Sting
Ten Summoner's Tales (A&M)
by Marc Hirsh
Sting
Ten Summoner's Tales (A&M)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in the Rice Thresher, April 2, 1993
Even when he's trying to loosen up, Sting is still pompous as Hell. His latest album, Ten Summoner's Tales, is supposed to be a step away from the deeper, complex emotionalism of his last two albums, ...Nothing Like The Sun and The Soul Cages, written as catharsis after the deaths of his mother and his father, respectively. Instead, we get an album full of deep, complex pop songs, which seems to go against the entire concept of Pop. What's left is the worst album that Sting has ever released, an album that smacks of the concept of Adult Contemporary: I could see my parents listening to this.
By avoiding Big Statements in general, Sting flounders whenever he brings larger issues into the picture. The western saga of "Love is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven)" works because the story, in which a man kills his six brothers over a woman, naturally asks complex questions of its narrator. When Sting tries importing similar ideas into simpler songs, however, the results are less successful. The fourth song, "Heavy Cloud No Rain" is probably about sexual and emotional frustration, but the four verses seem totally unrelated, referring at various points to television meteorology, Louis XVI on the way to a guillotine, and a farmer resorting to witchcraft to save his farm from foreclosure. If the vignettes are supposed to underscore the romantic tale unfolding at the end, then they don't do a very good job. If, on the other hand, the last verse, in which the romantic interest is revealed, isn't the point of the entire song, then I have no idea what it's about.
Also of some concern is the new music that comes along with Sting's lyrics. Rather than assert his individuality, Sting chooses to test the waters of contemporary pop music trends. The final song, "Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me)," is buried under the weight of a ridiculous hip-hop beat. A lesser example of the same phenomenon is found in the best song on the album and the first single, "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You."
I have to ask whether Sting recorded "She's Too Good For Me" with the express purpose of sounding just like Kansas and Boston, two bands that the Police provided an alternative for in the latter half of the 1970s. By combining a blues riff with a speedy synthesizer solo, courtesy of ex-E Street Band keyboardist David Sancious, and ridiculous lyrics like, "She don't like to hear me sing/She don't want no diamond ring," Sting asks his audience to forget that he's an Artist with a capital A. Unfortunately, ignoring his artistry also jettisons his talent. Sting should be able to do better than this.
The production of the album also hurts the overall package. Sancious' keyboards and an ever-present string section fill up every conceivable sonic gap in the album, leaving the listener with little room to breathe. "Fields Of Gold" is built almost entirely around this sound, which was used to great effect on The Soul Cages. It's no longer a wall of sound but an ocean with no land in sight. Apparently Sting wants his listeners to tread water until he arrives.
Sting does throw a life preserver every now and then. Although "It's Probably Me" isn't the Eric Clapton/Michael Kamen version from Lethal Weapon 3, the re-recording of it here is one of the highlights of the album. "Seven Days" makes excellent use of the strings and is the home of one of the singer's favorite private jokes: throwing a line from one of his old songs onto the end of one of the new songs. Unfortunately, this time he's used the line before, and the joke falls flat. Still, a bad joke in a good song is better than a great joke in an awful tune, and the song is one of the better ones on the album. And if you can stomach Sting's attempt at country music, "Love Is Stronger Than Justice" tells an interesting tale.
Sting has shown himself to be capable of writing the types of pop songs he shoots for on the new album. The entire Police catalog and his first solo album, Dream of the Blue Turtles, are filled with intelligent and thoughtful songs that also happen to be catchy and enjoyable. Perhaps he is merely out of practice after his last two thematically-unified albums. If not, then one of the most intelligent rock-and-rollers around today has begun a trip down the path to mediocrity.