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Sting: 57th & 9th

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: A&M Records
Released: 2016.11.11
Time:
 37:05
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Martin Kierszenbaum
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.sting.com
Appears with: The Police
Purchase date: 2016
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] I Can't Stop Thinking About You (Sting) - 3:30
[2] 50,000 (Sting/D.Miller/L.Workman/J.Freese) - 4:17
[3] Down, Down, Down (Sting/D.Miller/V.Colaiuta) - 3:48
[4] One Fine Day (Sting/D.Miller/L.Workman/J.Freese) - 3:14
[5] Pretty Young Soldier (Sting/D.Miller/L.Workman/J.Freese) - 3:06
[6] Petrol Head (Sting/D.Miller/L.Workman/J.Freese) - 3:32
[7] Heading South on the Great North Road (Sting) - 3:18
[8] If You Can't Love Me (Sting/D.Miller/V.Colaiuta) - 4:34
[9] Inshallah (Sting) - 4:56
[10] The Empty Chair (Sting/J.Ralph) - 2:49

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Sting - Vocals, Bass, Guitar, Piano, Percussion

Martin Kierszenbaum - Organ, Piano, Mellotron, Keyboards, Producer
Dominic Miller - Guitar, 12-String, Shaker
Vinnie Colaiuta - Drums
Rhani Krija - Percussion
Rob Mathes - Piano
Lyle Workman - Guitar
Josh Freese - Drums
Zach Jones - Drums
Razan Nassreddine - Additional Vocals
Hazem Nassreddine - Turkish Zither
Marion Enachescu - Violin
Jean-Baptiste Moussarie - Guitar
Salam Al Hassan - Percussion
Accad Al Saed - Percussion
Thabet Azzawi - Oud
Nadim Sarrouh - Oud
Nabil Al Chami - Clarinet

The Last Bandoleros:
Jerry Fuentes - Backing Vocals, Vocals, Guitar
Diego Navaira - Backing Vocals, Vocals, Bass
Derek James - Backing Vocals

Donal Hodgson - Engineer
Tony Lake - Engineer
Robert Orton - Mixing
Bob Ludwig - Mastering

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Throughout his long and illustrious career, Sting has enjoyed an enviable set of circumstances. Not only does he have total artistic freedom but he has been accompanied by elite musicians and has a devoted, global fan base. In return, that has yielded many artistic triumphs as he explored almost every genre known to man. He has been eclectic in his choice of inspiration which is filtered through an ever expansive musical worldview. That incorporates all kinds of sounds and music from pop and jazz to classical, medieval and world music. His new album 57th &9th reveals a restless and uncompromising creative spirit that makes music that still pulses with life and vigor.

Musically, 57th &9th is predominantly painted with the primal colors of rock music: rollicking drums, fizzing guitars and fluid bass lines. The first several songs roar straight out of the box. It's been a while since he sounded this energized and unfettered. Producer (and Sting's manager) Martin Kierszenbaum's sparse and raw production is a welcome change of pace for Sting whose previous work often slipped into the quiet, hushed and comfortable. The energy is tough and lean and he has never sounded this raw, urgent, and edgy since his early days with his band The Police. Sonically, this record does not break any drastically new sonic frontiers for him but these kinds of fast-paced rockier songs have been heard only occasionally on his records with "After the Rain Has Fallen" from Brand New Day (A&M, 1999) "All This Time" Soul Cages, ( A&M, 1991) as examples. The music is driven by a working band of many years and also welcomes other guests to make this recording special. While they rock and sound urgent they don't just bash it away. A band of this caliber is capable of stirring up wild grooves, but here they respond sensitively to Sting's vocal lines, dynamics and conjuring varying dynamics within the songs.

Most importantly, 57th & 9th is dominated by outstanding songwriting. It is another masterclass in the potential potency of lyrics, melodies, and performance from an enduring songwriting master. At heart, Sting is an unequivocally a soul singer and musician. He always sings with great conviction, always drawing you in the story, like having a conversation with an old friend of yours. In contrast to his previous output, the autobiographical and reflective The Last Ship, (A&M, 2013) Sting is utterly engaged in the present, dealing with subjects such as social injustice and the horrors of refugees ("Inshallah"), pondering about climate change and environmental issues ("One Fine Day") or contemplating the passing of colleagues and close friends such as singers David Bowie, Prince or actor Alan Rickman ("50.000") .

The quality of each song is consistently good with peaks and valleys in between. "If You Can't Love Me" is one of the many finest moments here. It is a tender mid-tempo ballad offered with the no-nonsense conviction that reveals love may be beyond the measurement of the rational. It's a love song that is achingly sincere without being invasive. The album closes, gorgeously, with a hushed ballad "Empty Chair" that deals with the subject of a loss. It's a song written for Jim: The James Foley Story, a documentary about a US journalist that was publicly executed by terrorists in Syria. The tone of the song is delicate and graceful. Sting's voice barely raises throughout, yet he manages to convey more emotion than ever before.

