Sting - Brand New Day

What this video is

Released on 13 September 1999, 'Brand New Day' arrived at a precise cultural inflection point: the final months before Y2K and the turn of the millennium. The song and video were conceived as a direct counter-narrative to the 'premillennial hokum' of doomsday prophecy and apocalyptic anxiety circulating in mass media. Sting positioned the track as an act of collective optimism—'a new beginning, a new start'—and…

Why it matters

Represents the apex of Sting's late-1990s adult contemporary commercial renaissance, blending soul-pop, gospel, and lite-funk influences crystallized by the Stevie Wonder harmonica contribution. The album sold over 3.5 million copies in the US, peaked at #9 on the Billboard 200, and won the Grammy…

The director

Jan Houllevigue (born 1962, Briançon) is a French-Norwegian artist, photographer, and production designer. He is a two-time winner of the MTV VMA for Best Art Direction and a 2014 BIFA award recipient. He is best known for his long-running collaboration with…