bob_tomato's Full Review: Nothing Like the Sun by Sting
"I don't know what the critics will think of this album...People might listen to it and wonder, What's he doing? I knew I was on the right track when I confused everybody in the studio - they didn't have a clue about what I was trying to get at, which was a real pop record. I wanted a record that is funny, emotional, sad, sexy, danceable and serious. That, to me, is what pop music should be - not this homogeneous record that has one guitar sound and one snare drum sound from start to finish." -Sting, Spin, December, 1987
Sting, pop artiste
Sting's first solo album, The Dream Of The Blue Turtles, was deliberately crafted to showcase Sting as a solo artist, to break him free of the mold of The Police - the highly successful band that he had fronted for several years. Sting's first solo recording drew heavily on jazz influences, and accomplished the clean break from The Police that he desired. With his second solo album Nothing Like The Sun, released in 1987, Sting began the process of creating a signature style. Sting has always maintained his that he is a “pop” music artist, while consistently producing music that defies pop convention, transcending most other artists who are considered “pop”. Nothing Like The Sun was made up of songs that took a familiar form in pop music, such as a dance single, rock anthem, or ballad, and fashioned them into something more elegant, powerful, and poignant. WithNothing Like the Sun, Sting made music that mattered.
For this album, Sting brought back many of the same musicians who had performed on the first album, with a couple notable exceptions - Manu Katche replaced Omar Hakim on drums, and Sting took over the bass from Darryl Jones. Sting also recruited some famous guests to feature throughout the album, most notably former Policeman Andy Summers, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Ruben Blades, and Gil Evans & His Orchestra.
“I also saw it as my job to inspire and challenge the musicians I was working with, because they were musicians of such a caliber that they would not be happy just playing I-IV-V in a harmonic scale. They had to be able to play slightly beyond their abilities, even, so it was my job to interest and energize them. ...Nothing Like The Sun was about stretching boundaries." -Sting, Billboard, September, 1999
Strength in Diversity Nothing Like The Sun extended Sting’s reach into some diverse musical styles: Latin, classical, and even a little R & B. We’ll Be Together was actually a commissioned song for Kirin Beer – Japanese ad executives simply asked Sting for a song that used the word “together”. Sting took a small amount of R & B funk, mixed in a drum machine, a few of his signature howls, and the requisite “together” lyric, and produced the most “pop” song on the record. (Interesting trivial minutiae – Sting portrayed a drunk in the video for this song)
The Secret Marriage continued Sting’s classical explorations, first shown in Russians on The Dream of the Blue Turtles. The Secret Marriage drew on a melody by German composer Hans Eisler – the gently wistful tune perfectly complements the beautiful lyric, written for Sting’s future wife, Trudie Styler:
No debt was paid no dowry to be gained
No treaty over border land or power
No semblance of the world outside remained
To stain the beauty of this nuptial hour
The secret marriage vow is never spoken
The secret marriage can never be broken
Some of the strongest material on the album was based in Latin rhythms and sounds. Straight To My Heart was an exuberant dance in 7/4 time, the plea of a man asking woman to be his wife. They Dance Alone (Cueca Solo) featured Clapton and Knopfler on acoustic guitars, and Blades performed the spoken bridge as the centerpiece of the song. The song spoke of the dance of “the mothers of the disappeared” in Chile, mothers without fathers, husbands, and sons – all imprisoned or killed by the Pinochet regime. Sting’s lyrics were exquisite and pointed all at once, and he even managed to continue his habit of bringing lyrics from previous albums into current material:
Ellas danzan con los desaparecidos
Ellas danzan con los muertos
Ellas danzan con amores invisibles
Ellas danzan con silenciosa angustia
Danzan con sus padres
Danzan con sus hijos
Danzan con sus esposos
Ellas danzan solas
Danzan solas
Hey Mr. Pinochet
You've sown a bitter crop
It's foreign money that supports you
One day the money's going to stop
No wages for your torturers
No budget for your guns
Can you think of your own mother
Dancin' with her invisible son
"When this record was first completed and handed to the record company, they threw up their hands. It wasn't simple enough or directed toward the charts. And I said, 'Why underestimate the record-buying public? Why do you imagine that they have to be spoon-fed all the time? Does it have to be so utterly simple?' I don't think so." -Sting, Rolling Stone, February, 1988
Sting doesn’t cater
The only song on the album remotely like any other songs on the radio in 1987 was We’ll Be Together; accordingly, it received the most airplay out of all of the songs, followed closely by the fan favorite Englishman In New York. The record execs were right; the lyrics didn’t cater to anyone except Sting himself. Sting wrote what he was interested in - the human psyche, politics, history and other non-pop interests.
Be Still My Beating Heart was a moody, cautionary warning on emotional reaction to love, a song powered by a nifty bass groove, some ethereal keyboards and Police style guitars, provided by none other than Andy Summers. Sting could hardly be more straightforward about past human failures than in History Will Teach Us Nothing. He explored his own strange dreams of death at the hands of his mother in The Lazarus Heart, hardly the stuff of popular music, but Sting used the song to open many concerts in his 1987 world tour, creating out of it a 12 minute tour de force that left this listener floored at first hearing. Sting recruited Gil Evans & His Orchestra to back him on Little Wing, covering a classic Jimi Hendrix song in obvious tribute to the man. Sting avoided recreating the Hendrix sound, yet evoked its true spirit in a moving version that remains one of the better covers of this song.
A Song for all time
There are very few great songs that get even better as they age, even fewer that become more powerful as they grow older, and hardly any that so perfectly capture the emotions of humanity in a single moment - Fragile is a true gem. Fragile is written for Spanish guitar, traditionally played as the concert finale by Sting himself. Originally written in response to the killing of a Peace Corps worker by the Nicaraguan Contras, the song is based on the fragility of human life, but speaks universally to the folly of violence as the means to an end. The original recording is fluid, haunting - a song of grief that denies despair.
Many people are familiar with this story, and others have told the tale better, so I will be brief. (Please take the time to read ticktockman's incredible review of All This Time...) On September 11, 2001, Sting and his band were only a few hours away from performing at his home in Tuscany for a select crowd of Sting fans, the purpose being a live concert recording and DVD. As the news of the World Trade Center tragedy came in, Sting did not know whether to go on with the concert. After consulting with his band, he decided that they would perform only Fragile as a tribute to those who had lost their lives that day. After that, they would decide whether to continue with the concert.
The resulting version of Fragile encapsulates perfectly the incredible grief and disbelief felt by all, but ultimately, does not falter against the evil of the day. Sting and his band sang the song, as backup vocalist Janice Pendarvis put it, “because I can’t stand the thought of letting them win”. Every person on that stage displayed the true power of music to heal hurts, and conquer wrongs. The show did go on, and an already powerful song became an eternal anthem.
Nothing Like The Sun is a rare achievement in pop music – it is an album that is musically accessible to a wide variety of people, but does not compromise in lyrical presentation, or musical production. The album is smart, but not overly intellectual – it is diverse but not distractingly divergent. Sting accomplished what he set out to do; create a pop album that spoke to the soul and the mind, while entertaining the ears and the heart – Nothing Like The Sun is truly Sting’s greatest album to date.
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Nothing Like the Sun
Originally released October 1, 1987 by A&M Records
Track List
The Lazarus Heart / Be Still My Beating Heart / Englishman In New York / History Will Teach Us Nothing / They Dance Alone (Gueca Sola) / Fragile / We'll Be Together / Straight To My Heart / Rock Steady / Sister Moon / Little Wing / The Secret Marriage
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