57th & 9th is a master course in songwriting. Sting has created timeless songs that feel organic, heartfelt and important now, but which will sound as magnificent in the decades to come as they sound today.

Nenad Georgievski - November 6, 2016
© 2016 All About Jazz



Sting seemed to tire of pop songs sometime early in the 21st century, wandering away from the format after 2003's well-mannered Sacred Love. Over the next 13 years, he entertained his esoteric interests -- he collaborated on a classical album, he rearranged his old tunes for an orchestra, he reunited the Police, he wrote a musical -- before he returned to pop/rock with 2016's 57th & 9th. The fact that he named this comeback album after the intersection he crossed on his way to the studio speaks to the workmanlike aspect of 57th & 9th: there is no grand concept, no unifying aesthetic -- it's merely a collection of pop songs. This is hardly a bad thing. Sting has often undervalued his skills as a craftsman, so hearing him deliver ten sharply crafted songs is appealing. Playing with a studio band featuring drummer Josh Freese and guitarist Lyle Workman, Sting manages to work up a head of steam on occasion -- "I Can't Stop Thinking About You" opens the album with an insistent pulse, "Petrol Head" evokes memories of "Synchronicity II" -- but he spends as much time delivering tunes with a delicate touch. Much of the last half of the record is devoted to introspection, but unlike the fussy Sacred Love, the ballads here benefit from a brighter, open production and a singer/songwriter who feels invested in sculpting his melodies with the same care that he gives his lyrics. Sting sifts through familiar territory with songs of protest sitting alongside songs of yearning and love, and it all adds up to record that's simultaneously unassuming and revealing: through its modest nature, 57th & 9th stands as a testament to Sting's inherent gifts as a songwriter and record-maker.

Rating: 4/5

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide



Across the last three decades or so, Sting has led one of the more interesting careers in popular music. Between New Age and world music-informed releases like 1993’s massive Ten Summoner’s Tales (which was carried by the adult contemporary classic “Fields of Gold”), Brand New Day in 1999 (which featured the unforgettable single “Desert Rose”), and the lute-centric Songs from the Labyrinth, it seemed like the guy who sang “Roxanne” and “Message in a Bottle” had forgotten how to rock. That feeling, though, makes his latest record, 57th & 9th, such an unexpected joy.

This is Sting’s first album since The Last Ship in 2013, the material for which came from his Broadway musical of the same name — and 57th & 9th couldn’t be a further departure. Whereas his last release dealt primarily with Sting’s own upbringing in the shipbuilding town of Wallsend, England, and was filled out by jaunty, singalong-inducing melodies tailor-made for the theater, this album is a stripped-down, 37-minute-long reconciliation with the sounds and styles that made him such a galvanizing force while a member of the Police.

The die is cast from the very first song, “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You”. Opening with a jangly guitar arpeggio, smacking snares, and ooh-ing backup singers, Sting sounds like a man transported back in time — albeit with a much deeper register. The energy is almost jarring, especially when he reaches the chorus, where his anguished, bewildered lament turns into an unbridled cry of frustration: “I can’t stop thinking about you/ I don’t care if you exist.”

The album itself is named after the cross streets in New York that the songwriter traversed every day to make it to the studio. 57th & 9th was recorded in just three months with drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and guitarist Dominic Miller from his touring group, as well as Jerry Fuentes, Diego Navaira, and Derek James from a Tex-Mex band based out of San Antonio called The Last Bandoleros. Simply put, the record doesn’t suffer for fussiness. Each day, Sting would show up to the studio without any real material or agenda, sit down with some musicians he was comfortable with, and just see what happened.

The resulting material is imbued with an energy and urgency severely lacking in much of the music that he has produced across the last decade and then some. “It’s rockier than anything I’ve done in a while,” he conceded to Rolling Stone. “This record is a sort of omnibus of everything that I do, but the flagship seems to be this energetic thing. I’m very happy to put up the mast and see how it goes.”

Rather than plumb his own personal history and mental state, 57th & 9th largely finds Sting interacting with the world as he views it today. “Inshallah”, an Arabic word that roughly translates to mean “If it’s God’s will and then it shall be,” is about the ongoing refugee crisis. “One Fine Day” tackles global warming and is directed toward all those who would deny its existence: “Apologists say the weather’s just a cycle we can’t change/ Scientists say we’ve pushed those cycles way beyond.” The final track, “The Empty Chair”, is a sort of elegy to renowned photographer James Foley, who was beheaded in Syria in 2014.

