Truly The Best of Sting. Review on Dream of the Blue Turtles - Sting

What a start to a solo career! The Dream Of The Blue Turtles (TDBT) was Sting's first venture as a solo artiste after The Police disbanded. Till date, despite brilliant albums like Soul Cages and Ten Summoners' Tales, many of his fans (and that includes me) rate TDBT as his best album ever. And with good reason. Every one of the ten tracks that comprise the album is a masterpiece.

Take the title track for starters... The Dream of The Blue Turtles is a short, really short, modern jazz piece in which the band almost seems to be fooling around (the drummer is late and he scrambles to join in... you can hear him yell ''Wait for me, wait for me!'')... but the piece is really cool, revealing Sting's jazz roots - something which never really became evident in The Police albums.

One of my personal favourites is Russians, written during the days of the Cold War - a bold, highly political song that slams both the American and the Russian presidents for their war threats.

Another highly melodic piece with overtones of jazz is Moon Over Bourbon Street, a rather oddball piece with a hint of vampirism - but a great song nonetheless.

The other hits on the album include If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, Love Is The Seventh Wave, Children's Crusade and Consider Me Gone.

The bottom line in just three words - Buy It Now!