Amazon.co.uk allows you to pay for your items in your local currency. Restrictions apply. Learn More. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Track Listings
| 1. Hounds Of Winter |
| 2. I Hung My Head |
| 3. Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot |
| 4. I Was Brought To My Senses |
| 5. You Still Touch Me |
| 6. I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying |
| 7. All Four Seasons |
| 8. Twenty Five To Midnight |
| 9. La Belle Dame Sans Regrets |
| 10. Valparaiso |
| 11. Lithium Sunset |
| 12. Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot (video) |
Product Description
Product Description
In a fit of artistic creativity (or perhaps for simpler non-aesthetic reasons), the title of the album Mercury Falling appears in the first line of the album's opening track, as well as in the last line of the closing song. Maybe it's all forward planning on Sting's part, but the beginning and closing lines create symbolic bookends between which all of the songs snugly fit. The balance is also found on the songs: they are less depressing than Sting's first three solo albums, but at the same time more melancholic than his last release Ten Summoner's Tales. The opening track "The Hounds of Winter" is a dark depressing soundscape, complete with synthesised dog howls. Reflecting the symmetry, the compositions do lighten up later with the country inspired "I Was Brought To My Senses" and "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying". --John Galilee
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
What a dull-witted bunch of reviews! I don't normally review but have been provoked into action reading this guff!
With Mercury Falling, you're dealing with a mature, sophisticated, soulful, varied, and finely-wrought work from one of the great singer-songwriters of our times. There's emotional intensity and depth. There's humour. There's folk, jazz, rock and country influences. There's a bossa nova sung in french! Beautiful. There's a totally awesome bunch of jazz musos playing. Some of these songs are almost overwhelming in their sheer aural/textural impact. I'm thinking 'Let your soul' and 'I was brought to my senses' here. There's plenty of catchy stuff too. If 'I hung my head' doesn't stick in your mind, it needs plugging. There's smart, raw, searching lyrics. There's heaps of atmosphere.
There's not a bad song on the album. No dead wood, no fillers. Creative, committed music-making from first to last note.
The overall tone of the album is a bit on the dark side. It's a very adult record.
This is Sting at his best. Cool, snappy, intelligent, delicious.
I'm glad there's guys out there like these earlier reviewers who don't like it. I like the thought that the really cool music isn't a pop success!
Have to stop there - I'm ducking off to listen to Mercury again...
With Mercury Falling, you're dealing with a mature, sophisticated, soulful, varied, and finely-wrought work from one of the great singer-songwriters of our times. There's emotional intensity and depth. There's humour. There's folk, jazz, rock and country influences. There's a bossa nova sung in french! Beautiful. There's a totally awesome bunch of jazz musos playing. Some of these songs are almost overwhelming in their sheer aural/textural impact. I'm thinking 'Let your soul' and 'I was brought to my senses' here. There's plenty of catchy stuff too. If 'I hung my head' doesn't stick in your mind, it needs plugging. There's smart, raw, searching lyrics. There's heaps of atmosphere.
There's not a bad song on the album. No dead wood, no fillers. Creative, committed music-making from first to last note.
The overall tone of the album is a bit on the dark side. It's a very adult record.
This is Sting at his best. Cool, snappy, intelligent, delicious.
I'm glad there's guys out there like these earlier reviewers who don't like it. I like the thought that the really cool music isn't a pop success!
Have to stop there - I'm ducking off to listen to Mercury again...
Format:Audio CD
I'm with 'Bertie' - I am a big Sting fan and actually think this one hangs together as an album better than any of his others. Ten Summoners tales was a great collection of songs but this collection, though understated by comparison, merits equal praise on it's own terms. This is one of those albums that I put on and find myself sitting there until the end. Just give it time.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Sting's fifth studio album (1996) is somewhat of a disappointment. Recorded at his Wiltshire pile and produced (again) with Hugh Padgham, it's still a good album. However, for me it lacks imagination, and its eclectic mix of styles leads to a lack of focus. Let me explain.
