Now that the Decades series has its own dedicated landing page, I’m excited to add new installments and get closer to my goal of writing about 40 years of memorable albums (with additional decades to come).
Over the next several weeks I’ll turn my attention to the albums of 1987, a year that turns out to be even stronger than the last one I tackled, 1977.
I turned 15 in 1987, a ripe age for musical discovery, but for the most part my favorite albums from this year were ones I discovered later. As a high school sophomore, I was more invested in digging into the catalogs of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin than picking up new releases.
But within a few years, I realized the wealth of great music being put out by contemporary artists. Over the next two weeks, I’ll count down my ten favorite 1987 albums.
#10 – Nothing Like the Sun – Sting
Sting’s sophomore solo album is a heady delight, blending jazz, pop, and rock into a sonically adventurous, literate collection of bangers.
The former Police frontman was derided for moving into Adult Contemporary territory with his solo material after the groundbreaking New Wave and post punk work he did with his band. But snobby critics couldn’t throw a wet blanket on the beauty and stickiness of these songs.
Tracks such as ‘Englishman in New York,’ ‘Be Still My Beating Heart,’ ‘Rock Steady,’ and ‘The Lazarus Heart’ found Sting blending his high-minded impulses with his mastery of a good pop hook, and the results are sublime.
He also delivers mysterious ballads (‘Sister Moon,’ ‘They Dance Alone,’ ‘Fragile’) and the dance-funk of top ten hit ‘We’ll Be Together’ without sacrificing the album’s cohesion.
Nothing Like the Sun was the second of seven straight Platinum or multi-Platinum albums for Sting, and it might be his best.
He looked beneath his shirt today
There was a wound in his flesh so deep and wide
From the wound a lovely flower grew
From somewhere deep inside
He turned around to face his mother
To show her the wound in his breast that burned like a brand
But the sword that cut him open
Was the sword in his mother’s hand
[Chorus]
Every day another miracle
Only death will tear us apart
To sacrifice a life for yours
I’d be the blood of the Lazarus heart
The blood of the Lazarus heart
[Verse 2]
Though the sword was his protection
The wound itself would give him power
The power to remake himself at the time of his darkest hour
She said the wound would give him courage and pain
The kind of pain that you can’t hide
From the wound a lovely flower grew
From somewhere deep inside
[Chorus]
Every day another miracle
Only death will keep us apart
To sacrifice a life for yours
I’d be the blood of the Lazarus heart
The blood of the Lazarus heart
[Verse 3]
Birds on the roof of my mother’s house
I’ve no stones that chase them away
Birds on the roof of my mother’s house
Will sit on my own roof some day
They fly at the window, they fly at the door
Where does she get the strength to fight them anymore
Counts all her children as a shield against the pain
Lifts her eyes to the sky like a flower to the rain
[Chorus]
Every day another miracle
Only death will tear us apart
To sacrifice a life for yours
I’d be the blood of the Lazarus heart
The blood of the Lazarus heart
I’d be the blood
