Solid ‘Mercury’ Always Surprising, Sting Samples Varied Styles On Seventh Solo Album
Sounding like the schoolteacher he once was, Sting describes the meaning behind the title of his new A&M album, “Mercury Falling”:
“It’s a phrase that I find laden with symbolic relevance. It means so many things. Mercury is a metal, a liquid, an element, a planet. It’s an astrological symbol, an astronomical thing. You know, Mercury is the god of theft and commerce. He’s the messenger, too. He’s quite a complex character, this Mercury. As am I.”
The material on the Tuesday release is similarly rife with different interpretations: musically divergent and lyrically ambiguous. But as his seventh solo outing, it epitomizes Sting’s artistic depth and continual ability to surprise.
“Mercurial is probably a good description of this record in that it’s everywhere, and you can’t quite pin it down in terms of its references and its musical styles,” says Sting.
Indeed, the album veers from the country stylings of “I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying” and “Lithium Sunset” to a lilting bossa nova beat on “La Belle Dame Sans Regrets,” to soulful seasonings on “You Still Touch Me.”
The first single, the uplifting “Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot,” went to radio Feb. 2.
Sting’s last studio album, 1993’s “Ten Summoner’s Tales,” has been certified triple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, tying it with his 1985 solo debut, “The Dream Of The Blue Turtles,” as his most successful release in the United States. His 1987 album, “… Nothing Like The Sun,” has gone double-platinum, while 1991’s “The Soul Cages” and 1994’s greatest-hits collection have both sold more than 1 million units each.
Following a European tour, Sting will begin a summer U.S. outing in June.
It may have been three years since Sting has had an album of new material to tour behind, but he’s been represented by a dazzling array of side projects in the interim. He’s currently on the soundtracks of both “Leaving Las Vegas” and “Sabrina.” In the last few years, he’s performed with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart on the chart-topping “All For One,” appeared on Leonard Cohen and Jimi Hendrix tribute albums, recorded with Tammy Wynette for her duets album, learned Gaelic phonetically so he could sing with the Chieftains, sung with Luciano Pavarotti, and recorded a track for the upcoming “Nova Bossa: Red Hot + Rio” AIDS charity album. And that just skims the surface.
“I have a real problem saying the word no,” says Sting with a laugh. “People ask me to work for them, and I just have to say, ‘OK, I’ll give that a go.”’
For Sting, the more varied the material - whether it is on side projects or his own albums - the better. “For me, music is one big city. I don’t see it as a compartmentalized, ghetto-ized kind of thing. I demand access to every department because I think music is a common language that links all of us.”
On “Mercury Falling,” the theme that links the songs is a sense of redemption and acceptance that comes to each character.
“One of the acquisitions I’ve recently acquired is an acceptance of things that I cannot change,” says Sting. “I think the protagonists here are often faced with a situation that simply cannot be changed, and the songs are about the heroism and courage it takes to accept that.”
Before coming to any kind of resolution, however, most of the characters go through a period of isolation - a sensation with which Sting is familiar. “Even though I’m actually very happy at the moment with my family, I’ve been alone enough in my life to know that feeling very well, for it to be burned into my memory, you know,” he says.
“In the past, I would have told you and believed that for me to be creative I would have had to be in some kind of pain or to manufacture some kind of crisis for me to be able to write at all,” he continues. “I don’t believe that anymore. I think I can be the opposite. I can be happy and have the knowledge of pain, but I don’t have to be in pain to make music.”