Sting has had a lot of projects over the last seventeen years but one of them was not an album of rock and pop music.
On November 11, the singer will return to those genres on 57th & 9th which will be released on A&M/Interscope. He told Rolling Stone “It’s not a lute album. It’s rockier than anything I’ve done in a while. 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.
Details have been trickling out over the last few dates. The title came out early in the week and the release date earlier today. The album was produced by his manager, Martin Kierszenbaum and he is using a small group of musicians that includes Dominic Miller, Vinnie Colaiuta, Jerry Fuentes and Diego Navaira of the band The Last Bandoleros.
As far as songs, we know that there is what is described as a “gloomy ballad”, 50,000, which he wrote the week that Prince died. The song is reportedly about mortality and how how shocked we all are when one of our cultural icons dies: Prince, David [Bowie], Glenn Frey, Lemmy.”
Others songs include Inshallah, about refugees arriving in Europe, and One Fine Day about climate change critics.
Sting’s last true pop/rock album was 1999’s A Brand New Day. Since that time, he has explored R&B (Sacred Love), lute music (Songs From the Labyrinth) and traditional holiday music (If On a Winter’s Night…) along with a two year tour with the Police, a Broadway show (The Last Ship), an album of his previous music rearranged for performance with large orchestras (Symphonicities) and co-headlining tours with Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel.
