It feels slightly odd listening to a new Pop/Rock album from Sting, some 13 years since the last one (though we mustn’t discount 2013’s largely folk-based The Last Ship, which I think is a masterpiece).
57th & 9th certainly demonstrates that he has not lost his songwriting touch. It’s really the first conventional band-orientated album he has recorded since Mercury Falling, which was released 20 years ago. This one is very much centred around guitar, bass and drums. He hasn’t gone over the top with the production in any way. It is largely simple, accessible Pop/Rock music – something we have been waiting to hear from Sting for a long, long time.
It is wonderful to hear him recording with Dominic Miller and the mighty Vinnie Colaiuta again, and to hear their work right at the front of the mix for the first time in so many years, though keyboard player David Sancious unfortunately doesn’t appear on this album to complete the brilliant line-up that recorded 1993’s classic Ten Summoner’s Tales. There are subtle keyboard parts here and there, but the emphasis is very much on guitar-based arrangements.
The whole album is superb, but among the highlights for me are I Can’t Stop Thinking About You, Down Down Down, Pretty Young Soldier, If You Can’t Love Me, Inshallah and the utterly heartbreaking closing track The Empty Chair. If that song does not extract a tear or cause a slight wetness of the eyes, nothing will.
As a fan of over 20 years, it has been wonderful to hear Sting getting back to writing again with The Last Ship and 57th & 9th. He has proved himself to be an incredibly versatile musician many times over, and it is about time people took him a little more seriously. He is in fine form right now – perhaps the best form he has been in since he was regularly writing and recording back in the 1990s. I very much hope it continues, and I look forward to seeing him taking these songs on the road in 2017.
Mike's Musical Musings 