Sting lost me after Ghost in the Machine.

lord but sting is boring

Hey Bill, you need to amend this songs entry. It should include a credit to the male vocalist, an extremely tallented singer named Cheb Mami of the traditional "Rai" school of Moroccan music. He's got some very, very good albums of his own that would fit this station very well.

second best Sting song - IMO. The whole CD is really good - in one song he tells a story as.. a transvestite street hooker. Who said Sting can't write?

Jimi_Zep wrote:

Never really rocked? Did you hear their first two albums?

Next to You, So Lonely, Peanuts, Truth Hits Everybody
Regatta de Blanc, It's Alright for You, No Time This Time

Do you know any of these songs? The Police were the best rock trio ever, IMHO. Am I forgetting someone?

And oh yeah, I like this song too. Wish he hadn't sold it to Jaguar.

If he'd just let that yodel go, and sing "little old lady whoo..."

Platypus wrote:

We should also hear the policeman from the Village People, what a voice!! and quite the snappy dresser!

This is the only sting song I like... Probally because this is the only song where sting seems to even partially dislodge his head from it's standard anal position.

ZM/Herb wrote:

same, here. i don't watch television, any more. it ruined too many songs for me, and too many movies, and other stuff. so i just cut it out of my life. now everything i hear is, for the most part, pretty new to me. i don't listen to commercial radio, either. i'm finding that i can stand way more music for a longer amount of time simply because i cut a big part of the media out of my life.

not my favorite of sting's stuff, but it's not horrible. i think this one is a solid 8.

MsJudi wrote:


wow! 8O i couldn't disagree more. i have never even heard sting on rp in the 3 yrs i've been listening. but i'm kind of glad of that too. i do like this song and a few others from the same cd.

Eul0gy wrote:

Sadly, if Sting's songwriting craft continues to fall apart (as evidenced by "Sacred love"), this may be remembered as his last "great" song.

Sting is over played here :(

i don't care what people say, sting or the police never really "rocked," so i think that this is fitting. Kudos to sting for making music he likes

what i want to know is... what happened between this song and "Sacred Love?"

rgj13 wrote:

Thanks Ryan :highfive: Great insight into how these things work, glad you were in a position to share it, and took the trouble to do so.

Guess the basic reason I cut Sting so much slack is that if I were a gorgeous middle aged happily married father and Rock superstar (now there's a stretch), I doubt if I'd do things very differently.

So I guess that makes me "Adult Contemporary" , as far as that goes.

Good post, rgj13, and very explanatory. I heard an abreviated version of that from Sting himself on an NPR show called "Fresh Air" broadcast out of Philly. He basically said he doesn't really mind people accusing him of selling out because being a musician is about getting your music heard, getting it out there one way or another. The car commercial is just another way to do that.
And he sort of addressed people criticizing his style now having changed so much from earlier and from The Police. He basically said, "I'm getting older, I'm changing and making music I like. That's that. I shouldn't continue making the same sounding music forever." I can respect that.

All that said, I still don't like this song. I'm all for different cultures but I just don't dig the whiny sound in the background vocals. It just annoys me. Without that I think the song would be palatable.

must... fight... urge... to buy... jaguar.

- lets hear some good old Police, instead -

i like it, alot actually. well orchistrated and the tone of the music fits sting's voice.

now, as for the morons who think that sting is doing anything unique by cashing in on his music, wake up I say. all popluar muscians born in the last fifty years have done the exact same thing... just not in such a dubious fashion.

Gs_Girl wrote:
*bump*
Anyway, the skinny on Sting: he made a video for Desert Rose in which he was featured, in a few brief clips, dreaming and/or dozing in the back of a Jag; MTV said they wouldn't show it due to a policy they have against commercial endorsements contained within music videos (which, for MTV as for many of the vids they show is, you know, kind of a joke). Sting's people argued that a few seconds of footage ina recognizable car hardly constituted a product endorsement, but they stuck to their (hypocritical, I think--if not completely fatuous) policy. So then, Sting, noticing the song's not getting much airplay, turns to Jaguar, assuming that if the MTVites think it's a product endorsement, maybe the car co. will, too; they do, they give him some cash and make an ad, using those few clips of him in the car, as well as some other scenes from the original music video; it airs, people like the song, radio stations start playing it, and the album sells more units. THEN, in a wonderful wink on the whole affair, MTV decides they don;t think the video's too much of a problem after all--i.e., people are getting to see parts of it on TV anyway, and might want to see more--so they back off their policy and start airing the video.

That, at any rate, is a scoopp I got from an academic friend of mine, who does research on art and the marketplace, and followed the story pretty closely.