The standout song, and the one that will probably resonate with most people, is “50,000”. In it, Sting comes to grips with the loss of so many musical titans that passed in this last year: David Bowie, Prince, Glenn Frey, Lemmy, and more. “Another obituary in the paper today/ One more for the list of those who’ve already fallen/ Another one of our comrades is taken down/ Like so many others of our calling.” But it’s not just their loss that Sting laments; he also can’t shake the reality that his own end is inevitable, and may come sooner than he’d like. “Reflecting now on my own past/ Inside this prison I’ve made of myself/ I’m feeling a little better today/ Although the bathroom mirror is telling me something else.” Maybe this realization provided the impetus for the former Police singer to return to some of the sonic signatures of his youth. It’s hard to take it as coincidence that “50,000” happens to be the hardest charging song on 57th & 9th. Whatever the reason, it’s a pleasure to hear him singing over cranked guitars instead of pan flutes once again.

Corbin Reiff - November 18, 2016
© 2007 - 2016 Consequence of Sound



It's been ages since Sting even seemed to conceive of himself as a rock artist, which is why his straight-ahead new LP is so surprising: 57th & 9th is a no-lute zone. You'd have to go all the way back to "Born in the 50's," from the very first Police album, to hear him sing over guitars as rough as the ones on the lonely-horn-dog anthem "I Can't Stop Thinking About You" or the no-frills driving banger "Petrol Head."

The highlight "50,000" offers a clue to this newfound urgency; over guitarist Dominic Miller's dark chords, Sting pays tribute to Prince, recalling ecstatic stadium shows, then flashes to a bathroom-mirror vision of his own mortality: "These lines of stress, one bloodshot eye/The unhealthy pallor of a troubled ghost." Desperation also comes through on "One Fine Day," a delicate plea for climate sanity, and the Middle East-tinged refugee's prayer "Inshallah." Elsewhere, he offers a kind of travelogue through his own musical past, from the Chaucer-y balladry of "Heading South on the Great North Road" to "If You Can't Love Me," a mordantly Kafkaesque echo of the jazz rock Sting made in the Eighties. Even if the album gets more ponderous as his concerns deepen, it's nice to see the king of pain flex a little.

Rating: 3.5/5

Jon Dolan - November 11, 2016
© Rolling Stone 2016



Named after the location of the Manhattan studio in which it was recorded, 57th & 9th is Sting’s first rock album in years. I Can’t Stop Thinking About You has the punchy chorus and driving bass of the Police circa 1980, while If You Can’t Love Me has an echo of the creepy narrator of Every Breath You Take. There’s a strong whiff of the 1980s, too, on the Wembley-sized plod of 50,000, a song about the absurdities of being an aged rock star: “Where did I put my spectacles case?” The start of Sting’s career is the subject of Heading South on the Great North Road, on which he is accompanied by a single acoustic guitar, a moment of respite from the album’s bluster. More cumbersome is Pretty Young Soldier, a tale of a military romance. On his song Inshallah, Sting sings about the refugee crisis and the Syrian civil war. Many readers might find that last sentence chilling – but the song is more mournful than preachy.

Jon Dennis - 10 November 2016
© 2016 Guardian News and Media



57th & 9th is the twelfth solo studio album by British singer-songwriter Sting, his first rock album in 13 years, released on 11 November 2016. The album was recorded over a period of three months. Sting has said of the tight deadline: "Artificially reintroducing that pressure gave the album a kind of urgency it wouldn't have had otherwise." The album title is a reference to the New York intersection Sting crossed every day to get to the studio in Hell's Kitchen where much of the album was recorded.

From late 2015 and throughout the first half of 2016, images of Sting working in the studio were periodically published across his various social media outlets. The resultant album was eventually announced on 18 July 2016. In a teaser video published subsequently, Sting described the album as having a spontaneous feel, featuring "a lot of rock 'n' roll" with themes of searching, travelling, the road and the pull of the unknown.

Sting wrote "50,000" the week of Prince's death, and in memory of several famous musicians who died in 2016: Prince, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, and Lemmy. "One Fine Day" is a plea for sanity regarding anthropogenic climate change. According to the Rolling Stone magazine on 11 November 2016, the two tracks "Heading South on the Great North Road" (with its «Chaucer-y balladry») and "If You Can't Love Me" (with its «mordantly Kafkaesque echo of the jazz rock Sting made in the Eighties») constitute a kind of travelogue through Sting's own musical past. "Inshallah" is a Middle East-tinged refugee's prayer. The Arabic word "Inshallah" means "If God wills", or in Sting's words: "If it's God's will then it shall be". "The Empty Chair" is a song inspired by American journalist James Foley who was kidnapped and killed by the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS).

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