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Three years later, Sting released Mercury Falling -- a title that pretty much paralleled the album's chart history -- in the spring of 1996. Failing to generate a hit single, it somehow managed to move close to a million units, even as it now appears in more bargain bins than anyone not named Mike and the Mechanics.
Then came Brand New Day. Upon its release, the album failed to capture the imagination of the listening public, and soon began falling off the charts. Soon, however, the Jaguar corporation handed him the keys to a career Renaissance, and the listening public was summarily forgotten. In its place was another audience Sting had yet to pollinate: the unlistening public. Soccer moms. Television hounds. Incidental music fans. New car shoppers.
The commercial and video were played relentlessly, and Brand New Day went on to sell millions of copies, even as his "worldly" music -- the aural equivalent of Chinese takeout to the real stuff -- became even more watered down. Featuring the talents of the French/Algerian vocalist Cheb Mami (whose vocal turn steals the show), the record is world music as seen through a window -- in this case, a Jag S-Type. The song "Fill Her Up" (no, not a nod to Tantric wrangling) evidences this to great effect: "Got no money to invest / Got no prospect / Or education," Sting sings. "I was lucky to get the job at this gas station." The song ends with Sting gyrating with a gospel chorus, closing the song with the refrain "got to fill her up with Jesus."
The singer's been touring on the same old Brand New Day for some time now, and while the tour may be a new one, the sights are the same ones he's trotted out in his musical travelogues for 10 years. When asked by Billboard magazine a while back if he had anything he still wanted to say musically, Sting answered as follows: "I don't know the answer to that. I may have nothing more to say, I really don't know until I've tried it...I'm sort of empty of ideas or inspiration, really. I'm going to go around the world for two years, so I'm sure there will be some stimulus that will allow me to think maybe I can try it one more time, but I don't assume anything."
Unfortunately, neither should his listeners.
Sting will perform, with Annie Lennox, at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre Friday.