Special thanks to Stingchronicity, for providing much of the information here, as well as images.
Dream of the Blue Turtles 1986
Pro: Jon Pareles, Rolling Stone: Unlike Joni Mitchell another Big Blond Star who attempted this kind of jazzification, Sting can swing. You can hear how much fun he's having, and how much goosing he gets from the band, in the remake of the Police's "Shadows in the Rain."
Sting delves into neo-vaudeville with "Moon Over Bourbon Street" and seriouso classical hymnology with "Russians," a disarmament song. He also comments on the British miners' strike ("We Work The Black Seam") on lost generations ("Children's Crusade") and on matters philosophical and epistemological ("Love Is The Seventh Wave" and "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free").
When I saw the band in concert (as you should when it tours this summer) its musical exuberance was contagious: I kept losing track of the lyrics in the brainy kicks of the music.
Con: Steve Morse, Boston Globe: An actor and philosopher besides being a former English teacher, Sting was expected to make an album of far-reaching political and spiritual impact. The end result, however, is one of the most numbingly pretentious records to come out in quite a while - not at all what one would have hoped to balance the escapism of the pop charts.
For accuracy's sake, the title The Dream of the Blue Turtles should be changed to "Sermons on Life According to Sting." The worst excesses of his English-teacher past are here, for amid an often chaotic fusion of jazz and art-rock, he comes off like an amateur poet locked in a pulpit of self-righteousness.
...Nothing Like the Sun 1987
Pro: Divinia Infusino, The Arizona Republic: Sting has some deep-seated emotions to express this time, and he does so beautifully. Rather than punching up the hits, the album drifts into the mind and settles slowly. The jazzy elements are intact, bits of Eastern musical sounds and polyrhythms are evident also.
Con: Tom Moon, Miami Herald: Crossing Shakespeare with a British rock star's crude approximation of Miles Davis just doesn't work. This insight comes from the work of Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting, who continues his role as cultural ambassador to pop music with Nothing Like the Sun, the recent digitally recorded, two-LP/ one-CD work.
