Sting – Ten Summoner's Tales (1993)

1		Prologue (If I Ever Lose My Faith In You)	4:31
2		Love Is Stronger Than Justice (The Munificent Seven)	5:11
3		Fields Of Gold	3:42
4		Heavy Cloud No Rain	3:47
5		She's Too Good For Me	2:30
6		Seven Days	4:39
7		Saint Augustine In Hell	5:17
8		It's Probably Me	5:09
9		Everybody Laughed But You	3:53
10		Shape Of My Heart	4:38
11		Something The Boy Said	5:28
12		Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me)	3:41

Cello – Sian Bell
Drums – Vinnie Colaiuta
Fiddle, Northumbrian Pipes – Kathryn Tickell
Flute – Dave Heath
Guitar – Dominic Miller
Harmonica [Chromatic] – Brendan Power, Larry Adler
Keyboards – David Sancious
Narrator – David Foxxe
Pedal Steel Guitar – Paul Franklin
Trombone – Mark Nightingale, Richard Edwards (2)
Trumpet – Guy Barker, John Barclay
Viola – James Boyd
Violin – Kathryn Greeley, Simon Fischer

Elvis, Cher, Prince, Sade—their one-word names signify all that they're musically and culturally about. British rocker Sting should be included among these musical icons as well. Born Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, this former Police band member ventured into his solo career in 1985 and has produced twelve albums to date, including his fantastic, multi Grammy Award winning fourth studio LP Ten Summoner’s Tales, released 25 years ago. His music is like buying your favorite meal. You know what you're going to get, it's satisfying and you'll get it again.

With The Police and as a solo artist, Sting has mixed elements of jazz, soft rock, New Wave and reggae, usually with a mournful or hard-hitting tone. However, this album has a softer edge than his previous ones. Even the title hits a light note, with it being a play on his family name, Sumner, and a tribute to the summoner from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

The twelve tracks explore everything from love to loss to morality. The two chart toppers from the album are "If Ever I Lose My Faith in You" and "Fields of Gold," landing at #17 and #23 respectively on the Billboard Hot 100. All the songs could be themes for The Canterbury Tales. For example, "Love is Stronger than Justice," "Seven Days" and "Saint Augustine in Hell" convey Sting's inner journey just as Chaucer's tales explored his characters' excursions. The music is uncomplicated, hopeful yet elegiac, and sun-kissed with Sting's grainy voice.

On its 25th anniversary, Ten Summoner's Tales highlights the troubadour skills of the "Englishman in New York” and is just as golden today as when it first dropped. In a time when pop music is about shock value more than content, Ten Summoner's Tales hits the ears like a musical audiobook: a series of songs that tell a tale in sequence, delighting us in the storyteller’s soulful expedition. The album does Chaucer and the Mr. Sumner proud. ---Sonya Alexander, albumism.com

After two albums of muted, mature jazz-inflected pop, the last being an explicit album about death, Sting created his first unapologetically pop album since the Police with Ten Summoner's Tales. The title, a rather awkward pun on his given last name, is significant, since it emphasizes that this album is a collection of songs, without any musical conceits or lyrical concepts tying it together. And, frankly, that's a bit of a relief after the oppressively somber The Soul Cages and the hushed though lovely, Nothing Like the Sun. Sting even loosens up enough to crack jokes, both clever (the winking litany of celebrity pains of "Epilogue [Nothing 'Bout Me]") and condescending (the sneeringly catchy cowboy tale "Love Is Stronger Than Justice [The Munificent Seven]"), and the result is his best solo record. In places, it's easily as pretentious as his earlier work, but that's undercut by writing that hasn't been this sharp and melodic since the Police, plus his most varied set of songs since Synchronicity. True, there isn't a preponderance of flat-out classics -- only the surging opener "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You," the understated swing of "It's Probably Me," and the peaceful ballad "Fields of Gold" rank as classics -- but, as an album, Ten Summoner's Tales is more consistently satisfying than anything else in his catalog. ---Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

Ten Summoner's Tales to czwarty solowy album studyjny angielskiego muzyka rockowego Stinga. Materiał znajdujący się na płycie powstawał od czerwca do grudnia 1992 roku i został zarejestrowany w studiu Lake House w Wiltshire w Anglii. To, wydane w 1993 roku wydawnictwo, porusza tematy miłości i moralności w wyraźnie bardziej optymistycznym nastroju w porównaniu do jego poprzedniej płyty, introspektywnej The Soul Cages, wydanej dwa lata wcześniej, po stracie obojga rodziców w latach 80. Tytuł jest połączeniem kalamburów jego nazwiska rodzinnego, Sumner i postaci "wzywającego" ze zbioru opowiadań The Canterbury Tales (pol. Opowieści kanterberyjskie) Geoffreya Chaucera z XIV wieku. ---winyle-online.pl

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