Sting at his most soulful

Sting found himself living up to the entertainer’s battle cry of "The show must go on," even under the most trying of situations. The date was Sept. 11, 2001 and the special show was held in the garden of his home in Italy. People would have understood had he decided to call off the show, the whole world was caught up in a mixture of disbelief, anger, hatred, fear, sorrow, sadness and so many other emotions so painful to describe. But, thankfully, he did not and the result was a truly moving performance captured live and released as the album ….All This Time.

It has been two years since, but Sting, the sensitive poet and musician, remains concerned and in search of a cure to the ills of this world through his music. His new album is titled Sacred Love and it is made up of songs that hopefully, will teach people how to love. The disquieting opening cut Inside is about the fear of being hurt again. It sets the tone for the album with words that go: "Inside the doors are sealed to love/ inside my heart is sleeping/ inside the fingers of my glove/ inside the bones of my right hand/ inside it’s colder than the stars/ inside the dogs are weeping/ inside the cirus of the winds/ inside the decks are filled with sand/ inside she’ll never hurt me/ inside the winter’s creeping/ inside the compass of the night/ inside the folding of the land/Outside the stars are turning/ outside the world’s still burning."

The world’s still burning and Sting is doing his share to put out the fire. This situation puts emphasis on the lyrics of the songs. These are all beautifully written and given their themes, most affecting. This War, with "Yes, you may win this coming battle but could you tolerate the peace?" or Send Your Love which has lines like "There’s no religion but sex and music, there’s no religion but sound and dancing, there’s no religion but sacred trance."

But the former schoolteacher-turned-distinguished humanitarian and activist is not also a pop star for nothing. This guy has mastered the art of creating music that is radio friendly but is also intelligent, ambitious and ever interesting. The music in Sacred Love is the kind they stamp with the words "certified hit," and it is indeed one of the best albums, Sting has ever recorded. Here he is at his most soulful, playing with his appealing mix of jazz, reggae, gospel and what do you know, even hip-hop, always with his characteristic cool. But as I mentioned earlier, Sting is not also about to take any form of injustice sitting down and maybe, in some way, the songs in Sacred Love can touch people in the right places and also affect a cure.

Standouts are the collaborative efforts, Send Your Love with Vicente Amigo, Whenever I Say Your Name featuring hip hop queen Mary J. Blige and The Book of My Life with sitar player Anoushka Shankar. There are also Dead Man’s Rope, Never Coming Home, Stolen Car, Forget About the Future, Shape of My Heart and the title track.

Top 10 Hits

Sacred Love was released early this month and peaked at number three in the top 200 albums listing of Billboard Magazine. It ranks eighth in the top 10. The number one album is Measure of a Man by American Idol finalist Clay Aiken. The rest of the list is as follows: Chicken ‘N’ Beer by Ludacris; Hard by Jagged Edge; Speaker Boxxx/The Love Below by OutKast; The Movie Album by Barbra Streisand; Life for Rent by Dido; Elvis: 2nd to None by Elvis Presley; Sacred Love by Sting; Metamorphosis by Hilary Duff; and Some Devil by Dave Matthews.

Still on top of the Hot 100 chart is Baby Boy by the sensational team-up of Beyonce and Sean Paul. The others in the top 10 are Stand Up by Ludacris featuring Shawnna; Get Low by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz featuring Ying Yang Twins; Damn! by YoungBloodz featuring Lil Jon; Shake Ya Tailfeather by Nelly, P. Diddy & Murphy Lee; Here without You by 3 Doors Down; Holidae In by Chingy featuring Ludacris & Snoop Dogg; Right Thurr by Chingy; Rain on Me by Ashanti; and Why Don’t You & I by Santana featuring Alex Baand or Chad Kroeger.