Sting isn't half as good as he used to think he was. If fact, he's worse than he really was before.....

dpjag wrote:

I guess me too. I think 'Brand New Day' has some great work on it.
'Ghost Story' and 'Fill her up' are truly neat. Mind you, he has produced
a great deal of barf since the Police days, not the least of which was perhaps the worst song of the 90's: 'I'm so happy I can't Stop Crying'. And the present soupy-jazz-remake kick he is on is revolting. I also saw him perform in Toronto on the Brand New Day tour, and it was a very uninspired, lacklustre, inert show. Great Big Sea opened for him, which was the worst thing he could have done because the crowd went wild for them, and there was no follow up.

I just logged on to Simple Minds, thank God I missed Sting. Even in the Police days, I thought Sting was not as great as he thinks. I also thought Novo Combo was better at that whole Reggae-Rock thing.

I can't get past hearing this song for the commercial. Ick. And I never cared for Sting. It may actually be a decent pop song, but associating it with the ad makes me hate it. That's the bottom line for me. Blech. I won't give the "Suco-Barfo" rating lightly, but this warrants it.

And I'm sure Sting doesn't really care what we think about his selling out because he's laughing all the way to the bank! At the end of the day, he's cashing in.

Hunh. I like this song and this disk. I think he's just making money off of dolts like me.

ack! A musical hairball has found its way into the RP system!

Several posters here have hit on a good point - the question of whether an artist has 'sold out' is almost meaningless when art it his or her livelihood. And his first solo ablum after the Police was much better than just a jazz knockoff (We work the black seam, Russians, Fortress...). But Sting became a bona fide sellout when he discovered he has an image that is easy to market to people who like adult-contemporary (i.e. pop made by 40+ y.o. artists) music. Everything he's done from Soul Cages onward has stunk, but he keeps on making money.

Okay, maybe I can help settle this matter with some background; naturally, this won't persuade anyone who dislikes the song to suddenly like, nor anyone who dislikes Sting to suddely become a fan, but perhaps it will explain the 'sell-out' claims a little. First, as someone pointed out about Moby, he sold his songs to ad agencies b/c they weren;t getting airplay--i.e., exposure--on the radio, and then, of course they did; same goes for a few lesser-known bands played now and then here on RP--I won;t go track them all down, but have noticed many people citing this or that song's appearance in this or that commercial (Mitsubishi and Toyota and Mazda have all included new, hip music in ads recently). Personally, I figure that a musician/group wants people to hear their music,in part--quite naturally--because they can then make some money, and can then make more music; given how competitive the music industry nevertheless remains, I see no reason to fault bands (or their agents) for trying to get this exposure, and to turn a buck, if it enables them to keep doing what they like. I even feel this way about bands whose music I dislike--there's room enough for plenty of different performers, no?

Anyway, the skinny on Sting: he made a video for Desert Rose in which he was featured, in a few brief clips, dreaming and/or dozing in the back of a Jag; MTV said they wouldn't show it due to a policy they have against commercial endorsements contained within music videos (which, for MTV as for many of the vids they show is, you know, kind of a joke). Sting's people argued that a few seconds of footage ina recognizable car hardly constituted a product endorsement, but they stuck to their (hypocritical, I think--if not completely fatuous) policy. So then, Sting, noticing the song's not getting much airplay, turns to Jaguar, assuming that if the MTVites think it's a product endorsement, maybe the car co. will, too; they do, they give him some cash and make an ad, using those few clips of him in the car, as well as some other scenes from the original music video; it airs, people like the song, radio stations start playing it, and the album sells more units. THEN, in a wonderful wink on the whole affair, MTV decides they don;t think the video's too much of a problem after all--i.e., people are getting to see parts of it on TV anyway, and might want to see more--so they back off their policy and start airing the video.

That, at any rate, is a scoopp I got from an academic friend of mine, who does research on art and the marketplace, and followed the story pretty closely.

Finally, while I agree with many that most of Sting's solo stuff hasn't equaled his work with the Police, the early solo stuff is IMHO pretty good stuff, and his later, more middle-aged stuff, while musically not terribly challenging, still has some pretty refined lyrics sometimes--he's just writing poetry and putting it to music these days, and if he doesn;t sound like a quirky 20something anymore, well, he isnt one, so why should he?

Okay, nuff said, to be sure! RJ

very nice tune - very original. love the backing vocals. I am sure some of those "crtics" below mistake cynicism for intellect....

Sting reminds of the kid who didn't know better, so he just keeps on with what he is doing. I think he saw and heard David Byrne expand into the third world for influences and hopped on the bandwagon. At least he tries and that is something many musicians don't do. All I do is turn down the volume when his songs get played and turn the volume up when they are over.