New ‘Sting 25’ App by Sting Offers Music, Concert Footage, Videos, and Photographs
Next Monday, musician Sting and New York-based production company @radical.media are planning to release an app that combines music, material from concerts, photographs, and videos. The app will showcase the 60-year-old singer’s solo career, which began in the 1980′s.
The main feature of the app will be footage of Sting’s October performance at the Beacon Theatre in New York, where he performed duets with artists like Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder.
The app, called “Sting 25,” is designed to be an archive of Sting’s solo work. A sliding timeline will be available, equipped with photos and videos from important moments in Sting’s career, such as Live Aid, which took place in 1985.
A second navigation bar gives insight into Sting’s musical and personal influences, with images and and actual audio commentary provided by the singer. If an app user owns any music from Sting’s 11 solo albums, Sting 25 will automatically detect them and integrate the music into the app. Users who don’t own Sting’s music can sample tracks and then purchase them through iTunes, right in the app.
The Sting 25 app came about after Sting’s manager, Kathryn Schenker, asked @radical to film Sting’s 60th birthday concert as a documentary, but the company refused, saying that concert movies are antiquated. Instead, @radical suggested an iPad app, which Sting and his record label, Universal Music Group, whole-heartedly embraced.
Universal Music Group and EMI, Sting’s publisher, provided copyright clearances. Sponsors like American Express and Chevrolet covered the costs, which dipped into the low seven figures.
Despite the high production costs, Sting and his team will be offering the Sting 25 app for free in an effort to encourage music downloads and attract users outside of his typical fan base. “There is a story, so whatever helps me to tell it, I will use,” said Sting. “This is the future, in my opinion. I’m putting my money on the app.”
[via WSJ]