Sacred Love - Sting (CD 2003)

Sting.(Reflective Pause) What can we write about Sting that hasn t already been written? You all know his history, founder of one of the biggest rock bands in history, the Police, and left them to pursue his immensely successful solo career in order to explore, experiment and integrate all forms of music into his own eclectic mix of albums and hugely successful songs.

Gordon Sumner s singing and writing style have won him many accolades and recognition from his contemporaries and most important from his fans worldwide. He isn t afraid to wander off into unknown musical waters and somehow fuse the influences into his own creations. A perfect example of this is Desert Rose, in his previous LP, where he introduced an oriental song in pop sensibility, especially made effective by the guest singer Cheb Mami whose Arabic singing style made Desert Rose all the more spectacular and authentic. Sting follows on with this winning formula by including not only worldbeat influences into his new LP, but also by experimenting with electronic beats and techno sensibilities in order to try to woo in a newer generation of listeners. Although an immensely solid piece of work, Sacred Love, which includes many influences, feels like Sting is running from one place to another, from the rock influenced This War via the techno-flamenco-oriental Send Your Love to a typical Sting-style song in Sacred Love. Not that this is bad in any way, in fact it shows that Sting, although already a living musical legend, is to this day always prepared to step away from his comfort zone, but this approach gives the impression of a certain lack of focus. Nevertheless, this is Sting we are talking about, therefore Sacred Love delivers a very listenable and varied collection of songs, all performed outstandingly and all have an air of intellectual craftsmanship. When one song lacks focus usually the following picks up in style and class making up for the shortcomings.

Probably encouraged by Desert Rose, I guess I should also mention that there are three guest appearances in this LP, namely by Vicente Amigo, Mary J. Blige and Anoushka Shankar, of which I shall give a wider description in my traditional song breakdown below. Isn t it exciting? :)

So, the moment you ve all been waiting for, where I describe the songs to the best of my ability so that one would get an audio impression without listening to the songs themselves. Here it is: [insert drum role clip]


1. Inside - A slight orchestra build up, featuring acoustic guitar, a sitar-like instrument, and stringed background introduces us into Sting s with bare sounding tight drum and bass background and an acoustic guitar in the foreground playing chords string by string. This pattern builds as strings and synthesizers are layered in the bridge during the bridge that lead to a full crescendo of a violin orchestra in the chorus section. The vocals are typical of Sting with what I call linear singing, akin to the verse in if I ever lose my faith in you while the orchestration at times is reminiscent of mad about you.

2. Send your Love(Featuring Vicente Amigo) - Starting off with a flamenco guitar introduction, a very frenzied and masterfully performed small piece by Vincente Amigo, yet it seems out of place as Sting starts of with very dark sounding vocals leading the melody as he is only supported by an electronic rhythm featuring mainly high-hat and bass. Each chorus features an oriental sounding phrase which is transposed through verse in the latter part of the song. The rhythm is mainly dance/disco oriented while we only get a hint of the flamenco guitar in the remaining parts of the song. This song is probably directed at the younger generation as it is it has a very modern beat, but some how it doesn t suit Sting s style. Apart from the fact that the guest Vincente Amigo shows off his flare in the intro it seems that there is some injustice in not allowing him to have a spotlight in the body of the song too, after all he is credited as a guest star. Although this song has been released as a single I believe it is one of the weaker ones and should really be regarded as an experiment rather than a complete song.

3. Whenever I Say your Name (Featuring Mary J. Blige) - A rhythmic song that starts off with Sting s sultry vocals who is accompanied by Mary J. Blige. The mood shifts from low key via vocal interchanges between the two singers to slowly build up, accompanied by the backing music, again to reach a crescendo in the chorus. Although Sting is not the best of singers he holds his own to the excellent vocal performance of the soulful Mary J. Blige, especially with his excellent high notes as opposed to the bluesy and gospel like delivery by Ms. Blige. Meanwhile back to the song, the last part of it turns into a funky little number where both singers interact with each other s styles.

4. Dead Man s Rope Finally a typical melancholic low key song as we are used to hearing from Sting. Yet again, a the so-called linear signing style take centre stage in this forlorn and uninspiring song.

5. Never Coming Home An electronic beat starts and then pauses in order to allow Sting to deliver his vocal melody line. This again is mainly an electro-pop song with Sting vocals and in my view is surprisingly a much more successful attempt than Send your Love, as it has melody and some typical Sting signatures.

6. Stolen Car A low-key melancholic, typical Sting with sytnhesizer and a slight electronic background beat which becomes more audible in the second part of the verse. The chorus is a wonderful melodious tune and typical of sing represents the crescendo featuring interlaced vocals with the main melody line sung by Sting and vague background vocals repeat certain parts in an unhurried fashion.

7. Forget About the Future A slow jazz/blues influenced song number. It s nice to see Sting deliver such a moody little number with a nice pop-jazzy feel to it and is a nice turn from all those disco-focused songs. The drum rhythm is predominantly electronic sounding however but the rest of the instruments are natural sounding especially the clean guitar sound. A nice touch in about 3/4 of song is when a section of the song suddenly transforms into a vintage record sounding with trumpets and trombones along with the scratches and noise emulating a vintage turntable. The song returns to full clarity along with a trumpet and trombone section which recurs until the end of the song. Hardly without a stop comes the next song

8. This War A drum fill leads us directly into a hard rocking number (ok if its not heavy enough for you a rock number). As it is in the same key as the song preceding, it almost feels like a more solid and rocking continuation. As a predominant rock fan myself I must say that I was surprised by this infectious song, my only qualm could be perhaps that the distortion is not concise enough and fells like it been played through via an inadequately setup amp.

9. The Book of Life (Featuring Anoushka Shankar) - Almost 180 degree turn in musical styles with this oriental/Indian background. A wonderful slow song featuring the instrumentation by Ravi Shankar s daughter which gives freshness especially by the Sitars and other oriental instruments.

10. Sacred Love Finally we arrive at perhaps the best song of the Album. It is vintage Sting at his vintage best. Regardless of some shortcoming in this album this song makes up for them with nuances of orchestration, variety of instruments, integrated oriental musical influences along with a rock, pop and at times funky sensibility. There s an immensity which must be explored in this song that will require more than just several listens, the catchy chorus and excellent arrangement help a lot in the process of course.

There that wasn t so hard was it? I wouldn t go as far as saying that Sacred Love surpasses Brand New Day, nor would I dare in any way or form say that it is anywhere near the legendary Dream of the Blue Turtles or Ten Summoner s Tales but it does stand on its own merit especially with several exceptional songs that compensate for a few experimentations in the dance category.