Sting

From Mark Scheerer
CNN Entertainment News Correspondent

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NEW YORK (CNN) -- "It certainly wasn't my intention to write anything about the millennium," Sting says of "Brand New Day."

His latest album is out this month on the A&M label and it hasn't escaped anyone's notice that its first track is titled "A Thousand Years" and another is called "Tomorrow We'll See." But the singer, songwriter and actor says this is more about synchronicity than millennium fever.

"I'm not that interested in it," he says of the approach of the third millennium. "But it kind of crept into my subconscious, if you like, and in a subtle way it informed a couple of songs."

This isn't the first time the musician's subconscious sensitivities have surprised him. With 1993's "Ten Summoner's Tales" -- an album title he thought was just making a pun on his given name, Gordon Sumner -- he admitted to an interviewer that he'd given away much more of his tendency toward self-analysis than he'd intended.

And it's not hard to understand what's on his mind right now, considering that he's just set off on a tour that ends in New York City this New Year's Eve. He's to share a stage there with Tom Jones, Aretha Franklin and Andrea Bocelli. He and Bryan Ferry, the Eurythmics, Ray Charles and Simply Red are also signed to participate at some point in the BBC-coordinated "2000 Today" world TV broadcast.

Of course, the third millennium doesn't technically start until January 1, 2001. But the changeover in under three months to 2000 has captured the fancy of the public -- and of marketers looking to capitalize on the moment.

Sting, who turned 48 just this month, says the possibility for computer failures triggered by the Y2K bug influenced some of his work. Probably some of today's documentaries did, too, as they survey the last 1,000 years in terms of art, politics, social developments, technology.

"The first song is called 'A Thousand Years' -- kind of obvious," he says. "And the last song is called '(It's a) Brand New Day,' and it takes the symbol of Y2K, of the computers going to zero.

"I know it's going to cause problems, but if you look at it from a slightly different viewpoint, it's a wonderful symbol for rebirth and an opportunity to begin again and wipe the slate clean and make it better."

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Sting performs "Brand New Day" on CNN Showbiz Today Full audio performance: 1.8Mb MPEG-3 Audio clip: 400k WAV Video clip: 2.4Mb QuickTime

While revealing the artist's thoughts, the album also explores various musical landscapes as the former Police-man tries on potential 21st-century personas for size.

"I'd certainly like to be singing songs in the 21st century," he says. "I don't really want (to hear), 'Oh, he's a last-century guy,' you know? So this album needed to be a transition from one century to another."

One of the things he expects to influence music heavily in the next century, he says, is world music. So French rappers and Algerian pop musicians join him in some of the album's collaborative pieces. "The fact is, the world's a small place," he says. "It's a global village and the music will reflect that. So this album is leaning slightly toward that process."

But "Brand New Day" is not just about the international sound. Stevie Wonder and James Taylor also join Sting, who says he still finds it "a wonderful privilege and a great honor" that the men he regards as teachers treat him "as if I'm a peer.

"They did good on the album."

After his New Year gig in New York City, Sting will jump the Atlantic and start in on his European tour dates, scheduled to take him to France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia and finally, to the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom.

He could conceivably have marked the new year's arrival in England. But he says he and wife Trudie Styler -- his partner in advocacy for the Amazon rain forests and human rights -- will be together with their two children in the Big Apple gladly.

"You know, deciding where you're going to be on New Year's Eve is a problem we all have, all of us," he says.

"My choice is, 'Shall I be in the country or shall I be in the city?' Now, if I was going to go to the country, I would go to my house in England. I have a beautiful house in England. If I'm going to be in the city, there's only one place. It's New York. I love this city.

"So I was offered a gig with Tom Jones and Aretha Franklin and Andrea Bocelli. It's not so bad. I'll do a gig and have the family with me, and I'll be singing at midnight. And that's what I do."