Nothing Like The Sun - Sting (1987)

You’d be forgiven if you thought Sting, just post-Police, was trying a little too hard and ending up as a poseur intellectual. Even though he had previously name-dropped Vladimir Nabokov and The Odyssey, this early solo record saw him feature a lot of jazz and fusion players and name the record after a Shakespeare line.

The thing is, Sting wasn’t a poseur. He really was literate and erudite, had a real love of jazz and soul, and cooked it all together into a really great album.

I’m going to go ahead and tag it as fusion because of the driving rock sounds along with things like Branford Marsalis’ saxophone and Gil Evans’ orchestra. But there’s a lot of pop and rock convention as well, sharing space with various latin and more general world-music elements.

Sting’s image has always teetered on the edge of the pretentious, although it did lead to one of my all-time favorite things The Onion ever published.

Tracks I Liked

Be Still My Beating Heart - Not to beat this horse again, but compare Sting’s bass playing and song structure to what Miles Davis was doing in the same period.

Fragile - a lovely and pointed guitar driven tune

We’ll Be Together - A radio hit that stands with any pop or R&B single of the time. He interpolates some of his own lyrics from a previous song, but you can’t blame a guy for quoting his favorite artist…

Little Wing - Gil Evans’ guitarist, Hiram Bullock, does his best David Gilmour impression in a non-Hendrix-ian but gorgeous Hendrix cover.