This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
In the press bumpf for Brand New Day, Sting says writing pop songs over complex time signatures is a lot like doing crosswords.
Well, that seems appropriate: For most of this sopping dishrag of an album, he displays as much excitement as a man doing a Sunday puzzle. Although it’s an album ostensibly about love, Brand New Day is a startlingly passionless affair, consisting of nothing more than Sting’s eternally pretentious musings set to a smorgasbord of his milquetoast, ethno-jazz noodlings. It’s all so smooth and bland an infant could suck it through a straw and digest it without a burp. Twenty years ago, it was kinda cool to like Sting. But if you like Brand New Day, rest assured, you are not cool.
