Sting / Shaggy 44/876

Sting spent the entirety of his career studiously avoiding the appearance of having a good time, which is why his 2018 collaboration with reggae star Shaggy seemed so odd: at the age of 66, the rock star decided it was finally time to crack a smile. 44/876 -- a collaboration named after the phone codes for their respective home countries -- is most certainly a party record, albeit one that cooks at a low simmer as it swings between fleet-footed reggae sunsplash tunes and mellow grooves. If Sting seems subservient to Shaggy, that makes sense. Shaggy specializes in doing one thing well, while Sting took it as a point of pride that he could do anything from jazz to symphonies. While 44/876 has a few AAA moments -- "Waiting for the Break of Day" could've slid onto 2016's 57th & 9th without any incident, "22nd Street" oddly evokes memories of slick yacht-soul -- it's firmly a modern reggae album filtered through the perspective of a pop star who knows how to spin this music into somethi