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Sting used to be really cool. He sported an awesome future-punk haircut, fronted the greatest post-punk band of all time and adopted an edgy, monosyllabic name. Then he broke up the Police, starred in the 1984 sci-fi flop Dune, and embarked on a New Age-y solo career rock critics who worship at the altar of Robert Christgau have been conditioned to uniformly loathe.
Luckily for Sting, the old bastards who hate sax solos and wind chimes are being replaced by a young demographic of pop-minded generalists who are eager to eat up any amount of shlock— looking at you, Justin Vernon—so long as it's sincere. As evidenced by this list, Sting is no stranger to the kind of cheesy adult contemporary sounds that are now overdue for a revival amongst the kids
"Love Is the Seventh Wave" (1985)
Baby boomers lost their shit when Paul Simon jazzed up his Grammy-winning 1986 album Graceland with saxophones and gospel choirs, but Sting was at least a year ahead of Simon with this jaunty, reggae-inflected deep cut off his solo debut.
"Englishman In New York" (1987)
Sting dialed down the reggae riddims and mellowed out a bit on …And Nothing Like the Sun, but the lush backdrop of staccato strings and saxophonist Branford Marsalis's freeform wailing make this dour ditty about alienation and xenophobia a promising sign of things to come.
"All This Time" (1991)
Obviously envious of U2's woke populist approach to mega-stardom, Sting threw Irish folk sounds into the blender to add a dimension of urgency and hopefulness to this sorta-anthem from 1991's The Soul Cages. Arcade Fire could easily get away with adding this to their repertoire and purposely forgetting to inform anyone it's a cover.
"Desert Rose" (1999)
Before the kneejerk reaction to turn off this massive hit from Sting's 1999 album Brand New Day takes over, consider how much you'd love to hear Dirty Projectors or Yeasayer cover it. They get a free pass for sonic globetrotting because they're cool dudes from Brooklyn, and whether the know it or not, they probably have Sting to thank for that.
"I Can't Stop Thinking About You" (2016)
If you're willing to believe the Goo Goo Dolls used to be a punk band (look it up), the chiming guitars of the lead track from Sting's most recent album 57th & 9th is by far the most punk thing he's done in over three decades. You won't ever see anyone stage dive to this song, but Sting understands his demo well enough to know that aging yoga moms wanna rock out a little bit every now and then, too.
SEE IT: Sting plays Theater of the Clouds at Moda Center, 1 N Center Court St., with Joe Sumner and the Bandaleros, on Thursday, Feb. 2. 8 pm. $64.50- $90. All ages.