Recently I inadvertently began going through Sting's catalogue although not in such an ordered way as some of my other recent catalog listens. He holds up although near the end his voice begins to show signs of age and he can't quite hit the high registers as consistently as in earlier albums. I didn't care much for his My Songs album where he covers his own stuff. The originals are much better.
My dive into his stuff has not been strictly chronological and I've bounced around quite a bit this past week or so. Today I even went back to his days with The Police.
I like Sting. But the one gnawing thing in the background is the lurking pretension. He seems like a really nice guy on interviews. He's stood up for some worthy causes and given to charity. But I've seen these puff pieces about him and Trudy at their 400 year old villa in Tuscany, or their manorial estate in England and their swank bungalow in Manhattan and it comes off as twee. They always mention they both grew up working class which I guess is their attempt to say to not to hold this fabulous wealth against them.
So it's hard to go all in on Sting. He sometimes seems so overly self-aware that it transitions into clueless-ness. Maybe I'm too hard on him. He does write a good line and sing a good verse. Why should I hold his throwing his wealth in our faces against him? I don't think he's intending to throw it in our faces. I don't think he's meaning to be snotty. I think he just thinks he has a fascinating life (which he admittedly does) and wants to share that with us.
Most of us are guilty of that although on a much smaller scale. Social media has made a lot of us narcissists. Who am I to talk? I have a blog for crying out loud. How vain is that?
I guess Sting's mystique is part of the whole persona. I do think the music stands quite strongly on its own. But music is usually sold beyond the recordings. That's been the case for decades. Image and branding are important to move product. Sting may be no different than most successful musicians. I guess I just need to ignore the Oprah interviews or CBS Sunday Morning profiles and listen to the songs.
