Outlandos d'Podcast: A show about Sting

Like Cnut commanding the tides to recede, Sting brings his band to his new manor house and says "I command thee to make hits!" — only when Sting does it, it actually works. Therefore, Sting > Cnut. Songs discussed include "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You," "Fields of Gold," "Shape of My Heart."

The elder Mr. Sumner was kind enough to die, thus breaking Sting’s writer’s block (or did it?), and the daddy-issues tunes came flowing out like so many single tears across a stoic, chiseled face. It’s peak #jazzdadsships. Songs discussed include “All This Time, “The Soul Cages,” “Island of Souls.”

As the length of Sting's hair peaks, so does his career as a solo artist, and the people of central America are forever grateful to him for mining their trauma like so much Aztec gold. Songs discussed include "The Lazarus Heart," "Fragile," They Dance Alone."

Sting goes looking for more people to exploit for authenticity and comes up with a crew of American jazz session players whose brilliance he does not deserve. Songs discussed include "Fortress Around Your Heart," "Russians," "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free."

Like a lover who wants to show their soon-to-be-ex what they'll be missing, Sting turns in his finest creative performances to date before promptly giving Stewart and Andy the ol' Irish goodbye. Using our crack forensic team of Claire and Bruce (here on work experience), we create a digital model of what "Every Breath You Take" would have sounded like without Andy's brilliant contributions. Other songs discussed include "King of Pain," "Walking in Your Footsteps," "Synchronicity I."

Donning the shortest men's running shorts that scientists of the time could produce, Sting and the boys headed to the sunny island of Montserrat to produce a feel-good summertime album about . . . Descartes, or something? Shortly thereafter, Montserrat was blanketed in lava and ash as the earth tried desperately to cleanse itself. Songs discussed include "Everything Little Thing She Does Is Magic," "Spirits in the Material World," "Invisible Sun," "Omega Man."

For "Zenyatta Mondatta," Sting and boys head into the studio with a killer sound and yet, sadly, almost no actual songs to record. In our studio, we have a slight hiccup with Meg's mic, but if we were to re-record the ep, what's the chance we'd get her to again utter the sentence "Oi, you with the floppy anus, that's a fire hazard"? Songs discussed include "Don't Stand So Close To Me," "Driven to Tears," "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da."

Meg nods politely while Adam goes full-on music dork explaining why "Regatta de Blanc" is peak Police. He even dusts off the ol' guitar next to the fireplace for analysis of the "Message in a Bottle" riff. Meg continues to nod politely. Songs discussed include: "Message in a Bottle," "Walking on the Moon," "Does Everyone Stare."

The Police's TOTALLY AUTHENTIC™ punk rock debut album "Outlandos d'Amour" hits big, and Sting finally makes it into the Queen Mother's limo with a little help from his buddies Stewart and Ol' Granny Andy. Songs discussed include "Roxanne," "Can't Stand Losing You" and "Truth Hits Everybody."

We recount the epic tale of Gordon Sumner's birth to a shipwright (or was he a milkman?) in Ye Olde Kingdom of Northumbria, Anno Domini 1951 (and, possibly, how he was murdered by MI6 so that Sting could adopt Gordy's hardscrabble backstory to bolster his career and evade Tony with the Essex mob). Songs discussed include Last Exit demos and the first Police single, "Fall Out."