by DirtyMartini on 27 May 2009 16:42
Yup, totally accepted here as well. Sting is a squeezebox of talent; I just don't happen to like the sound that comes out of him when he's alone. I'm okay with that.
I do wonder what the rest of the non-tour tour that Sting seems to be putting together will look like. Someone at TP.com (lisaspear, was it you?) pointed out that this was a charity show, so the set may have been influenced by that; Sting-only solo shows aren't generally so thickly Policey. But -- okay, I've got a question: who is Sting's audience? Who is it that he wants to sell seats to? Yeah, he wants to sell to everyone, sure, but he has to gear his efforts/setlist toward Somebody. So who exactly is that Somebody?
Bear with me as I need to backtrack:
Two givens:
1. The Police sells.
2. Sting's not an idiot.
Both have been proven, and I'm going to grant them as minimum requirements.
Pre-2007, Sting sold, but he sold better in the 80s and early 90s than he does in the 2000s. He has continued to work and tour (and tour and tour some more) and generate some buzz, but that buzz just isn't quite as big and buzzy as it once was. Time and tastes move on. Sting has enough money that he doesn't *need* to do popular work in order to stay out of foreclosure; he could spend the rest of his days doing obscure lute and tuba albums if he wanted, but over the long-term, he seems more inclined toward more popular projects. His name has remained a household name -- though I'd say more because he has remained on the public scene and less because of what he has produced in recent years.
So Sting's solo career could use a boost, and since he's not an idiot and since the Police sells, he does the Broken Music tour: Police Lite with much of the same music but more easily controlled musicians and conditions. Test audiences show that reaction to the Police tunes is good, so wham, bam, thank you, LiveNation, we're all on a Police reunion tour roller coaster. (Yeah, Andy and Stewart were involved, too, but I'm just looking at the one guy and ignoring the rest right now.) Money is made, buzz is generated, Sting's back on the covers of a lot of magazines, lots of reviewers remark how good it is to see Sting rocking out rather than lite-jazzing. OK.
Fast-forward to 2009. Sting goes back to solo appearances; he goes back to more easily controlled musicians and conditions -- which, while I personally don't enjoy the music that results, I can understand (I'm pretty sure Sting, Andy, or Stewart and I would murder each other working together); he gets to ride some of the buzz that was generated from the Police tour and use it in his next efforts.
But now what? A lot of his solo audience was built of Police fans who had no other way of experiencing Police tunes -- but now they have. He just handed to those people exactly what it was they were missing. I don't doubt that the Police tour picked up a few new disciples for Sting (as for Andy and Stewart), but I also don't doubt that it lost a few on him who, now that they have had the chance to witness the actual Police, just don't want to settle for Police Lite.
So should he aim his efforts toward the casual Sting/Police fans who want to hear the hits that they know from the radio? Those were all those people at concerts who pissed us off for only wanting to hear "EBYT" and "Roxanne," but they also seemed to be the vast majority of folks in the stands. They shelled out $250 for the Police, but will they do it again for Sting alone? And now that they've seen the Police, do they need to?
He'll continue to have Sting Solo Fans, of course -- but how many of them would rather hear more Sting Solo than Police tunes? He has written far more songs without the Police than with them, but that Toronto setlist looks a lot like a greatest hits album and is 50% Police. (If Management puts out another Sting & The Police greatest hits album, I'll scream.) Yeah, it's a charity event, but doesn't that then say *more* about what is considered marketable?
Before the reunion tour, Sting had the advantage of being the only Police game in town. While he will continue to be so, he just ruined a bunch of his audience with the Real Thing. I'm guessing he'll go back to the usual solo setlists that include a couple of token Police songs as he has done so far, but if he does, he's preaching to the pre-reunion converted, so how does that take advantage of new audiences? Too much Sting pisses off Police fans; too much Police pisses off Sting fans; the Radio Hits Fans piss off pretty much everyone, but they're probably the most profitable.
The Police tour had a big vein of nostalgia to it, but all but one of those songs that Sting played in Toronto is more than 15 years old; "Desert Rose" is the baby at only 10. I laughed at George's comment, but while those tunes still have life to them, I've only now realized just how far back all those tunes go. The reunion tour may have brought Sting some new headlines, but without something new to feed to his audience, I think I'm failing to understand how it's going to help in the long-run.
ETA: Like Police Boy, I would also vote to can the canned banter.
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