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57th & 9th

57th & 9th
57th&9thAlbumCover.jpg
Studio album by Sting
Released 11 November 2016 (2016-11-11)
Recorded Summer 2016
Genre Pop rock
Length 37:05
Label Cherrytree, Interscope, A&M
Producer Martin Kierszenbaum
Sting chronology
The Last Ship
(2013)The Last Ship2013
57th & 9th
(2016)
Singles from 57th & 9th
  1. "I Can't Stop Thinking About You"
    Released: 1 September 2016
  2. "50,000"
    Released: 22 September 2016
  3. "Petrol Head"
    Released: 4 November 2016
  4. "One Fine Day"
    Released: 10 January 2017
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source Rating
AnyDecentMusic? 5.9/10
Metacritic 67/100
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 4/5 stars
The Guardian 2/5 stars
The Independent 3/5 stars
Rolling Stone 3.5/5 stars

57th & 9th is the twelfth solo studio album by British singer-songwriter Sting, his first rock album in 13 years, released on 11 November 2016.

The album was recorded over a period of three months. Sting has said of the tight deadline: "Artificially reintroducing that pressure gave the album a kind of urgency it wouldn't have had otherwise."

The album title is a reference to the New York intersection Sting crossed every day to get to Avatar Studios in Hell's Kitchen where much of the album was recorded.

From late 2015 and throughout the first half of 2016, images of Sting working in the studio were periodically published across his various social media outlets. The resultant album was eventually announced on 18 July 2016. In a teaser video published subsequently, Sting described the album as having a spontaneous feel, featuring "a lot of rock 'n' roll" with themes of searching, travelling, the road and the pull of the unknown.

Sting wrote "50,000" the week of Prince's death, and in memory of several famous musicians who died in 2016: Prince, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, and Lemmy.

"One Fine Day" is a plea for sanity regarding anthropogenic climate change.

According to Rolling Stone magazine on 11 November 2016, the two tracks "Heading South on the Great North Road" (with its Chaucer-y balladry) and "If You Can't Love Me" (with its mordantly Kafkaesque echo of the jazz rock Sting made in the Eighties) constitute a kind of travelogue through Sting's own musical past.

"Inshallah" is a Middle East-tinged refugee's prayer. The Arabic word "Inshallah" means "If God wills", or in Sting's words: "If it's God's will then it shall be".

"The Empty Chair" is a song inspired by American journalist James Foley who was kidnapped and killed by the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS).

Sting debuted the studio version of "I Can't Stop Thinking About You" – and performed the song live – on 31 August 2016 in the Red Bull Sound Space at L.A. radio station KROQ. In an article published on 25 July 2016, Roger Friedman wrote that the lead single, "I Can't Stop Thinking About You", would be released on 2 September 2016.


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Wikipedia

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