| Review by peteyspambucket June 2, 2004 (5 of 6 found this review helpful)
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Performance:  Sonics:  |
OK, I'll bite and be the first person to review this one. I must preface by saying that I have generally not enjoyed much Sting's solo (post Police) work, finding them bland. However, this album when it came out was so very different from his other stuff, that it stands out in his output.
This SACD is a triumph. The sound is stunning. The instruments are very crisp and clear, and the multichannel mix allows you to hear certain (mostly percussive) instruments in relative isolation. Sting's experimentation with exotic instruments and orchestration is benefited by greater clarity afforded to these instruments. The bass sound is very pointed and natural. While I liked the album on Redbook, this SACD mix, because it reveals more of the musicianship, is making me love it. Quite a stretch for a self-proclaimed Sting-naysayer. :-)
A very accessible album in brilliant sound. Recommended.
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| Review by monotone July 16, 2004 (0 of 1 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics: |
The title was out on DVD-A for over 6 months before the SACD release (still a relief that its out on SACD)... I got it as soon as I could cos I hated the DTS edition. DTS music just sounded so bad! (my opinion of cos)... As soon as I played the SACD version... I could happily say they've made justice to this album... the surround is less busy and much more natural compared to the DTS version. The 'core' of the stage sounded natural (an issue I had with DTS, which I felt there's a very empty core sounding reproduction).
Music wise, definitely a better album compared to his new one, Sacred Love.
A great demo disc too to check how well your amp or a sub woofer is able to control the opening lows and moving into the melody smoothly.
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| Review by chriscmore October 14, 2004 (1 of 3 found this review helpful)
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Performance:  Sonics: |
After the train-wreck that Sacred Love was, I still have a soft spot for a combination of Sting, surround mixes, and DSD sonic quality. I picked up Brand New Day because I knew that one song, A Thousand Years, was brilliant enough to justify the purchase alone. I owned that track from The Red Planet soundtrack, absolutely loved it (the rest of the album is crap except for the Peter Gabriel track), but was repeatedly tortured by the trashy harshness of the redbook sound. When he holds his "s" at the end of some phrases, it was a painful experience.
Well, this SACD version solved 90 percent of the harshness that the redbook had, while adding glorious surround mixing, inspiring bass, and better dynamics. It's still got that digital sound and some compression, so only 4 stars for sonics. Heck, I have redbook CDs from Mapleshade that are more smoother and more dynamic, so it's not the limitation of the SACD, but rather the impurities that they subjected the recording through.
The sonics are good enough that they help the performance. Thousand Years aside, I was pretty luke-warm on this album's songs, but much like a top-notch big screen theater can make mediocre action films much more enjoyable, this remastering has brought me to listen straight through the album several times, and even enjoy the previously-punishing Brand New Day track.
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| Review by eesau January 16, 2005 (2 of 5 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics: |
This is Sting's record from 1999 as a multi-channel version that is the same mix as the DTS-version. The DTS-records are typically very poor multi-channel mixes but I consider this to be one of the best among them. This is one of the best solo records Sting has made (among "Dream of the Blue Turtles" and "Mercury Falling"). If you like his music, you'll like this one, too.
The multi-channel mix is a dissappointment because I was expecting a new mix instead of the DTS-one. Sting's voice has been mixed as two channel in between the front channels (there is some output from the center channel but nothing from the rear channels). One of the great things of multi-channel audio is the lifelikeness of a human voice. This record does not utilize the opportunities of multi-channel but tinkers with adding sound effects to the rear channel ... as the poor DTS mixes very often do.
But the music is great and that should be essential to us, of course.
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| Review by madisonears November 29, 2006 (2 of 2 found this review helpful)
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Not every song is a winner, but then no Sting album is complete without a couple of clinkers. This is definitely one of his better solo efforts. The opening and closing tracks are worth the price of having to endure some of the drivel.
But the sound, the glorious sound! In stereo, this is just killer. The recording is very open with lots of air for a pop recording, and frequency extremes are very well represented. Sting is, after all, a bass player, and the lows on this disc will test your system. The exotic percussion instruments and synthesized bass effects are really cool.
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| Review by duchski April 13, 2007
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| Music is music. Either you like Sting or you do not, the sonic quality however is second to none... Consistent with the spirit of old quad recordings this is not a "front plus surround effects in the back" but a truly a multichannel recording, with action happening all around the listener. Your speaker system will suddenly come to life. Get it! A definite GO from this listener.
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| Review by Turin August 21, 2010 (1 of 2 found this review helpful)
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| I am a huge fan of Sting, especially his solo efforts. He is one the great living musical artists of the last 3 generations. I have this disc in regular format and love it. As SACD format is usually much better than standard red book format, it was with great anticipation that I sat down to listen to this SACD. What a disappointment! It's way over produced with very heavy gain in the high end frequencies. It has a bright scratchy overall sound that is very fatiguing. At first the "airiness" and detail of the recording is impressive, but within 10 minutes/2 tracks you find yourself wanting to be somewhere else. It's like listening to a young soprano with no volume control run amok. I listed to the SACD several times over a 2 week period to see if my impression would change. It did not. After each SACD listen, I went back and listened to the Red Book version of the CD on the same setup. It was better overall; not as detailed, not as image precise; but way more balanced and ultimately much more pleasurable to listen to.
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Sonics: 
