bourbon Street." The approach is not without its risks--his remake of the Police tune "Consider Me Gone" says more about the band than the song--but when the playing manages to bring the song into focus, as with the soulful "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free," its success is stunning.

With...Nothing Like the Sun, Sting shifts gears slightly. For one thing, his band is no longer a jazz outfit, for despite the continued input of saxophonist Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland, the addition of drummer Manu Katché (who powered Peter Gabriel's So) pulls the groove in an entirely new direction; for another, the songs on this album are more word-centered than their predecessors. Fortunately, that never seems to get in the way of the melody, allowing Sting the luxury of his elaborate imagery without compromising the music's allure. Some of that, admittedly, is simply a matter of his vocal phrasing, as in "Be Still My Beating Heart," where Sting's polysyllabic melody dances around the metronomic pulse of Katché's drumming. But the most accessi-ble songs--the jovial "Englishman in New York," or the danceable "We'll Be Together"--simply repeat the strengths of Sting's previous efforts. (His Gil Evans–arranged cover of "Little Wing," though, is sumptuously solemn.)

The Soul Cages marks a turning point in Sting's solo career. Although he was never shy about revealing his musical or literary erudition, that element of his creativity previously took a backseat to his pop instincts. Beginning with The Soul Cages, Sting actively celebrates his smarts, both in the heavy metaphors of the lyrics and the underlying complexity of the music. So even though "All This Time" manages to be as tuneful and accessible as anything in his songbook, the bulk of the album takes some effort to fully appreciate. Ten Summoner's Tales is even more abstruse, as Sting indulges himself with sly musical jokes (e.g., the oddly metered country song "Love Is Stronger Than Justice") and high-flown allusions (e.g., "St. Augustine in Hell"), but even that is mitigated by the direct melodic appeal of "Fields of Gold" and the tart melancholy of "It's Probably Me." Mercury Falling repeats that formula without the compensating pop appeal, although the single-dad blues "I'm So Happy I Could Cry" has its moments. Brand New Day is almost masturbatory in its self-satisfied cleverness (there's a guest rapper, but of course the rapping itself is in French). Fortunately for Sting, there was enough exotic appeal in the Rai-flavored "Desert Rose" (thanks in no small part to Algerian guest vocalist Cheb Mami) to turn the album into a chart success, but the rest is just extremely sophisticated background music.

Nearly half of Sting's catalogue is devoted to repackages of one sort or another. The first is a concert album, Bring on the Night, which pushes the Blue Turtles band and dynamic a level beyond what was achieved in the studio, though the Police covers seem oddly perfunctory. ...Nada Como el Sol sprang out of "They Dance Alone (Cueca Solo)," a song about the "disappeared" victims of political violence in Chile (from...Nothing Like the Sun), and offers a version of that song and others in Spanish, plus a Portuguese translation of "Fragile." How cosmopolitan. Demolition Man is a soundtrack that manages to be even more forgettable than the B-movie it accompanied, while Fields of Gold is a solid, conventional best-of drawn from Sting's first four solo albums. Song for song, The Very Best of Sting and the Police is probably the best buy in his catalogue; it's docked half a star for the irritating and unnecessary Puffy Combs remix of "Roxanne." (J.D.CONSIDINE)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide