Douchebag of the Month: STING

Sting is a douchebag.

This is probably not a controversial stance, as it's genuinely hard to like an outspoken Tantric-sex afficionado who makes music rife with self-congratulatory sermonizing, nauseatingly purple prose, and Ye Olde English literary allusions. Also, he refers to himself as "Sting." Okay, so perhaps Gordon isn't the coolest name for a rock musician, but that's the best he could do?

Yes, yes, The Police were awesome. (Although Sting's pretentiousness was evident early on, from overt Nabokov references to "Tea in the Sahara" to the fact that the Synchronicity album got it's title from the theories of Carl Jung.) But Sting by himself is not awesome at all. After all, the best thing you can say about a musician, especially a "rock" musician, should never be that he is very well read. Sting, as Sting would be all too pleased to remind you, is very well read. Ironically, despite his oft-trumpeted erudition, he's something of a hack as a lyricist. Maybe that's why he was just named rock's worst lyricist.

Despite what Sting's apologists might tell you, it is most decidedly NOT okay to like Sting or Sting's solo albums. There are many reasons for this.

Take, for example, the Wikipedia entry on Sting's Ten Summoner's Tales album. In it, we learn that the album's title is a delightful pun on Sting's Christian name, Sumner, and a character from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Oh how delightful! Sting also owned an Icelandic horse named Hrímnir, who is pictured on the album's cover. Oh, and one of the instruments used on the album is called Northumbrian smallpipes. "I am Northumbrian Smallpipes, chaotic-good elf with a bag of holding and 200 hit points! Nary a dragon or evil wizard shall escape my brazen mirthfulness! Hi-diddle-dee!"

Sure, David Bowie, the coolest man on Earth, once recorded a song called "The Laughing Gnome," but it was the '60s and he was almost certainly high on something other than English literature and his own heady aroma of self-importance. Bowie may have donned tights and a Tina Turner wig for his role in Labyrinth, but he certainly never recorded an album of sixteenth-century lute songs called Songs from the Labyrinth. Sting did. You read that right. Sixteenth-century lute songs.

On some occasions, this feature will undoubtedly require some form of subtle argumentation. I may, in the future, be required to convince readers that someone is a douchebag. But this is the first "Douchebag of the Month" entry, so I admittedly took a swing at an underhand pitch. Here are some more reasons why Sting is a douchebag:

1. He got his start as a jazz musician.
2. The title of his second solo album, ...Nothing Like the Sun, is taken from one of Shakespeare's sonnets.
3. He performed a song with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart.
4. He appears, quite voluntarily, on a Black-Eyed Peas album.
5. Sting wrote in his autobiography that as a young man his "emotional evolution [was] stunted by the shallow and tepid waters of popular culture," yet he appeared on an episode of Ally McBeal.
6. Whether it's the truth, a joke, or just a case of inappropriate sharing, he did once claim to enjoy eight-hour tantric sex sessions with his wife. He also talks about yoga a lot.
7. He is on a strict macrobiotic diet.

There are doubtlessly those who will disagree with this assessment of Sting. "Sting is no asshat, sir," they would say. "Sting is a sensitive, thinking-man's artist, and your comments are malicious and small-minded." Chances are that these brave Sting-loving souls...

a) own a trenchcoat (regardless of local climate) or, if female, some form of velvet bodice;
b) believe in angels (U.S.) or faeries (Europe);
c) have seen "theatre in the round" some time in the last month;
d) are tirelessly outspoken about their vegetarianism;
e) wear some form of hand-made sandals;
f) thoroughly enjoy "world music";
g) are superficially familiar with, yet completely convinced by, the political views of Noam Chomsky;
h) have children who are currently of college age or older;
i) absolutely love a good cry

So there you have it. With the possible exception of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, everything Sting has touched since 1985 has turned to douche.

Sting, you are the douchebag of the month.