WHERE IS THY STING?

It’s all here, in three albums, says James McNair.

ULTIMATE POLICE! The Police Ghost In The Machine ★★★★ (A&M, 1981)

Named for Arthur Koestler’s 1967 book on philosophical psychology and part-hatched at Air Studios, Montserrat, Ghost… leavened greater lyrical sophistication with sunny Caribbean horns, steel drums and playful keys. These Sting-driven evolutions betrayed solo ambitions, but his plum pop writing was still beautifully served by Messrs Summers and Copeland on Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, a joyous palette cleanser after stringent, politicised opener Spirits In The Material World.

SOUL-BARING SOLO! Sting The Soul Cages ★★★★★ (A&M, 1991)

Sting cured writer’s block wrought by the death of his father Ernest by tackling his grief and their difficult relationship head-on. “You mustn’t let people insist on cheering you up,” he noted, weighing up The Soul Cages’ solemnity. Saxophonist Branford Marsalis, new guitar foil Dominic Miller and six different percussionists were on hand to ornament the dark, introspective work Sting considers his most underrated. “Goodnight,” he tells Ernest in its final seconds.

THE HOMECOMING! Sting The Last Ship ★★★★ (A&M, 2013)

Brazen, some thought, to disinter his Geordie brogue, but Sting’s lament for the lost shipbuilding industry of his native Wallsend was wholly seaworthy. Becky and Rachel Unthank, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson and Northumbrian smallpiper Kathryn Tickell brought local colour to songs exploring community, homecoming and working-class rites of passage, while marriage of convenience conceit Practical Arrangement is a Sumner zinger. Next came the stage musical of the same name.