1991年Sting推出了自传题材的专辑The Soul Cages，其中收录的歌曲All This Time在美国公告牌排行榜中达到了第5位。原名Gordon Sumner，1951年10月2日出生于英格兰的沃尔森德。Sting的独唱生涯始于1982年，当时他是Police乐队的主唱和贝斯手。当年他还主演了电影Brimstone And Treacle，他在剧中还翻唱了由Vivian Ellis创作的30年代的民谣歌曲Spread A Little Happiness。这首歌的新颖风格和Sting的声望确保了它在英国排行榜上前20名的位置。在继续在各地巡回演出并与Police乐队录制音乐的同时，他还共同创作并参与演唱了Dire Straits的热门歌曲Money For Nothing并在Phil Collins的No Jacket Required中唱和声。 　　Emboldened by the enthusiastic response to the muted Nothing Like the Sun and reeling from the loss of his parents, Sting constructed The Soul Cages as a hushed mediation on mortality, loss, grief, and father/son relationships (the album is dedicated, in part, to his father; its predecessor was dedicated to his mother). Using the same basic band as Nothing Like the Sun, the album has the same supple, luxurious tone, stretching out leisurely over nine tracks, almost all of them layered mid-tempo tunes (the exception being grinding guitars of the title track). Within this setting, Sting hits a few remarkable peaks, such as the elegant waltz "Mad About You" and "All This Time," a deceptively skipping pop tune that hides a moving tribute to his father. If the entirety of The Soul Cages was as nimbly melodic and urgently emotional as these two cuts, it would have been a quiet masterpiece. Instead, it turns inward — not just lyrically, but musically — and plays as a diary entry, perhaps interesting to those willing to spend hours immersing themselves within Sting's loss, finding parallels within their own life. This may be too much effort for anyone outside of the devoted, since apart from those two singles (and perhaps "Why Should I Cry for You"), there are few entry points into The Soul Cages — and, once you get in there, it only rewards if your emotional state mirrors Sting's.