Conceived and recorded during lockdown, The Bridge doesn’t so much present a sense of urgency in the times as it does a feeling of not overthinking matters. What is more, the melodies easily flow.
The past decade has pretty much found Sting in a nostalgic and reflective mood, releasing albums about his childhood home (2013’s stage musical The Last Ship), reworked versions of tracks from both The Police and his solo work and an entire collaboration record with Shaggy (44/876).
You can add his 15th LP, The Bridge, to the list of refreshingly genre-defying works that don’t require knowledge of 17th-century Renaissance music or appreciation of mid-’90s and early-’00s dancehall-pop stars.
Sting is still in a ruminative mood – personal loss, the pandemic and politics all figure into The Bridge‘s songs – but he gets there via routes that are familiar to followers of The Police and his early solo work.
The bridge here refers to links to Sting’s past – the music and memories that shaped him along the way, as well as his connections to various types of songs from across the globe. All of it adds up to Sting’s least fussy and most satisfying album in years.
See for yourself, as we play tracks from The Bridge on our dedicated radio station.
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