The Dream of the Blue Turtles

The Dream of the Blue Turtles is the first solo album by English musician Sting, released in the United States on 1 June 1985. The album reached number three on the UK Albums Chart[8] and number two on the US Billboard 200.

The Dream of the Blue Turtles
Studio album by
Sting
Released1 June 1985
Recorded1984 – March 1985
StudioBlue Wave Studio, Saint Philip, Barbados and Le Studio, Morin-Heights, Quebec, Canada
Genre
Length41:40
LabelA&M
75021-3750-2
ProducerSting and Pete Smith
Sting chronology
The Dream of the Blue Turtles
(1985)		 Bring on the Night
(1986)
Singles from The Dream of the Blue Turtles
  1. "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free"
    Released: 9 July 1985
  2. "Love Is the Seventh Wave"
    Released: 1 August 1985
  3. "Fortress Around Your Heart"
    Released: 1 October 1985
  4. "Russians"
    Released: 1 November 1985
  5. "Moon Over Bourbon Street"
    Released: 1 February 1986
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
Chicago Tribune[3]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[4]
Rolling Stone[5]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[6]
The Village VoiceC+[7]

In the US the album spawned four singles, "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free", "Fortress Around Your Heart", "Russians" and "Love Is the Seventh Wave". The album earned Grammy nominations for Album of the Year, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, Best Jazz Instrumental Performance and Best Engineered Recording.

Background and release

The album is named after a dream of Sting's.[9]

Although the single "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" reached No. 3 in the US, it only reached 26 in the UK, where the album's track "Russians" (about Cold War nuclear anxieties, which had peaked in the 1980s) proved more popular.

In the UK the album was kept off No. 1 in the week of its release by Marillion's Misplaced Childhood and Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen occupying the top two places. However, in the US, the album reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200.

The movie Bring on the Night documents some of the recording work that produced this album, as well as the subsequent tour.

Songs

The songs include "Children's Crusade" (paralleling the destruction of the younger generation in World War I to the devastation brought about by heroin addiction in modern-day London); the original uptempo arrangement of The Police song "Shadows in the Rain"; "We Work the Black Seam" (about the UK miners' strike of 1984–85); and "Moon over Bourbon Street", a song inspired by Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire.[10] "Consider Me Gone" references the first quatrain of Shakespeare's Sonnet 35.

Accolades

Grammy Awards

Year Nominee / work Award Result
1986The Dream of the Blue TurtlesAlbum of the Year[11]Nominated
Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male[12]Nominated

Track listing

All tracks are written by Sting, except where noted.

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" 4:14
2."Love Is the Seventh Wave" 3:30
3."Russians"Sergei Prokofiev, Sting3:57
4."Children's Crusade" 5:00
5."Shadows in the Rain" 4:56
Side two
No.TitleLength
6."We Work the Black Seam"5:40
7."Consider Me Gone"4:21
8."The Dream of the Blue Turtles"1:15
9."Moon over Bourbon Street"3:59
10."Fortress Around Your Heart"4:39

B-sides
  • "Another Day" – 3:54
  • "Gabriel's Message" – 2:15

Singles
  • "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" (1985) #3 US Hot 100, #26 UK Singles Chart
  • "Russians" (1985) #16 US Hot 100, #12 UK Singles Chart
  • "Fortress Around Your Heart" (1985) #8 US Hot 100, #49 UK Singles Chart
  • "Love Is the Seventh Wave" (1985) #17 US Hot 100, #41 UK Singles Chart
  • "Moon over Bourbon Street" (1986) #44 UK Singles Chart[8] – with a B-side of "The Ballad of Mack the Knife"

Personnel

Additional personnel
  • Robert Ashworth – additional guitar
  • Danny Quatrochi – Synclavier, additional backing vocals
  • Eddy Grant – congas (7)
  • Frank Opolko – trombone (2)
  • Pete Smith – backing vocals
  • Elliot Jones – backing vocals
  • Jane Alexander – backing vocals
  • Vic Garbarini – backing vocals
  • Pamela Quinlan – backing vocals
  • The Nannies Chorus – backing vocals
  • Rosemary Purt – backing vocals
  • Stephanie Crewdson – backing vocals
  • Joe Sumner – backing vocals
  • Kate Sumner – backing vocals
  • Michael Sumner – backing vocals

Production
  • Pete Smith – engineer, producer
  • Sting – producer
  • Jim Scott – engineer
  • Bob Ludwig – mastering at Masterdisk (New York, NY).
  • Max Vadukul – photography
  • Danny Quatrochi – photography
  • Michael Ross – art direction and design
  • Richard Frankel – art direction and design

