STING: Brilliant artist or pretentious poopypants?

[Bossy Monkey]

See? I get "Fortress Around Your Heart" stuck in my head, and you have to pay the price. Life just isn't fair, is it?:P

[joeybee12]

1. Other--very talented artisit, who, now that he's an old fart, has become

a pretentious poopypants. Happens to a lot of artists who sell out.

[FlashHarry]

2. Was brilliant. Now just pretentious.

The Police is the only band I can think of that consisted entirely of virtuosi, yet could actually make good music. I love all five of their records (and their early singles). But Sting's solo stuff (especially post-Blue Turtles) just leaves me cold.

The best Police solo stuff is unquestionably Stewart Copeland's Klark Kent material.

[Bossy Monkey]

3. Good thought. I'll change the poll

Wound up replacing the "Every Breath You Take" reply with "Loved him in the Cops; can live without his solo work" and ditching the Synchronicity reply in favor of "pretentious poopypants"

[FlashHarry]

15. LOL!

Nice one...

[ProfessorGAC]

4. Used To Be Great. Now He's Ordinary

Got preachy and treacly. I think he needed the other 2 guys to push him to find the edge of the table, and with the Blue Turtles guys he needed to focus to stay on the same musical page with them. Now, he's just an employer of musicians and relishes the job of Star/Boss a bit too much.
The Professor

[indigobusiness]

5. Both

Brilliant poopypants.

[smada]

6. Both

He's a brilliant artist. He truly is. But his material over the last few years has declined. I think he's probably motivated more by a sense of obligation now rather than a true love of his art.

But he is pretentious as all hell. I have some friends who are in a moderately successful band who were put on as his opening act on tour a few years ago. They said he posed for one publicity photo with them and never said another word to them during the whole tour.

[Bossy Monkey]

7. Well, that might be more a matter of his being less than outgoing

rather than pretentious, but I could see their point of view.

[Bossy Monkey]

8. kick in the poopypants n/t

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. One of the two sad cases that defined SMS...

Sting-Morrisey Syndrome.

[m-jean03]

10. I hear he is great at

the TANTRIC arts :-)

[Taverner]

11. What about "Both"?

He's a genius, and he knows it. And he flaunts it. Much like other 80's icons like Prince.

However, I definitely think his songwriting skills have taken a wrong turn since the 90's...

[mr blur]

12. Pretentious, DULL poopypants

Although the Police stuff is not pretentious. Just DULL.

[kmla]

13. Talented, yes. Good songwriter, yes.

Pompous ass? Yes.

I would have to vote for both.

If here wasn't such a pompous ass, we could be listening to our "25 Years of The Police", a 3 disc greatest hits compilation.

But, alas, it was not to be...

[geniph]

14. Both - sometimes in the same song!

He goes back and forth between unbearably annoying, pretentious and repetitious, and creating truly amazing music.

[smada]

17. I guess you could say

he can be all four seasons in one day.

[southpaw]

16. Yeah... I go with both...

He was groundbreaking with Stuart and Andy, and a damn fine solo artist for a while...

he just seems to have lost his way...

When he did the thing with Rod (sold out whore) Stewart and Bryan (Oh My Fucking God! Say It Aint So!)Adams, I pretty well resigned myself to the fact that his glory days were over.

[smirkymonkey]

18. Does anyone else find his voice grating?

and what is with the name "Sting" anyway?

[AspenRose]

20. Nickname from a shirt he used to wear

back in Newcastle. Was yellow and black striped. People said he looked like a bee/wasp.

He's not SIR Sting, is he? Is he Sir Gordon Sumner?

On edit: I think his best solo album was Soul Cages. Also liked the Bring On The Night stuff. Past BOTN, it sucks.

(from a former member of the Police Fan Club (high school))

Hey! I like Fortress Around Your Heart! ;)

[smirkymonkey]

22. Oh! That's interesting.

Now he seems a little less pompous to me. I thought it was just some rocker name he pulled out of his ass or something. I guess it's better than Gordon. Sorry, Sir Gordon. :evilgrin:

I like some of Police's music, but Sting has just gone way to Hollywood to be cool anymore.

[Bossy Monkey]

23. Actually, just CBE-- so he's Commander Gordon

Here's a fun link that includes this information: http://www.guardian.co.uk/netnotes/article/0,6729,1105923,00.html

I had the impression that the nickname came from a sweater he wore as a young adult, ie about the time the Cops got together, but on the cover of his autobiography is a picture of him at about 10 years wearing, you guessed it, a yellow and black striped sweater. In fact, it looks just like this:

So go figure.

[Bossy Monkey]

25. Oh I like it too; just not running through my head 24 hours a day

Knighthood issues addressed below, by the way.

[mwdem]

19. I think he's quite the perfect man...

but he's around my age, so what do I know?

[AspenRose]

21. Kick

The Sting man
The Stingmeister

Sting-a-ling-a-ding-dong :kick:

[chaska]

24. Fine songwriter, acceptable singer.

People don't seem to get that Sting writes for older people. He ain't about Britney, Janet Jackson, or ... hell, I don't even know (or care) who's popular nowadays. Popular music bores the poop out of me.

[Bossy Monkey]

26. C'mon guys! Pretentious poopypants can win this thing!

I didn't actually vote for it (I mostly like Sting), but it would be funny.:P

[bif]

27. I really liked "Nothing Like the Sun"

But he hasn't done anything as good as that since.