The album that made Sting want to throw up: “The dark hours”
No artist should ever be forced into a corner when making their greatest records. The best music of all time is always what comes naturally, and the kiss of death for any record is locking someone in a studio and refusing to let them out until they have some of the best radio songs of all time. While Sting always knew how to balance the catchy and sophisticated sides of his sound, there were moments when he knew that he needed to draw a line between himself and his label.
But after The Police split up, it looked like Sting was free to do whatever the hell he wanted. The band had simply grown apart, and since he was used to working with more sophisticated players, hearing him transition into albums like Dream of Blue Turtles was incredibly refreshing. He was still making great tunes, but songs like ‘Russians’ and ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’ gave the charts a fair bit of jazz playing as well.
Even when he started making his more beloved solo music, he never forgot to keep the listener guessing. He always thrived on making something that no one expected, and while Dominic Miller’s finger-breaking guitar part on ‘Shape Of My Heart’ was already a nightmare for any guitarist to get their head around, there were also fun harmonic tricks going on in tracks like ‘Nothing ‘Bout Me’.
The charts were happy to have him, but there comes a point when any pop artist is going to want to move into easy listening territory. Phil Collins and Elton John had already gone the way of Disney soundtracks when Sting was making some of his later hits, but he knew he wanted to take things in a different direction by making an album that captured the spirit of winter.
When the label encouraged him to turn the album into a major holiday release and throw pieces of Christmas lore into it, it was enough to have the bassist physically wretch, saying, “When the record company said I should do a Christmas record, I nearly threw up on the carpet. I don’t like Christmas very much, but I said I’d do something about winter. The dark hours have a useful place in our psychology that allows us to reflect and reassess, so it’s no surprise that we end up thinking about ghosts of Christmas past.”
And it’s not like Sting didn’t have good reason for thinking that it would be a mistake. It’s great to have a Christmas single whenever the season comes around, but it’s much easier for a song to become a gimmick once December starts, especially when it has to share airtime with ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ or ‘Wonderful Christmastime’.
Judging by what ended up on Sting’s record, though, he seemed to capture the kind of songs that he wanted to. Many of them were based on traditional tunes that talked about the entire winter season, and since it isn’t tied to one particular religious entity, it’s easy to see it in the same way that artists like Kate Bush approached her seasonal albums when making 50 Words for Snow.
Sting would eventually stretch his own melodies into soft rock fodder when making albums like Symphonicities, but he was never going to make a record strictly because the label wanted it. What he did needed to be musical, and even if it was a step outside of his comfort zone, he knew that nothing about being a musician was meant to be safe.
