Best ballads and hearty shanties - and a total of a little too much art

From the first Police album "Outlandos d'Amour" (1978) on, Sting proved 25 years old and twelve studio albums long that a high art and claim success in the mainstream are not necessarily mutually exclusive. He helped himself with ideas and elements of jazz and classical music, known to have taken all the passages of his own compositions in JS Bach and garnished this sometimes highly complex, with changing tempos and wild harmonies interspersed pieces with optional right rüdem rock tools in prehistoric Police times and later with the finest sounds of the great pop-modular - until 2003, until the album "Sacred Love".

In the past decade, but he ran alternately legends Building Measures - 2008 a large-scale reunion tour with the old companions of Police, which was documented with the opulent live album "Certifiable", then a recycling great songs of his oeuvre with the support equal three classical orchestra on "Symphonicities" and the concert recording "Live in Berlin" (both 2010) and most recently from 2011 to 2013 with a crisp, back leading him to his musical roots Club tour around the globe under the title "Back to Bass" unfortunately (so far) was not followed by live music - and sometimes being evil head-heavy art projects - on "Songs from the Labyrinth" (2006) he was searching for forgotten music from the end of the Middle Ages to the year 1600 and tried it using instruments that time, and in 2009, he devoted himself with similarly unusual sounds wintry Christmas themes on "If on a Winter's Night" - and of course there was the mandatory Best of publications. From compressed overview of the playing time of a CD compresses to escalating 4CD box for the price of a small car, everything was there.
All these experiments and retrospective digressions were received very differently and inconsistently by his audience that should not be here next topic, not all liked everything. There was agreement with the years only in the desire for new songs, according Selbsterdachtem, for a new forward gewandtem Sting album.

This long-awaited by many album is "The Last Ship" no. At least not in the sense of a follow-up to (the already non-uniform beloved) "Sacred Love", not in the sense of a regular studio album, which no longer wants to be, as the collection of a number of new songs.

"The Last Ship" is a concept album. It unreservedly recommend it to anyone who has always sympathized with music by Sting in the past 35 years in all forms, falls somewhat difficult. It's too specific, holistic artistically and is therefore not allowed to unquestioning love in hope without exception. It is in any case a large artistic album, in every respect: Song Writing Risch as conceptually and especially in the small-scale, playful implementation - it's Sting! No matter what musical parquet he just moves, the fine selection of his musical colleagues, the sophistication until the last note of a barely perceptible instrument in the background, which even the smallest nuances, one rare overall high standards each production for Sting per charge was. "The Last Ship" is no exception, on the contrary, his perfectionism, his urge to use unusual instruments, is always excessive. Only are objectively high musical quality and personal taste of the listener does not necessarily always above the other. Music is also entertain, touch the soul, not just the head. Personally, I'm certainly not ready for this claim to be soft, scolds me for my sake Kulturbanause, but if I want intellectual balancing act over, I'd rather read a silent book.

The new work - and work is the most excellent name, it is not just an album - moves into the delüxesten all issues with 20 new songs on (standard 12, 17 Deluxe, Super Deluxe 20 songs - any questions?) And is an even not premiered musical a musical basis. And it is probably also the big problem. It may be that the theater experience with action, each of the songs sitting, its full effect and especially the arrangement of the songs creates a tension. On the plate without the action fails thoroughly. The twenty new songs can be, subtleties ignoring roughly categorized into two groups: the most beautiful ballads and hearty shanties, about half half.

You could roll over in superlatives and say "all most beautiful, most touching, almost dreamlike touching ballads" and it would be no exaggeration. What Sting magic here, can best what he has created in this category so far, measure. That alone makes the album mandatory, at least for those who earlier songs like "Shape Of My Heart", "Tomorrow we'll see", "It's proberply me" and of course "Fragile" deem indispensable companion for life. It's just wonderful, at least in this field, to relive a whole new set of high-caliber of Sting after such a long time. He can's even.

But it is precisely in the fast-paced, unsentimental department, it is set to "The Last Ship" self, the theme of the panel and the forthcoming musicals points the way. Here we get enough shanties. Although written all new songs by Sting, but it always surrounds the soundscape bawling sailors, elated and defiant sense of community hearty guys in harsh environments. Now I love the downright powerful hymn to returning and all etiquette entledigender sailors in the port of Amsterdam by Jacques Brel (the German version of Klaus Hoffmann's fantastic) - but about every other song on an album? It may fit the story, musically each of the Shanty-pieces is standing by itself succeeded, but the dose is something sorely high, especially since it is not necessarily, which was associated the name Sting previously.

The greatest difficulty is that when you hear the album as a whole, you constantly have to change the feelings. Just one has been touched by one of the new ballads almost to tears, already one is torn from his emotion from a voice adjusted Sting along with his rowdy entourage out and allowed to listen to the song of a choir grölgelaunter dockers on gepisstes on the wall of beer. And this stylistic back and forth occurs not just once, it's downright characteristic for the album. As I said Jacques Brel's "Amsterdam" is great, but please do not immediately after "Ne me quitte pas" and already twice not over and over again this emotion-ping-pong, a whole album long.

With "The Last Ship" logs Sting, despite the criticism of stylistic expression of several songs and their proportionality to the other pieces on the album, and the sequence of emotional conceivable contrasting songs, very impressive for pretty much ten years as a songwriter back. Among the ballads there is a whole series of real pearls, musically at the highest level. In addition to a fiery swinging jazz number and two or three pieces, which can be described with a little imagination most likely as a dynamic pop songs in unorthodox arrangement, is about the scarce half of the album of songs that are totally judgmental classified as shanties. You have to like. But even if you really like this seaman or dockworkers romance, makes the constant change of style a hearing by the least strenuous. Therefore no maximum score, although every song does justice to itself the highest standards, providing the necessary preference in musical listening habits.