Sting recorded 'The Bridge' during the pandemic with a coterie of trusted musicians beaming into his studio remotely. That easy sense of musical camaraderie, connection and kinship is on full display in the lead single 'If It's Love', an unabashed pop song which is lent wings by a whistled refrain, joyful handclaps, and uplifting brass and strings. The urgently staccato, electric guitar-driven 'Rushing Water' soars with Sting's trademark melodic invention and vivid imagery. The decidedly romantic 'For Her Love' is a delicate pledge that harkens back to some of Sting's classic ballads. That said, Sting can breakdown the genesis of 'Harmony Road', a jazzy jam that artfully combines fever-dream, social realism and autobiography. The circle of trust of a group of likeminded musicians pulling in a myriad of brilliant directions but with one accord, is a solid foundation of 'The Bridge'.

Amnesty International commemorates its 50th anniversary with the release of an album featuring the cream of the world’s music talent covering Bob Dylan songs, with contributions from a huge variety of artists including Adele, Patti Smith, Pete Townshend, Ke$ha, The Gaslight Anthem, Sting, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, Sinéad O’Connor, Kris Kristofferson, Bad Religion, Marianne Faithfull, My Chemical Romance, Bryan Ferry, Pete Seeger and many more. Entitled Chimes of Freedom: Songs of Bob Dylan the album features 73 tracks on four CDs.

Sting has shared the Desert Rose Reimagined EP, featuring three brand new remixes and extended mixes of his crossover single Desert Rose. The singer-songwriter crafted the 2000 track alongside Algerian songwriter Cheb Raba – a.k.a. Rabah Zarradine – and it notably revolves around an iconic and instantly recognisable vocal from Algerian Raï artist Cheb Mami. The original Desert Rose appeared on Sting’s Brand New Day and united Arabic, Algerian folk, and Western vibes, gaining traction internationally. It reached the Top 50 of the Billboard Hot 100 and claimed spots in the Top 10 of charts worldwide. Among the Desert Rose Reimagined EP highlights is a newly reimagined version by Middle Eastern-American duo Bedouin – Tamer Malki and Rami Abousabe. Channeling the cinematic spirit of the original, they seamlessly stretch the song’s soundscape with deep house rhythms, down-tempo grooves, and international appeal. The pair accent the track’s instantly recognisable North African stylings with Middle Eastern flair, bringing fresh fire to it.

Sting has announced an expanded edition of his fifth studio album, Mercury Falling, to mark the record’s 30th anniversary, although sadly this is not a physical release. The 1996 album features the UK top 40 hits ‘Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot’, ‘You Still Touch Me’ and ‘I Was Brought To My Senses’ and was Sting’s last album to feature the production talents of Hugh Padgham, which underlines the feeling that this record was the end of a certain phase in Sting’s solo career.

MAGICAL 1988 BROADCAST FROM THE TOKYO DOME • Sting’s first solo album, 1985's The Dream of the Blue Turtles, featured jazz musicians including Kenny Kirkland, Darryl Jones, Omar Hakim and Branford Marsalis. It included the hit singles ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’, ‘Fortress Around Your Heart’, ‘Love Is the Seventh Wave’ and ‘Russians’. Within a year, the album had reached Triple Platinum. It received Grammy nominations for Album of the Year, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, Best Jazz Instrumental Performance and Best Engineered Recording. • In 1985, Sting provided spoken vocals for the Miles Davis album You're Under Arrest, taking the role of a French-speaking police officer. He also sang backing vocals on Arcadia's single ‘The Promise’ and on two songs from Phil Collins' album No Jacket Required. • Sting released his sophomore record, …Nothing Like the Sun in 1987, including singles, ‘We'll Be Together’, ‘Fragile’, ‘Englishman in New York’ and ‘Be Still My Beating Heart’, dedicated to his mother, who had recently died. It went Double Platinum. The album won Best British Album at the 1988 Brit Awards and in 1989 received three Grammy nominations including his second consecutive nomination for Album of the Year. • Playing a wonderful show on this date, the entire concert is now available on this new 2CD set, made available here for the first time.

The Police never really broke up, they just stopped working together – largely because they just couldn't stand playing together anymore and partially because Sting was itching to establish himself as a serious musician/songwriter on his own terms. Anxious to shed the mantle of pop star, he camped out at Eddy Grant's studio, picked up the guitar, and raided Wynton Marsalis' band for his new combo – thereby instantly consigning his solo debut, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, to the critical shorthand of Sting's jazz record. Which is partially true (that's probably the best name for the meandering instrumental title track), but that gives the impression that this is really risky music, when he did, after all, rely on musicians who, at that stage, were revivalists just developing their own style, and then had them jam on mock-jazz grooves – or, in the case of Branford Marsalis, layer soprano sax lines on top of pop songs.

