'Dream of the Blue Turtles' vs 'Graceland'

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Sting's a pretty fuckin' good singer 'cept for those hiccups, but that album sucks. Come on admit it, it's terrible. The first and last tracks are bearable but the rest - "Love is the Seventh Wave"? "Russians" for fuck's sake? Bury that waste in a great big hole! Desecrating your own songs like that versh of "Shadows", that's beneath contempt. Simon's voice isn't as good as Sting but that "Boy in the Bubble", what a fuckin' groove. Stoner township. I'd like to hear it done total sludge-metal style. Like Kyuss' "Thumb" slowed down!

― dave q, Thursday, 24 July 2003 08:45 (twenty-two years ago)

So.... notice contest then you reckon Dave?

Me too.

Blimey, that was a nice short thread wasn't it?

Unless, of course, someone's actually going to attempt to defend Mr Sumner's efforts against one of the defining albums of the '80's....?

Nah, that ain't gonna happen.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Thursday, 24 July 2003 08:53 (twenty-two years ago)

'Defining the 80s' = in retrospect, glory or shame?

― dave q, Thursday, 24 July 2003 09:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Now that's a substantially longer discussion Dave.... in that respect maybe the Sting album is probably a far more representative example of much of what was worst about (music in) the 80's (slick, smooth, over-produced, and only concerned with presenting a veneer of mature sophistication whilst concealing a deep underlying complacency and lack of imagination underneath).

Or something like that.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Thursday, 24 July 2003 09:18 (twenty-two years ago)

They both look great on glass coffee tables.... Graceland is just horrible, though.

― russ t, Thursday, 24 July 2003 10:03 (twenty-two years ago)

i still have a warm spot for graceland, esp. the ladysmith black mambazo parts. maybe irrationally and there's loadsa baggage with graceland, but i still like it.

dream of the blue turtles ... ewwwww. sting deserves death for defiling prokofiev. this was also an "album i pretended to like 'cause i thought that by doing so i could get into some chick's pants." which makes sting tori amos avant la lettre?

― Tad (llamasfur), Thursday, 24 July 2003 10:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Graceland, easily, because at least Simon has a sense of humor.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 24 July 2003 12:54 (twenty-two years ago)

(initially decided to pass on this one, B-B-BUT)
when I recall the kind of people who -- in 1987 ...8 ...9 -- still lavished praise on Sting's "Russians" in public, on the radio, in my neck of the woods, I feel IMMENSE love for Graceland swelling up, I shit you not!

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 24 July 2003 13:22 (twenty-two years ago)

TS: "Russians" vs. "Nikita"

― s1utsky (slutsky), Thursday, 24 July 2003 13:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Graceland in a landslide. Sting actually has decent solo stuff, but his first record is terrible.

― dleone (dleone), Thursday, 24 July 2003 13:42 (twenty-two years ago)

TS: "Russians" vs. "Nikita"

Which "Nikita" would that be? the E'John/B'Taupin "Nikita"?? In that case I'd rather push both of those songs on one and the same side, and make bloody sure I'm on the other side.

(Should that prove not an option, I bang my head on the desk, like Ned-man on the Beatles vs. Stones thread, and sob uncontrollably)

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 24 July 2003 13:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Elton John! With the Berlin Wall video! Nikita is a man's name!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Thursday, 24 July 2003 13:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Although I have a soft spot for "Blue Turtles" as it is one of the
first two record I bought with my own money...it is a flawed record.
DREAM OF THE BLUE TURTLES
Search: "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free"; "Moon over Burboun Street"; "Fortress Around Your Heart"; and the first two verses of "Love Is the Seventh Wave" (the sudden obsession with missiles blows the caribbean vibe, mon.)
Destroy: The rest.

GRACELAND
Search: "Boy in the Bubble"; "Graceland"; "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes"; and God Forgive me "You Can Call Me Al"
Destroy: Paul Simon's trip to South Africa.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Thursday, 24 July 2003 14:51 (twenty-two years ago)

"nikita" is EJ's best songs ever. so "nikita" v. "russians" is no contest at all.

to think that prokofiev survived stalin, only to see his work ravaged by sting ... oh the humanity!

― Tad (llamasfur), Thursday, 24 July 2003 15:12 (twenty-two years ago)

(for one, Prokofiev did not survive Stalin: Prokofiev died mere hours before Stalin, on 05 March 1953)

anyhoo... to be fair, i'd say "Nikita" merely bores the shit outta me whereas the disastrous Sting ditty seriously gets on the nerves.
so, yeah - alone in a dark room, deprived of access to the toilet, i'd rather be force-fed "Nikita" than ...that other one.

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 24 July 2003 15:35 (twenty-two years ago)

'when I recall the kind of people who -- in 1987 ...8 ...9 -- still lavished praise on Sting's "Russians" in public, on the radio, in my neck of the woods'

You ain't bullshittin'. Some clown in my hometown sent the words to the local newspaper's poetry section signing it "Gordon Sumner" and it won a fuckin' award!

― dave q, Thursday, 24 July 2003 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

but you grew up in estonia, right t\'\t?

― Tad (llamasfur), Thursday, 24 July 2003 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

(Tad -- yep, as per growing up. and, yeh, 'in later life' i studied for three years also in Russia. where a coupla of my best friends are from (...etc, etc))

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 24 July 2003 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Graceland hands down. I'd take ...Rhymin' Simon and Hearts And Bones over any Sting too. The Police and Sting are two different things.

― Johnny Badlees (crispssssss), Thursday, 24 July 2003 21:40 (twenty-two years ago)

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