STING
I am fully aware that my review is away from being decent for Sting is the greatest soul on the planet and we only have a limited space, too little even to mention a few of his greatness but one word to start with, “Talented”. Composer, singer, actor, activist - Sting has been all over the music charts since he started his career with The Police as the lead vocalist and bassist/guitarist and also during his solo career that started in 1981 (Sting continued recording and touring as a solo performer to great success) with such achievements as many as 16 Grammy Awards and several Academy Award nominations. I have fallen in love with his particular style of music, the so called “New Wave”, a music style developed in the late 70s and continued mushrooming until the beginning of 90s. Through his music albums, I have witnessed how he develops his style over a particular span of time.
The decision Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland made to pursue their solo career has been proved right. After the band split up in 1984, each of these musicians achieve success. Sting gained success from the album titled The Dream of the Blue Turtles in 1985, an album indicated by strong jazz ambiance in collaboration with several reliable musicians such as Kenny Kirkland, Darryl Jones, Omar Hakim, and Branford Marsalis. The success of this album was soon followed by other more sucessful albums such as Bring On The Night, The Soul Cages, and The Ten Summoners’ Tales.
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THE POLICE
As the major contributor who revived the so called New Wave music (a unique blend of punk, pop mixed with reggae), these trio of Stewart Copeland, Sting and Andy Summers rocked the 80’s era, creating a mass hysteria to music audience worldwide. Sting’s extraordinary high-pitched voice, brilliant songwriting skills, Andy Summers’ thrilling and melodious guitar expertise plus Stewart Copeland exceptional drumming skills have made The Police a Godfather among all other music bands in that era. With such a brilliant music, lovely beats, catchy lyrics, they brought a message to the world, “Punk is not dead”. They successfully beat other bands’ popularity thanks to their guts in experimenting with all kinds of music styles, punk, rock, pop, jazz, reggae, you name it. They soon harvested their hard work by becoming the most popular and reputable rock band in England, Europe and finally all over the world through “Roxanne” and “Message in the Bottle”
The Police was named the Best British Group at the first Brit Awards and won three Grammy Festival Awards in the period of 1980 and 1981. From all of Their best-selling albums, The Police Achieved success in world music chart through Their ultimate Such hits as Roxanne and So Lonely (Outlandos D’Amour). Their success was soon Followed by the release of Reggatta de Blanc with its hits Message in a Bottle and Walking On The Moon, as well as Zenyatta Mondatta, the which gave them the first Grammy. In 1980, two years prior to Their vacuum, The Police, Zenyatta Mondatta released, an album That gave them two Grammy Awards for Such songs as “Do not Stand So Close To Me” and “De Do Do, De Da Da Da”. Next, in 1981, They released “Ghost In The Machine”, giving them double platinum with Their singles “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” and “Spirits in the Material World”.
The band returned to record the next album, Synchronicity, after a full year of hiatus. Considered successful, Synchronicity gave them three Grammy awards. However, “Every Breath You Take” has been an enormous success for it received BMI Award 2005 for the song, entitled the same, that has been played 8 million times on the radio. The song also becomes the most remembered rock ballad throughout 1980s.
The success ofthe album Reggatta de Blanc (fall 1979) with its”Message In the Bottle” successfully dominated the UK charts for four consecutive weeks. Miles Copeland, after releasing the album, proposed the trio to perform concerts in several countries that are rarely visited by foreign artists, including Thailand, India, Mexico, Greece, and Egypt. In addition, “Walking on the Moon” also took part in contributing to the success for The Police. Furthermore, this group also received a Grammy Award for one of the songs, titled the same, namely Reggatta de Blanc.
Despite the successful album of Synchronicity, which stayed at the first position in the UK and then respectively in the United States for a total of 17 weeks due to the popularity of “Every Breath You Take”, ”King of Pain” and “Wrapped Around Your Finger” (major hits in America throughout 1983 that gained them the platinum award); nevertheless, they still decided to try their luck in their respective solo-career.
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