Ten Summoner's Tales is the fourth solo studio album by the English rock musician Sting. The title is a combined pun of his family name, Sumner, and a character in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, the summoner. Released in 1993, it explores themes of love and morality in a noticeably upbeat mood compared to his previous release, the introspective The Soul Cages released in 1991 after the loss of both his parents in the 1980s. This album contained two US hits; "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" reached No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 and "Fields of Gold" reached #23. Ten Summoner's Tales was shortlisted for the 1993 Mercury Prize. In 1994, it was nominated for six Grammy awards, winning Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance ("If I Ever Lose My Faith in You") and Best Long Form Music Video. It did not win Album of the Year, Record or Song of the Year.

Celebrating a quarter century of Sting: The Solo Artist, the three-CD 2011 box set 25 Years is a handsome retrospective bound in a hardcover book. Some box sets are heavy on rarities, all the better to hook the hardcore, some are designed to be comprehensive but 25 Years follows a different route, choosing to offer a leisurely journey through the past, stopping at all the familiar points on a well-worn path. There is nothing unreleased nor is there anything unexpected; some charting singles are missing but they’re the ones that reached the lower rungs of the pop charts or only popped up on rock radio (“Down So Long,” “Epilogue (Nothing ‘Bout Me),” “Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot”), and the various stray songs and B-sides weren’t even in the running for inclusion. What Sting, who selected this sequence himself, has chosen to present are the hits - from “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” to “Desert Rose”…

Sacred Love is the seventh studio album by Sting. The album was released on 29 September 2003. The album featured smoother, R&B-style beats and experiments collaborating with hip-hop artist Mary J. Blige and sitar player Anoushka Shankar. Some songs like "Inside" and "Dead Man's Rope" were well received; and Sting had experimented with new sounds, in particular the more rock-influenced "This War". Sting's collaboration with Blige, "Whenever I Say Your Name", won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals at the 46th Grammy Awards in 2004.

The Very Best of… Sting & The Police is a compilation album issued by Sting, and released by A&M Records in 1997. Conceived at the time when Sting had just released his fifth solo effort, Mercury Falling (hence equalling his personal tally with the one of The Police), the album mixes a selection of the Sting's Police-era songs with later hits recorded under his own name. It originally featured one new track, a remix of the 1978 song "Roxanne" by rap artist Sean "Puffy" Combs. The album was reissued in 1998 by PolyGram International with "Russians" removed and 3 additional tracks, "Seven Days", "Fragile", and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da", being added.

Recorded to benefit the Special Olympics, this has some of the biggest names in contemporary music, most covering seasonal favorites with mixed success. Outstanding tracks include The Pretenders "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," with Chrissie Hynde giving a touching performance. Run-D.M.C.'s topical "Christmas in Hollis" relies heavily on sampling "Back Door Santa," and may head you toward the dance floor. Alison Moyet's stately version of "The Coventry Carol" is beautifully haunting. Only the Material Girl, Madonna, embarrasses herself with an overly campy "Santa Baby".

It's an open secret that Sting's interest in songwriting waned after 2003's Sacred Love, an undistinguished collection of mature pop that passed with barely a ripple despite winning a Grammy for its Mary J. Blige duet "Whenever I Say Your Name." Sting spent the next decade wandering – writing classical albums for lute, recording the frostiest Christmas album in memory, rearranging his old hits for symphony, then finally, inevitably, reuniting the Police – before finding inspiration within the confines of a musical. The Last Ship tells the tale of a British shipyard in the '80s, one laid low by changing times, so there's naturally an elegiac undertow to Sting's originals, a sensibility underscored by his decision to ground nearly all these songs in the folk of the British Isles.

Sting releases The Last Ship (Expanded Edition), an extended version of his critically acclaimed album released 12 years prior. The album, which coincides with his stage shows in Amsterdam, Paris, and Australia, features 5 new tracks, including “Island Of Souls,” “Ship of State (featuring Reneé Fleming),” “If You Ever See Me Talking to a Sailor (featuring Frances McNamee),” “O’Brien’s Hymn,” and “Shipyard (featuring Joe Caffrey, Brian Johnson, and Jo Lawry).”

On the day that the second live album of Sting's illustrious solo career (and third if you count the Police's 1995 Live! set) was to be recorded in Tuscany, Italy, the widely respected singer/songwriter/bassist was beset with one of the world's worst horrors of all time. The show was to be recorded and broadcast live on the Web on September 11, 2001, the day of the World Trade Center tragedy. Instead of canceling it altogether, Sting went on with the recording (although the Web broadcast was scrapped except for a single song), resulting in the release of the 15-song All This Time, just two short months later. Featured are a trio of Police-era classics inventively rearranged ("Roxanne," "Don't Stand So Close to Me," and "Every Breath You Take") and renditions of many solo selections: an expansive "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free," "Brand New Day," "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You," and the poignant folk-like ballad "Fields of Gold."

Unofficial release with b-sides, soundtracks and others.