Friday, November 11, 2016

Sting's 57th & 9th released

57th & 9th

Sting

Released: November 11, 2016

Peak: 9 US, 16 UK, 18 CN, 9 AU

Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, 0.6 world (includes US and UK)

Genre: rock

Tracks:

Song Title [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts.

I Can’t Stop Thinking About You [3:38] (9/2/16, 37 A40, 2 AA)
50,000 [4:17] (9/23/16, --)
Down, Down, Down [3:48]
One Fine Day [3:14] (1/10/17, 21 AA)
Pretty Young Soldier [3:06]
Petrol Head [3:32] (11/4/16)
Heading South on the Great North Road [3:18]
If You Can’t Love Me [4:34]
Inshallah [4:56]
The Empty Chair [2:49] (12/23/16, --)

Total Running Time: 37:05

Rating:

3.044 out of 5.00 (average of 12 ratings)

About the Album:

After a collection of lute recordings (Songs from the Labyrinth, 2006), a Christmas collection (If on a Winter’s Night, 2009), and a Broadway show (The Last Ship, 2013), this was Sting’s first more conventional rock album since 2003’s Sacred Love. The title, 57th & 9th, is a reference to the intersection in New York City which Sting crossed each day to get to Avatar Studios in Hell’s Kitchen, where most of the album was recorded. ^WK

Thematically, he said the album focuses on “searching, travelling, the road and the pull of the unknown.” ^WK Rolling Stone described it as “a kind of travelogue through his own musical past, from the Chaucer-y balladry of Heading South on the Great North Road to If You Can’t Love Me, a mordantly Kafkaesque echo of the jazz rock Sting made in the Eighties.” ^RS

Sting wrote 50,000 the week that Prince died in memory of Prince as well as other musicians who’d recently died, including David Bowie, Glenn Frey, and Lemmy. ^WK One Fine Day “is a plea for sanity regarding…climate change.” ^WK Inshallah, an Arabic word meaning “if God wills,” is a Middle East-tinged refugee’s prayer. ^WK

Sting initially recorded The Empty Chair for The James Foley Story, a documentary about American photojournalist James “Jim” Foley who was kidnapped in Syria and beheaded by ISIS. It was released as a single and nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song, losing to “City of Stars” from La La Land. He recorded another version of the song with guitar instead of piano for the 57h & 9th album.

Notes: Bonus tracks on deluxe and super deluxe editions included other versions of “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” and “Inshallah,” as well as live versions of “Next to You,” “Fragile,” “Message in a Bottle,” “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” “One Fine Day,” Englishman in New York,” and “Every Breath You Take.”

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