Sting, ‘Sacred Love’
By user • Oct 9th, 2003 • Category: Album Reviews
On Sept. 30, the official release date of “Sacred Love,” Sting’s muse was declared dead.
The Englishman’s secretly has battled the disease of crash commercialism and middle-of-the-road rubbish for more than a decade. The ailment took a public turn for the worse on 1993’s “Ten Summoner’s Tales” and again in 199 on “Brand New Day.”
“Sacred Love,’ The title sting had been saving for an autobiography, lacks an identity. Combining the essence of world music beats with sterile and uninspired musicianship, “Sacred Love” confuses more that it compels. Unfortunately, Sting’s intriguing bass lines, the only redeeming instrumentation, get smothered by looping samples and obnoxious layering.
Lyrically, the 11 songs are about exaggerated spiritualism. On the track “Dead Man’s Rope,” Sting claims, “I’ve been walking/ I’ve been walking away from Jesus’ love.’ The politically-charged peace anthem “this War” contains religious references: “There’s a war on our democracy/ A war on our dissent/ There’s a war inside religion/ And what Jesus might have meant.”
Sting, a driving force behind the fusion of reggae and punk in the early 1980’s, appears overly-determined to blind contemporary demographics on “Whenever I Say Your Name,” a duet with R&B diva Mary J. Blige.
The death of Gordon Sumners’ creative inspiration is another in the live of passing that has devastated music fans since December, following Joe Strummer and Johnny Cash.
Sting’s muse is survived by The Police masterpieces “Ghost In The Machine,” Zenyatta Mondatta,” Outlandos d’Amour” and “Sychronicity.”
Northern Star, Oct. 9, 2003
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