The Soul Cages
| The Soul Cages | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||
| Studio album by Sting | ||||
| Released | 22 January 1991 | |||
| Recorded | April – November 1990 | |||
| Studio | Studio Guillaume Tell, Paris Villa Salviati, Migliarino, Italy |
|||
| Genre | Pop rock | |||
| Length | 48:10 | |||
| Label |
A&M 75021-6405-2 |
|||
| Producer | Hugh Padgham | |||
| Sting chronology | ||||
|
||||
| Singles from The Soul Cages | ||||
|
||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Chicago Tribune | |
| Entertainment Weekly | C |
| Los Angeles Times |  |
| Robert Christgau |  |
The Soul Cages is the third full-length studio album released by Sting. Released in 1991, it became his second No. 1 album in the United Kingdom. The album was dedicated to Sting's recently deceased father who died in the late 1980s. The Soul Cages is a concept album in which the songs are a reflection of his relationship with his father and how he felt after his death.
It spawned four singles: "All This Time", "Mad About You", "Why Should I Cry for You" and "The Soul Cages".
The title track won Sting the first ever Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 1992.
The Soul Cages is a concept album focused on the death of Sting's father. At the time, Sting had developed a writer's block shortly after his father's death; the episode lasted several years, until Sting was able to overcome his affliction by dealing with the death of his father through music. The first song written for The Soul Cages was "Why Should I Cry for You", and Sting has stated the rest of the album flowed quite easily after that first hurdle was overcome. Most of the songs have motifs related to sailing or the seas (Sting's father, according to Sting's autobiography, Broken Music, had always regretted not becoming a sailor.) There are also references to Newcastle, the part of England where Sting grew up.
Album opener "Island of Souls" tells the story of Billy, the first son in a family line of riveters. As he watches the ships his father helped create set sail, Billy dreams of taking his father along with him to escape by sea; his dreams become more prevalent as his father is injured and given three weeks to live. "All This Time" chronicles Billy's desire to bury his father at sea. The middle section of the record focuses mainly on the town Billy lives in and its people, before the highly introspective "Why Should I Cry for You". Musically, a mournful Northumbrian Pipe motif at the end of "Island of Souls" returns to open "The Wild Wild Sea", where Billy loses his way in a tempest only to find himself steered to safety by the spirit of his father. In another fantastical narrative on the album's eponymous track, Billy's father is being held captive by a demonic fisherman, with whom Billy wagers his life in a drinking game in a bid to set his father's soul free.
...
Wikipedia