Album Review: Sting & Shaggy – 44/876
2 min read
At some point; somewhere in the world, someone asked the question – ‘what’s better than one outdated singer?’ to which someone must have responded with – ‘well, obviously it’s TWO outdated singers!’… I would like to inform those people; if you’re reading this, that the answer is in fact NO outdated singers. Sadly, my advice has been ignored and we now live in a world where a Sting and Shaggy joint album exists. Ready the nuclear bunkers!
The album cover features an awkward looking Sting posing on a motorbike next to his new pal Shaggy and I’d like to point out that you don’t always have to support your friends in their decision making. The title track is a vaguely Balearic styled misnomer featuring lots of names of cities for shirtless dudebros to yell when their blue WKD kicks in. Hearing Sting being haunted by the ghost of Bob Marley has me thinking that he’s been to the Caribbean once and really found himself.
There really isn’t much that can salvage this project, and that’s coming from someone desperately trying to find the good in all of this bad. Sixteen tracks of bad to be precise. It’s definitely just a case of hunting down the few tracks that won’t make you want to move to the surface of the Sun. Don’t Make Me Wait could be one of the few bearable moments, mostly because it’s mellow enough to momentarily quell the rage you’ll no doubt feel building inside.
I will allow Dreaming In The USA the title of best track, but that’s it. Only for the saving grace of the intro which sounds like if the Beach Boys actually ever had any fun in their lives. Cut to the first chorus and our old pal Shaggy chimes in and once again the whole thing is a flaming pile of nope.
This is one of those releases that makes you cringe on paper. Then it comes out and you cringe in real life. It’s not often I feel so strongly about how bad a record is, but then again we’ve never had a joint Sting & Shaggy album before. I’m here to motion that this be the ONLY joint record from them we get. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
