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Sting

Sting

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Sting: Nothing Like The Sun

Review by Dave Rimmer, Q, November 1987

"WITHOUT FREEDOM FROM the past," sings a typically philosophical Sting on one track called 'History Will Teach Us Nothing', "things will only get worse." ...

I Ask The Questions by Sylvie Simmons: Sting

Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mail On Sunday, 1996

STING – pop star, actor, philisopher , father, Rover car salesman and generally all-round bit of a god – is trying to steal my job. ...

Audio interviews

Sting (1993)

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, 20 December 1993

The erstwhile Gordon Sumner talks about his place in the pop world; on Paul Gascoigne and being a Geordie; being solo, in a band and the end of the Police; his relationship with Copelands père et fils; the nature of celebrity and the State of the World.

File format: mp3; file size: 57.5mb, interview length: 1h 02' 45" sound quality: ****

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Making It: Last Exit

Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 8 January 1977

Any band with fire in its belly sooner or later has to gamble on that make-or-break trip to London. This is an account of how ...

Sting: Coming Home

Interview by Chris Salewicz, Time Out, 1982

A DECADE AFTER The Police pioneered pop punk, Sting's latest solo album explores Jung's theories of sexuality and is dedicated to the memory of his ...

The Police's Sting considers a new career

Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 4 March 1982

PHILADELPHIA — DEEP in the bright yellow innards of Philadelphia's Spectrum Arena, the reluctant rock god known as Sting eyes a dressing room crowded with ...

Sting: A Policeman's Guide To Good And Evil...

Interview by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, September 1982

YOU MIGHT NOT have noticed, but there's been little activity on the Police front recently. This year, apart from a few sporadic live appearances, has ...

Sting: The Dream Of The Blue Turtles (A&M)

Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, October 1985

O SOLO STINGO ...

Black Like Me: Sting Brings On The Night

Film/DVD/TV Review by John Mendelsohn, Creem, 1986

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, in his infamous Outspoken Period, Elvis Costello allowed as how Sting ought to be cuffed mercilessly about the ears until he quit ...

Sting: Royal Albert Hall, London

Live Review by Richard Williams, The Times, 22 January 1986

WHEN A million-seller rock singer breaks away from his usual band and hires instead a bunch of hot-shot American jazz musicians, what is he trying ...

Sting, The Apollo, Manchester

Live Review by Stuart Bailie, Record Mirror, 25 January 1986

I WAS ALL for getting snotty about Sting's past, and his current pretensions. I wanted to grouse about the megastar menopause. You know, when our ...

Sting: Bring On The Night

Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 28 June 1986

RENEWED ENTHUSIASM may have been the spur for Sting's world tour and mating with pedigree jazzers last year, but the release of this live double ...

U2, Sting et al: Amnesty International, Conspiracy of Hope Benefit, Cow Palace, San Francisco CA

Live Review by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 17 July 1986

Amnesty's rock & roll roadshow All-star lineup gives America the message ...

Pretentious? Sting?

Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Q, 1987

Sting holds court not in the music room with the sofas and grand piano nor in the oak-panelled study with the leather-topped desk and racing ...

Sting: Nothing Like The Sun

Review by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, 3 December 1987

Nothing Like The Sun – a powerful, often hypnotic album that blends jazz and rock styles into a thoughtful suite of twelve songs about love, ...

Sting: Kathleen Turner Doesn’t Turn Me On

Interview by Steve Turner, You, 28 February 1988

Erstwhile teacher turned pop musician Sting spent a week writhing naked on a bed with Kathleen Turner for his new film Julia and Julia. His ...

Miles Copeland: "Make sure you write what a nasty S.O.B. I am"

Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, March 1988

STING'S BRING On the Night was a big-budget home movie by a talented musician convinced that every breath he takes deserves to be documented. It ...

Sting Has No Answers

Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, March 1988

HELL, AT LEAST he's trying. Plenty have called him pretentious – quoting Shakespeare to drunks, diddling Jung, sporting philosophers and musicians like designer accessories – ...

Sting: ...Nothing Like The Sun (A&M)

Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Creem, March 1988

STRADDLING A fine line between LP and EP, this almost-but-not-quite twofer boasts 12 tunes thinly spread out over four sides of plastic. That's three songs ...

The Major Rock Stars Who Make My Life Miserable

Comment by Danny (Shredder) Weizmann, L.A. Weekly, 4 March 1988

MUSIC, THEY say, is all a matter of mathematics. Numbers combine, add up, subtract or divide to make tones, chords, harmonies, etc., etc. Music criticism, ...

Culture candy

Report and Interview by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 16 December 1988

Adam Sweeting watches the label boom and fears a future of repackaged rock, candyfloss music and 'low-stress' hard sell ...

Sting : Where The Hell Have You Been?

Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1991

"I HAD A FUNNY experience a couple of months ago when I took my eldest son. Joe, to see England versus Hungary," says Sting – ...

