Since splitting from The Police, Sting moved further and further into an adult contemporary pop that styled itself with jazz and chamber pop elements. On his third solo album, The Soul Cages, he adds this very 90s production that once you hear it in one album, you’ll hear it everywhere. It’s not a bad thing like overcompression, but it’s very specific to the era, like slightly detached from this world but still crisp.

All this time is one of his looser songs in the excellent The Soul Cages, an album fueled by Sting’s mourning of his father. The album deals with this subject in different manners, and having gone through that experience, I understand how moods (and music genres) can change at the drop of the hat. It takes Sting’s genius to make it cohesive.

-Sam J. Valdés López