Sting has a new album called Duets coming out on 19th March. As the title suggests, it is a compilation of Sting’s duets with a series of big-name artists stretching back to 1992. These acts include Mary J Blige, Herbie Hancock, Eric Clapton, Annie Lennox, Charles Aznavour, Zucchero, Mylène Farmer, Shaggy, Melody Gardot and Gashi.
Ahead of the album, Sting launched a dedicated timeline website intended as “a visual companion piece” for the album where he posts short videos that go through each song on the album. It all has very clear global ambitions as the commentary is dubbed in a multitude of languages (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish and Japanese).
“Fans are invited to travel along the timeline for the story behind each duet, check out new interviews with Sting musing on these collaborations and share their own memories of each song with other fans around the world,” says the press release announcing the launch of the site.
Fans are also invited to share their memories of these songs over the past three decades. Each song on the site has a dedicated point where fans can upload photos and stories (which will obviously be screened before being added to the site). They are also asked to vote for their favourite song from the album that could work as a nice bit of data capture and fan insight – which can be segmented further by location – that could then help direct targeting and localised marketing when the album comes out.
The videos – all recorded with Sting in one sitting – are succinct (mostly lasting a very untantric one minute), but they do offer some interesting reflections from him about working with a wide range of artists through his career.
It’s all a significant step on from his 2011 iPad app (bankrolled by Chevrolet and American Express) that was intended as a way to browse his archives and mark his first quarter century in music as a solo act. At the time, we heard how much the app cost (which would make you weep) and what the uptake was (which would make Sting weep). Discretion prevents us from putting precise numbers here, but you can probably guess.
