More Sting and The Police
- An original A&M pressing that was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning outstanding Double Plus (A++) or BETTER grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
- Remarkably big, full-bodied and musical, with wonderful presence for the most important element of the recording, Sting’s voice
- Even though the album was recorded at studios all over the world, the best sound can be found on the domestic pressings Robert Ludwig cut for Masterdisk
- It was a wise move on Sting’s part to pick RL, a man who could bring the best aspects of analog to a modern recording that could really use them
- Don’t waste your money on whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of Sting’s debut solo album, a vintage 80s pressing like this one is the only way to go
- 4 stars: “Sting incorporated heavy elements of jazz, classical, and worldbeat into his music, writing lyrics that were literate and self-consciously meaningful… he proves that he’s subtler and craftier than his peers.”
This album has long been a favorite among audiophiles and it’s pretty easy to see why. What Sting does here with jazz music is very similar to what Paul Simon later did with African music on Graceland.
Sting surrounded himself with legitimate jazz musicians and together they created an album that gives you the loose, relaxed feel of jazz mixed with Sting’s distinct pop sensibility.
There are elements of worldbeat, reggae, and soul here as well, but the album never feels disjointed. Sting managed to pull it all together to create a sound that is somehow unique and familiar at the same time.
This vintage A&M pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern pressings rarely begin to reproduce. Folks, that sound is pretty much gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back.
We believe that rich, full, solid, Tubey Magical sound is key to the presentation of this primarily vocal music. We rate these qualities higher than others we might be listening for (e.g., bass definition, soundstage, depth, etc.). The music is not so much in the details in the recording, but rather in trying to recreate a living, breathing Sting singing live in your listening room. The better copies have an uncanny way of doing just that.
If you exclusively play modern repressings of older recordings (this one is now almost 40 years old), I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but less than one out of 100 new records do, if our experience with the hundreds we’ve played can serve as a guide.
What The Best Sides Of The Dream of the Blue Turtles Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes even as late as 1985
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
What We’re Listening For On The Dream of the Blue Turtles
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
- Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
A Pop Masterpiece
We consider this Sting album his Masterpiece. Others that belong in that category can be found here.
Side One
If You Love Somebody Set Them Free
Love Is the Seventh Wave
Russians
Children’s Crusade
Shadows in the Rain
Side Two
We Work the Black Seam
Consider Me Gone
The Dream of the Blue Turtles
Moon over Bourbon Street
Fortress Around Your Heart
AMG 4 Star Review
After disbanding the Police at the peak of their popularity in 1984, Sting quickly established himself as a viable solo artist, one obsessed with expanding the boundaries of pop music. Sting incorporated heavy elements of jazz, classical, and worldbeat into his music, writing lyrics that were literate and self-consciously meaningful… he proves that he’s subtler and craftier than his peers.