Why Sting was “worried” about Paul McCartney’s solo career: “I think he should push himself”
Not every musical generation is known to really look after its elders. If anything, each new phase of rock and roll has always made it a habit of dropping their former idols like flies the minute a new band comes along to take their spot at the table. Although Sting managed to toe the line between the frontman of The Police and a solo star, he began to get concerned about where Paul McCartney was going as the late 1980s began.
Granted, it would always be hard to keep track of any musical trend in the 1980s. Compared to the prog and hard rock booms that happened in the 1970s, the world got a pop makeover as soon as MTV kicked in, featuring everyone getting nice neon-coloured makeovers for the next few years. While David Bowie was a great fit, it wasn’t the greatest transition for someone like Neil Young, for instance, who seemed so ill-equipped for what MTV was about.
While Sting was one of the few who managed to toe the line pretty well, he did have one thing that made him stand out among everyone else: actually making serious material. Whereas most people were still chasing pop singles, Sting was more interested in making songs that expanded his craft on tracks like ‘Fortress Around Your Heart’.
Although Sting was worried about people like Prince getting a bit too pompous by refusing to tour at the time, he was most concerned about Paul McCartney. Compared to the other gods of yesteryear, McCartney had started off the 1980s strong by releasing Tug of War but had begun to falter on albums like Pipes of Peace and Press to Play, the latter of which sounded like he traded in his fun-loving side for a dad rock sound.
For all of the great melodies he put together with The Beatles, Sting could see that McCartney was losing his edge to make serious music, telling David Sheff, “I worry about McCartney, too. I think he isn’t sure what to do anymore. [He’s] is a genius in many ways, but I think he should push himself to do work that’s more serious. His Beatles work was as important as Lennon’s was–more important, in some cases–and he is one of the people in the world who could take more risks”.
Then again, it’s kind of ironic to see these words come from Sting, the man who recycled the melody of one of his greatest hits to shoehorn into Dire Straits’ ‘Money For Nothing’. That’s not to say that Sting hasn’t taken massive risks in his career as well, but McCartney is one of the few artists whose risks have paid off 80% of the time.
Even when he’s working under the pseudonym The Fireman, McCartney still knows how to make the kind of music that everyone wants to hear while making the nuttiest productions ever made. Let’s not forget this is the same guy who made the tape loops for ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, so he can certainly make something strange when he wants to.
McCartney would continue experimenting long after Sting’s criticism, too, eventually working with artists like Kanye West in the 2010s and then gifting his album McCartney III to different artists to turn them into modern tracks, including Damon Albarn working magic on ‘Long-Tailed Winter Bird’ and Ed O’Brien turning ‘Slidin’ into a hard rock juggernaut.
Sting may have been disappointed in one of his favourite artists playing it safe, but McCartney has never really made anything by the book. There are some songs that are easier on the ears than others, but there’s hardly anyone who could argue that he is one of the most daring artists who has ever walked the Earth.
