We recap some the CP recipient's glory days and then try to pinpoint exactly when it all went wrong and lay their transgressions out for all to see and end it all with swift and hearty groin chop.
These are the hardest smacks to hand out. It's like seeing an old lover who spurned you and confronting them with all of your pent up feelings of rage and betrayal. This isn't someone you have always wanted to Rochambeau. It's an old friend, a trusted adviser and someone you relied on for entertainment and cultural import. But, now the fire is gone and it's time for retribution.
STING
WHAT HE GOT RIGHT:
Well, let's start at the beginning. The Police are plain and simple a terrific band. During their run, they managed a string of incredible consistency and artistic growth. In just a six year span they released five very strong records, including capping off their discography with a work of brilliance in Synchronicity. They forged a sound that was all their own and continued to grow and develop throughout their career up to their (initial) break-up in 1983.
After the untimely demise of the Police, Sting didn't rest on his laurels. He trudged off in a new direction and kept growing as an artist and songwriter. He recruited a troop of crack jazz musicians and formed a new group and crafted a new sound. The formation of that group was documented in a fantastic film called Bring On The Night, directed by Michael Apted. This new group (with slight lineup changes in between LPs) put out two tremendous records: 1985's Dream Of The Blue Turtles and 1987's Nothing Like The Sun.
WHERE IT WENT WRONG:
To put it simply, The Soul Cages. This is 9 full tracks of Sting channeling Kenny G through his own vocal cords and then finding a way to drop it one more notch down the easy listening ladder. The people at Muzax heard The Soul Cages for the first time and started talking about how they could beef it up to make it less weak for when they sold the instrumental versions of those songs for the speakers in the ladies' underwear section of the K-Mart locations on the eastern seaboard.
Now that he was a new-aged easy listening God, Sting decided to help the masses with more than just the limpid sounds of his schlocky new sonic schtick. He preached to them of the glorious ways of tantra. Now he was Sting, the slightly bearded lord of alto sax solos, Jaguar commercials and sex that went on for half a fucking day but never ended in climax. This was better, he said. The climax was internal and massive. If internal bleeding is bad for you, I can only imagine how rotten the insides of Stang must be.
The records after the Soul Cages just got progressively worse. Lame attempts at Eastern European folk met with Middle Eastern whirling dirvish concoctions that seemed more like the aural version of the menu options at Epcot Center than any real attempt at music. Every Sting album sounded like he was having an "ingasm" whilst he was warbled away over the top of a backing track that seemed more appropriate for a an English lady having her 100th birthday party at Sotheby's auction house than a pop/rock record.
WHERE IT GOES FROM HERE:
Neil Young said it best, "Everybody knows this is nowhere". Sting tried to reunite with the Police and it was a financial boom, but a musical bust. The shows were critically panned and severely over-priced. Plus, his band mates had the same problem they had 30 years ago, he's a dick and they grew quickly tired of spending time with him. If you hadn't had a good (actual/external) orgasm in 20 years, you'd be a prickly bastard too, right? So, the shows seemed much more like a sad reminder of what was than what could still be. What did you expect for your $200 mezzanine seat?
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