We have a standard rock-ballad, a syncopated story about the consequences of a shot in the Wild West, in "I Hung My head"; a plodding gospel-style song in "Let Your Love Be Your Pilot"; a standard soul-ballad in "You Can Touch Me"; a naff country & western (it either does it for you, or it doesn't) song in "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying"; a soul-rock plodding (despite good lyrics) "All Four Seasons"; another plodding rocker, "25 to Midnight", whose beat is travelling at much too slow a speed for a midnight express; a Celtic-sounding ballad titled "Round the Cape Horn to Valparaiso" with a free jam session at the end; and another pedal-steel guitar country & western "Lithium Sunset".
If I wanted a C&W album, or a soul album, or a gospel album, I would have bought one. Whilst Sting has his own unique take on all these styles, they rarely shine. Instead, I would like to praise the remaining three songs, as these are the areas for me where Sting is at his best and where he excels in style and content.
"I Was Brought to My Senses" starts as a solo ballad in the style of a strolling troubadour with fiddle and pipes. This then cleverly cuts to the band playing a song with a sixties-feel, despite the faux-string orchestra. There is great lyrical beauty here: "Inside every leaf is the pattern of an older tree", or "I saw the work of heaven in the line where the hills had been married to the sky."
"La Belle Dame Sans Regrets" (co-written with Dominic Miller) has an evening Parisian feel with its sophisticated percussion and (again) faux strings. The jazz piano only adds to the atmosphere, as Sting practices his O-level French.
But the best is the opening track: "The Hounds of Winter" is another love song, a softly-rocking ballad with a winter's feel and a good ending, the snare drum reverberating like the shivers. The voice is high in the mix, which is a pleasant change from some of the preceding albums. Sting has a strong and expressive voice; it is not perfect, but that is part of its charm.
We have a standard rock-ballad, a syncopated story about the consequences of a shot in the Wild West, in "I Hung My head"; a plodding gospel-style song in "Let Your Love Be Your Pilot"; a standard soul-ballad in "You Can Touch Me"; a naff country & western (it either does it for you, or it doesn't) song in "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying"; a soul-rock plodding (despite good lyrics) "All Four Seasons"; another plodding rocker, "25 to Midnight", whose beat is travelling at much too slow a speed for a midnight express; a Celtic-sounding ballad titled "Round the Cape Horn to Valparaiso" with a free jam session at the end; and another pedal-steel guitar country & western "Lithium Sunset".
If I wanted a C&W album, or a soul album, or a gospel album, I would have bought one. Whilst Sting has his own unique take on all these styles, they rarely shine. Instead, I would like to praise the remaining three songs, as these are the areas for me where Sting is at his best and where he excels in style and content.
"I Was Brought to My Senses" starts as a solo ballad in the style of a strolling troubadour with fiddle and pipes. This then cleverly cuts to the band playing a song with a sixties-feel, despite the faux-string orchestra. There is great lyrical beauty here: "Inside every leaf is the pattern of an older tree", or "I saw the work of heaven in the line where the hills had been married to the sky."
"La Belle Dame Sans Regrets" (co-written with Dominic Miller) has an evening Parisian feel with its sophisticated percussion and (again) faux strings. The jazz piano only adds to the atmosphere, as Sting practices his O-level French.
But the best is the opening track: "The Hounds of Winter" is another love song, a softly-rocking ballad with a winter's feel and a good ending, the snare drum reverberating like the shivers. The voice is high in the mix, which is a pleasant change from some of the preceding albums. Sting has a strong and expressive voice; it is not perfect, but that is part of its charm.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Some good songs
I am a big Police fan now after I discovered their self-titled album in the summer last year. They are one of my favourite bands and they are so amazing. Read more
Published on 3 Sep 2008 by Matt182
Mercury leak
This is the most disappointing album I have ever purchssed. I do like Sting and some of his other albums are among my favourites. Read more
Published on 16 Mar 2008 by A. J. G. Yome
Mercury Evening
This album doesn't have the well known tracks as some other Stings albums do (Blue Turtles, Nothing Like The Sun etc.), but if you're a Sting fan, as I am, you will like this. Read more
Published on 19 Jan 2005 by M. Macaskill
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
