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Fans of the legendary musical artist Sting will be hitting the record stores and online sites this week purchasing his brand new album entitled The Bridge. It is Sting’s first true solo album release since 2016’s 57th & 9th. It is also only his second true solo album of all new material in the rock pop and jazz world since 2003’s Sacred Love. In between those solo rock albums Sting has also released many other records that have crossed genres but could not really be classified like his rock and jazz solos albums. Sting recently released My Songs in 2019 which was an album filled with old Sting songs that he had re-recorded in new versions. There was also the great album he released with Shaggy in 2018 called 44/876 which was a pure reggae album with incredibly catchy songs that was tremendously underrated. Of course one can’t forget the celtic infused album released in 2013 called The Last Ship which was based on the play that Sting wrote. A Christmas style album entitled If on a Winter’s Night… was released in 2009. To round out the string of Sting releases in the 21st century was the album Songs from the Labyrinth which featured the music of 16th century composer John Dowland.
As noted above, there has not been many new albums of Sting’s great blend of rock and jazz released over the past twenty years, so The Bridge will be welcomed by long time fans of Sting’s music with The Police and his early solo years. We have been wondering when music fans would start to see the release of albums recorded by their favorite artists during the pandemic’s first horrible year. If ever there was a time for artists to hunker down in studios and write and record new music it was the year 2020. The question would be how the pandemic would influence those artists in the music they were writing. The awaser is clear on Sting’s new album.
Once again The Bridge presents Sting exploring life’s general themes across cultures. It doesn’t focus on just one musical style, one location, one culture or even one time period. The Bridge is the perfect name for the album as its musical and lyrical ideas fuses time, culture and location into an album of brilliant songs of substance both captivating and instantly memorable. Fueling those musical ideas onto vinyl is a band of musicians who are known as some of the best players in the business.
Since Sting left The Police and put together his own band of musicians he has chosen musicians who are artists in their own right as players. The legendary saxophone player and jazz artist Branford Marsalis who began working with Sting on his first solo album in 1985 entitled The Dream Of The Blue Turtles returns once again appearing on the new album. Sting’s right hand man and longtime guitarist Dominic Miller is a major part of the album once again. Also returning is the sensational drummer Manu Katché.
Sting’s new album The Bridge contains ten new tracks in the basci release version. The first single entitled “’If It’s Love,” has already been released to radio. The song define Stings penchant for writing outstanding melodies and hooks to die for recalling some of his classic hits as a solo artist and with The Police. The album will also be released in deluxe versions that will contain bonus tracks. Its seems to have become an industry standard for artists to release higher priced deluxe versions that they know hardcore fans will buy. You can’t blame them for doing that because most people don’t buy music anymore. The deluxe versions will carry a cover of Otis Redding’s classic “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.”
Sting’s new album The Bridge will be released this Friday November 19th 2021. One can almost be assured that we will be seeing Sting on tour in 2022. Can’t wait for those shows.
Sting’s New Album The Bridge To Be Released On Friday 11/15/21 article published on Classic RockHistory.com© 2021
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