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Nothing Like the Sun

by Sting

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Sting's second and most conceptually dense solo album moved on from jazz to ideas picked up from Latin music. Even when he's not using Latin music's tricky polyrhythms, the melodies of the ballad "Be Still My Beating Heart" and the hit dance single "We'll Be Together" suggest he'd been listening to lots of salsa. If you can sting, you can cross-pollinate, too, and there are some other subtle hybrids here, notably the Gil Evans Orchestra's gliding arrangement of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" and the reggae-in-a-Cole Porter suit of "Englishman in New York." Of course, the former schoolteacher has some lyrical messages to deliver and the three songs that originally made up the second side of a double LP are a bitter meditation on Latin American politics and history. --Douglas Wolk