“What a wonderful song”: Sting’s 10 favourite tracks of all time
Gordon Sumner, or Sting, as he’s been nicknamed since he became particularly attached to a black and yellow striped sweater in his early career, is one of Britain’s most successful musical exports. The tantric pioneer has sold over 100million records worldwide across his solo career and his work with The Police.
Both of these hit chapters are defined by one key element: instantly recognisability. Whether it is a track from way back when or recent times, if Sting has been involved, you know it sports his fingerprints. There’s a uniqueness borne from his blend of eclectic influences. There’s jazz from the likes of Miles Davis, classic catchiness from The Beatles, reggae, and even English folk and classical from rare inspirations like the 16th century artist, John Dowland.
In each case, he looks at these influences with a literary mindset. “For to sit in a room full of books, and remember the stories they told you,“ he wrote in his memoir, “and to know precisely where each one is located and what was happening in your life at time or where you were when you first read it is the languid and distilled pleasure of the connoisseur.” This elevated manner is how he has always seen music.
In 1978, Sting broke into global consciousness with his new wave group, The Police, after the release of their debut album Outlandos d’Amour. They enjoyed a five-year climb to the top with four more studio albums. By the time they released their final album, Synchronicity, in 1983, the trio were the most notable band in the world.
The band’s unique and highly accessible sound blended elements of punk, classic rock, soul, jazz and reggae, and this winning combination aligns perfectly with Sting’s eclectic all-time favourite tracklist. During his appearance on BBC Radio Two’s show Tracks Of My Years in 2021, Sting listed his top ten favourite tracks of all time.
With The Police, Sting gambled a significant amount on ensuring the band worked, and for a time, it seemed like it would never pay off. Their first record put them on the map in seismic terms, but two long years of playing to empty rooms preceded their change in fortunes.
Sting had moved from Newcastle to London armed with his guitar, a suitcase, and a dream. While he now has unimaginable wealth after selling the rights to his back catalogue for a reported $300million fee, it was a different story when he was living in a bedsit upon arriving in the capital.
Thankfully, Sting had the radio for company, which could transport him to paradise. As he revealed on Tracks Of My Years, one song in particular, ‘Baker Street‘ by Gerry Rafferty, reminds him of this character-building time.
“This was a time I was living in a bedsit in Bayswater,” he recalled. “I used to have the radio on a lot, and there were two hits that year, one, ‘Wuthering Heights’, and the other one was Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’. That saxophone solo in the beginning completely destroyed me. It made me wish that I was in the charts too because these were number one records”.
The vast spread of tracks reaches back to Sting’s teen years and his obsession with the smooth, soulful vocals of Otis Redding. “I think I was just 16, and Otis Redding had just died in a terrible plane crash. I went to my record store and bought ‘Dock Of The Bay’ on the Stax label, a lovely blue label.”
He poetically continued, “There was a paper bag, and I took it out, put it on my turntable, the usual ritual, put the needle on it and I hear (it). What a wonderful song. I mean, sad, sad song but without any minor chords. It’s all major chords, which is kind of an achievement in many ways”.
Later in the conversation, Sting highlights the importance of reggae legend Bob Marley and the latter influence of synth-pop groups, including Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics and The Human League. In a sharp contrast in musical stylings, Sting then named his former collaborator and close friend Shaggy’s 2000 hit ‘It Wasn’t Me’. For a man who John Lydon described as one of the most humourless men in music, it has a notable novelty air that proves Sting is often largely just misunderstood.
While they are from different corners of the globe, and there’s almost a two-decade age gap between the duo, Sting says they have far more in common than dividing them, noting, “Sometimes you meet somebody, and they might be very different from you, very different backgrounds, but you recognise a kindred spirit. Shaggy and I, we genuinely love each other. We laugh at the same jokes, I find him an intensively interesting artist.”
Sting’s list of ten songs is more than merely tracks he namechecked without much consideration; each selection is a bookmark on a chapter of his life. Whether this is residing in a dingy bedsit and daydreaming about having a hit single playing on the radio or building an unlikely brotherhood with Shaggy, every pick represents a pivotal checkpoint on his navigation through life.