Sting: Help The Caged!

Interview by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, April 1991

Who is rock chameleon Sting today? High priest of Jungian jazz rock? Rain Forest warrior? Posing Thespian? Geordie homecomer? Bruce Springsteen's mate? On one matey? ...

Sting: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 26 April 1991

IT SEEMS unlikely that Sting has been paying attention to his critics, but with his new stripped-down band and a show sprinkled with The Police's ...

Changing Times at A&M

Report and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 16 May 1991

The classy, formerly independent label tries for a comeback ...

Sting: Lord Of The Lake

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, The Observer, January 1994

ON THE DRIZZLY Monday morning before Christmas, I'm sitting in an oak-panelled room in deepest Wiltshire, awaiting the entrance of the owner of a Jacobean ...

Gentleman's Agreement: Sting dreams a world without junk...

Comment by James Hunter, The Village Voice, 2 December 1994

"IN THE POLICE he was a pop star, the best we've had, a potent force delivering blistering reggae-tinged chart-friendly hits apparently to order." ...

Sting: The South Will Rise Again

Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, January 1995

It is the biggest dilemma in the caring career of Pop's Very Own Captain Conscience. Sun City: should I stay or should I go? Sting ...

Sting: The Secret Life Of Gordon Sumner by Wensley Clarkson (Blake £15.99)

Book Review by Tom Doyle, Q, May 1996

TELLINGLY TITLED, this 300-plus-page biography of Sting follows in the tradition of Clarkson's previous unauthorised works on film stars Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise by ...

Sting: Mercury Falling (A&M)

Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 1996

Sting cannot be escaped. He's on TV (a commercial for Rover cars) in a film (The Grotesque), on two movie soundtracks (Leaving Las Vegas and ...

Sting: "Does my bum look big in this?"

Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1996

Do us a favour! You, sir, are the tantric titan of tunesmanship. Bawdy baron of blokedom. Goegeous god of... oh stop it. In Seattle, pondering ...

Sting: Sheffield Arena

Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 30 November 1996

Great rocker, poor jazzer. Dave Simpson catches Sting in Sheffield ...

The Rake's Progress: Sting: Brand New Day (A&M) ****

Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1999

Still looking after himself — in and out of the studio ...

Sting: Sumner Holiday

Report and Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, November 1999

Sometimes even Q needs a break. Usually this means a week in a prefab on Selsea Bill, but this year Signor Sting – Tuscan summer ...

"I think I am the edge": Sting faces 50 and the millennium

Interview by Bob Spitz, Delta Sky, December 1999

FROM THE MOMENT the Police made their debut in 1978, it was clear that Sting wasn't about to go away. It wasn't so much that ...

Sting: All This Time

Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 13 November 2001

STING WAS IN Tuscany when he gave this concert in a courtyard there, beginning at nine in the evening, Italian time, September 11th. ...

Sting: Broken Music

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 16 November 2003

AROUND THE TIME he won his scholarship to Newcastle grammar school, Sting – or Gordon Sumner as he was then known – witnessed his mother ...

Sting: Back On The Beat

Profile and Interview by Robin Eggar, Radio Times, Summer 2003

A YEAR AGO, as Sting was preparing to perform at a charity party in Cannes, Bono introduced him. "He is one of the most talented ...

Sting: LSO St Luke's, London

Live Review by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 6 October 2006

STING'S LATEST artistic venture, despite being pregnant with pratfall potential, is a remarkable triumph. ...

Vinyl Icon: The Police's Synchronicity

Retrospective by Johnny Black, Hi-Fi News & Record Review, November 2009

IN 1977, a virtually unknown trio called The Police recorded their debut album, Outlandos D'Amour, in a village hall that had been converted to a ...

Sting: The Last Ship

Review by Rob Steen, Rock's Backpages, 28 September 2013

THE ARTIST Originally Known As Gordon Sumner is just about the only musician bar Justin Bieber who can be guaranteed bad notices for breathing. This, ...

A World Of Dreaded Fear: Band Aid's Unforgivable Crimes

Retrospective by Wyndham Wallace, The Quietus, 10 December 2013

Band Aid raised awareness of a disastrous famine, as well as huge sums of money to try ease it. But, one year ahead of its ...

American Music Awards: anti-Trump sentiment peppers pop's timid party

Report by Maura Johnston, The Guardian, 21 November 2016

Usually the awards show is a chance for those who turn up to walk away with a gong, but this year several acts and presenters ...

Sting: Eventim Apollo, London

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 11 April 2017

On the faux-raunchy rock numbers he simply lacked conviction: antiseptic, anodyne and asexual. The blond leading the bland. ...

When Pop Went Political: Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2018

IT WAS A PARTY staged to express solidarity with the world's most famous political prisoner, while concurrently expressing vehement opposition to an overtly racist system ...

see also Last Exit (UK)

see also Police, The

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