He's Come Unstung 

-- Sting, in a recent "Weekly Quote" on Sting.com

It is said that after a bee hunkers down on you, injects its poisonous barb, and flies away, the creature soon catches its death. You're left with a sting, but the animal is left stingerless: therefore, harmless, helpless, without a reason to live. You, the stingee, go on about your day-to-day life -- a little sore, maybe, but none the worse for wear.

Some people, however, have an adverse reaction. They swell up, they get sick as a dog, and they curse the very day the encountered the plucky little insect in the first place.

Gordon Sumner -- known popularly as "Sting" -- draws much the same range of emotions from people. While acknowledging that he's written some of the better songs of the last 25 years -- "Roxanne," "Message in a Bottle," "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "Fortress Around Your Heart," to name a few -- some people feel cheated by the Stinger's last 15 years of recorded history. Even though, as leader of The Police -- one of the top two or three big-label bands of the 1980s -- he was responsible for more than his share of musical cross-pollination, many early Sting and Police listeners feel a palpable bitterness toward the man today.

Of course, the familial love a fan gives an artist can never really be returned by the star, but the best ones help us survive the heartbreak by cranking out enough great art to salve our wounds. To many, though, it seems that Sting doesn't even try, preferring to coast comfortably with his VH1-meets-Bob James take on jazzy soft rock (to place his "timeliness" into perspective, consider that his last album proper came out before the whole Y2K fiasco), while spending the rest of his time cavorting in his Wiltshire, England, castle as his servants take care of the messy old "day-to-day."

Granted, this isn't a life most of us would turn down. And with a fortune estimated at close to $100 million, Mr. Sumner probably doesn't have to play a note the rest of his life if he doesn't want to. But all that money can work two ways. The rich artist can look at the satchels of cash and decide what-the-hey and proceed to make interesting, challenging music that stirs his or her very soul -- or else decide that hey, I rather like this standard of living thankyouverymuch and aim the wheels of the Jaguar straight for the middle of the road, the better to hit everybody.

So has the fat lady stung for Gordon Sumner, or does the bee still have another Sting up his sleeve? First, we need to take a look back. Before there was the bee, there was the buzz.

The Police were perhaps the best radio-ready post-punk band to emerge from the late 70s, playing angular, polyrhythmic music with a decided, reggae-dub edge. Unlike most of their punk and reggae forebears, all three members were proficient, even inspired musicians. Sting's high voice, non-traditional bass playing and way with a melody suggested McCartney. Guitarist Andy Summers's jazz background and dense, mechanical fretboard runs were virtually unheard of at the time, and would go on to influence other guitarists including U2's The Edge. Stewart Copeland, like his two bandmates, also came from a jazz background, and his playing, while mathematical, never sounded formulaic.

Formed in 1977, the band played pubs for their first few months together before being hired to appear as a bleached-blonde "punk" band in a commercial for chewing gum. The commercial gave the fledgling band a good bit of exposure, but earned the everlasting scorn of many hardcore punkers, who accused the band -- nearly instantaneously -- of "selling out." (The move established a precedent for the band, one that has continued in Sting's solo career -- most notably, in a cross-promoted Jaguar music video/television commercial that helped save Sting's 1999 Brand New Day from dropping off the charts. See John Schacht's accompanying story.)

The band signed with A&M Records in the spring of 1978, and by fall had released their debut record, Outlandos D'Amour. The album floundered at first, but a re-release of the first single, "Roxanne," brought the band to the charts for the first time.

The first single from 1979's Regatta de Blanc, "Message in a Bottle," was an American and British hit upon its release, and the band toured tirelessly both domestically and abroad, even including touchdowns in non-traditional rock destinations like Mexico, Thailand, India and Egypt.

Flush with creative energy, the band then released Zenyatta Mondatta in the fall of 1980. Featuring the American Top 10 singles "Don't Stand So Close To Me" and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da," the album allowed the Police to pack arenas across America, thanks to the record's near-constant airplay.

Again, the band seemed invigorated by the constant touring, and in 1981 the album Ghost in the Machine -- featuring the hit single "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" -- became their biggest hit to date, rising all the way to number two on Yank charts.

Finally, the band took a break in 1982. Sting tried his hand at acting (Brimstone and Treacle), Copeland scored Francis Ford Coppola's film Rumble Fish, and Summers began recording with progmeister Robert Fripp.

In the summer of 1983, the band released what would be its swan song, the remarkable Jungian-inspired pop vision known as Synchronicity. The record spent 17 weeks at number one in the States, thanks to the omnipresent single, "Every Breath You Take" which spent eight weeks at the top of the charts. Follow-up singles "King of Pain" and "Wrapped Around Your Finger" duly climbed the charts as well, and the band's resultant tours and award nominations set a success standard that has rarely been approached by a rock band since.

And then, as soon as it began, it was over...but not before Sting left us a little hint. As the keynote song "Synchronicity II" begins, Sting relates the story of a workaday man who, on the outside, appears to have it made. Alternating Ulysses-depictions of the man's day with the ominous, synchronous image of a monster rising from the "the slime at the bottom of a dark Scottish loch," Sting sings with all the conviction he can muster. As the man's wife complains of boredom at the breakfast table, the protagonist "stares into the distance / There's only so much more that he can take." Later, as the man's secretaries "pout and preen" like whores and his superior gives him a metaphorical, humiliating "kick in the crotch," the monster has risen to the surface. By the last verse, the workday has ended, and the man faces rush hour traffic -- everyone "packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes" -- knowing that "something somewhere has to break." "Many miles away," however,

There's a shadow on the door

Of a cottage on the shore

Of a dark Scottish lake

Sting, in keeping with the theme of the album's title, has melded the breaking down of the man to the rising of the monster. By the end of the song, both stand on the doorstep...to what, we don't know. Tired of the world's weary blueprints, the man/monster has decided to act, and the Police leave it up to the listener to decide which is ultimately more dangerous and scary -- the natural or unnatural.

For Sting, however, the song seems like foreshadowing. That shadow on the door? It was his own.

Following the dissolution of The Police, Sting, tired of the pressures and interband tension, released The Dream of the Blue Turtles in 1985. The album became an international hit, and the rest of his Police force were handed their walking papers. Now free of the boundaries of group musicianship, he incorporated heavy elements of jazz and world beat into his music, and began writing lyrics that, while not promising the world, at least promised to explain it to you. Stardom seemed to suit something in him, and he began giving revealing -- some would say pompous -- interviews to media outlets the world over, dropping little skeleton-key hints to the Sumner oeuvre. Still, the songs had drive. "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free," "Love Is the Seventh Wave" and "Fortress Around Your Heart" became American Top-10 hits.

Sting began working on his second jazz-inflected release, Nothing Like the Sun, in 1987, after the death of his mother. Following its release, Sting began actively stumping for Amnesty International and the environment, and went on to establish the Rainforest Foundation, which was designed to raise awareness about preserving the Brazilian rainforest.

The Soul Cages, from 1991, saw his sales begin to decline, even as the music still contained enough darkness (Sting's father had passed away) and danger to remain relevant. 1993's Ten Summoner's Tales, while critically panned, reinvigorated his sales. A light, pop-oriented record, it hinted at the Road More Taken path his career was to soon follow. By the end of the year, he -- along with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart -- released "All for Love," a song for The Three Musketeers soundtrack. The hair, once spiky, became a Caesar cut. The clothes, once tight-cut tees, sweaters and suits, became more contemporary and flowy in design. The bass became an afterthought. The home became a castle.

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.