Charts

Certifications
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
Australia — 200,000[34]
Canada (Music Canada)[35] Platinum 100,000^
France (SNEP)[36] Platinum 551,100[37]
Germany (BVMI)[38] Platinum 500,000^
Hong Kong (IFPI Hong Kong)[39] Gold 10,000*
Italy (FIMI)[40] Platinum 500,000*
New Zealand (RMNZ)[41] Platinum 15,000^
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[42] Gold 50,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[43] 2× Platinum 600,000^
United States (RIAA)[44] 3× Platinum 3,000,000^
Yugoslavia — 50,000[45]

*sales figures based on certification alone
^shipments figures based on certification alone

References
  1. Pareles, John (17 June 1997). "The Dream of the Blue Turtles". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 24 June 2014.
  2. Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "The Dream of the Blue Turtles – Sting". AllMusic. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
  3. Kot, Greg (7 March 1993). "Feeling A Sting". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
  4. Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8.
  5. Pareles, Jon (18 July 1985). "The Dream of the Blue Turtles". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 7 November 2007. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  6. Considine, J. D. (2004). "Sting". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 783–84. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  7. Christgau, Robert (25 June 1985). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. Retrieved 3 March 2012.
  8. Sting in the UK Charts Archived 15 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, The Official Charts.
  9. "Sting: The Dream of the Blue Turtles". Archived from the original on 4 June 2013. Retrieved 2 January 2012. The title of the album came from a dream that woke me up on my first night in Barbados. I dreamed I was sitting in the walled garden behind my house in Hampstead, under a lilac tree on a well manicured lawn, surrounded by beautiful rosebushes. Suddenly the bricks from the wall exploded into the garden and I turned to see the head of an enormous turtle emerging from the darkness, followed by four or five others. They were not only the size of a man, they were also blue and had an air of being immensely cool, like hepcats, insouciant and fearless. They didn't harm me but with an almost casual violence commenced to destroy my genteel English garden, digging up the lawn with their claws, chomping at the rosebushes, bulldozing the lilac tree. Total mayhem. I woke up to the sound of Branford in the room upstairs, riffing wildly on his tenor sax, followed by his unmistakeable laughter.
  10. https://www.sting.com/discography/album/185/Singles
  11. "GRAMMYs' Best Albums 1980–1989". grammy.org. Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
  12. "Picking The Grammy Nominees Of 1986". Los Angeles Times. 5 January 1986. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
  13. Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. St Ives, NSW: Australian Chart Book. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  14. "austriancharts.at Sting – The Dream of the Blue Turtles" (ASP). Hung Medien (in German). Retrieved 21 October 2011.
  15. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 2011-10-20
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  17. "InfoDisc : Tous les Albums classés par Artiste > Choisir Un Artiste Dans la Liste" (in French). infodisc.fr. Archived from the original on 6 May 2013. Retrieved 12 September 2011.
  18. "Hit Parade Italia – Gli album più venduti del 1985" (in Italian). hitparadeitalia.it. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
  19. Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970–2005. Roppongi, Tokyo: Oricon Entertainment. 2006. ISBN 4-87131-077-9.
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  21. "norwegiancharts.com Sting – The Dream of the Blue Turtles" (ASP). Hung Medien. VG-lista. Retrieved 21 October 2011.
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  34. Baker, Glenn A. (15 November 1985). "Pacing the Majors…". Billboard. p. A-6. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
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  37. "Les Albums Platine". infodisc.fr (in French). SNEP. Archived from the original on 25 December 2013. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
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  39. "IFPIHK Gold Disc Award − 1988". IFPI Hong Kong. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
  40. "European Gold & Platinum Awards 1986" (PDF). Music & Media. 27 December 1986. p. 33. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  41. "New Zealand album certifications – Sting – The Dream of the Blue Turtles". Recorded Music NZ.
  42. Fernando Salaverri (September 2005). Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959–2002 (1st ed.). Spain: Fundación Autor-SGAE. p. 920. ISBN 84-8048-639-2.
  43. "British album certifications – Sting – The Dream of the Blue Turtles". British Phonographic Industry. Select albums in the Format field. Select Platinum in the Certification field. Type The Dream of the Blue Turtles in the "Search BPI Awards" field and then press Enter.
  44. "American album certifications – Sting – The Dream of the Blue Turtles". Recording Industry Association of America. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH. 
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