Critics also praised "Ten Days", "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)", "I'm Alive", "When the Wrong One Loves You Right", "The Greatest Reward", and the album's two covers: "Nature Boy" and "At Last".

The last commercial single, "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)" was released in November 2002 and performed moderately on the charts, reaching the top forty in Europe.

After the farewell millennium concert on 31 December 1999 in Montreal, Dion decided to take a break from the public scene for two years to focus on her family.

[1] Dion struggled over an appropriate image for the cover of the album, feeling that a portrait reflecting her good fortune was in poor taste.

[2] On 30 and 31 January 2002 an additional photo session for the album took place in Florida, on a beach near Dion's home by the French photographer Patrick Demarchelier.

[5] Most of the producers of the album had worked with Dion before: Walter Afanasieff, Kristian Lundin, Andreas Carlsson, Christopher Neil, Guy Roche, Robert John "Mutt" Lange, Ric Wake, Aldo Nova, Simon Franglen and Humberto Gatica.

The new ones included Swedish musicians Anders Bagge, Peer Åström and Arnthor Birgisson, French singer Gérald de Palmas and the US producer Steve Morales.

[6] It features "A New Day Has Come", the title track, which for Dion represents the birth of her child but "it can mean different things for anyone who has to find strength again"; I'm Alive", "fun" and "fresh" song from the team that wrote "That's the Way It Is"; "I Surrender", the album's "bombastic, heart-pounding" ballad which has become a popular song choice for contestants on reality television singing competitions like American Idol;[7] "Sorry for Love", a dance number written and produced by the Swedish team, co-written by Kara DioGuardi; "Have You Ever Been in Love", a power ballad also written and produced by Bagge and Åström; "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)", an emotional ballad about the death of one's mother which Dion first heard three years prior but turned it down at that time; "Nature Boy", a 1947 song made popular by Nat King Cole that features Dion accompanied only by piano as originally foreseen symphonic orchestration was not added; "At Last", a gospel-tinged number first recorded by Glenn Miller in 1941; "Ten Days", a rock-oriented adaptation of "Tomber" (2000) by Gérald de Palmas which was recorded at the last minute after Dion heard the original French version; "The Greatest Reward", an adaptation of "L'envie d'aimer" (2000) from the French musical Les Dix Commandements, performed originally by Daniel Lévi; and "Aun Existe Amor", a Spanish-language version of Dion's French song "L'amour existe encore".

[1][8] On 11 November 2002 in Europe and 19 November 2002 in North America, Sony Music Entertainment released a Limited Edition of A New Day Has Come, which includes the original album, as well as a bonus DVD featuring the "I'm Alive" video, a preview of Dion's Las Vegas show A New Day... as well as two previously unreleased tracks, "Coulda Woulda Shoulda" and "All Because of You".

For the finale, the divas performed a special Elvis Presley medley which included "Can't Help Falling in Love" sung by Dion.

[18] On 14 September 2002 Dion performed at the charity Concert for World Children's Day, which took place at the Arie Crown Theater in Chicago and was under the supervision of David Foster.

She performed "I'm Alive", "Pour que tu m'aimes encore", "L'envie d'aimer" in duet with Daniel Lévi and "Ten Days/Tomber" medley with Gérald de Palmas.

[26] Also directed by Meyers, the music video for next single, "I'm Alive" was filmed in late May 2002 in Los Angeles and the song was serviced to radio stations on 7 June 2002.

[28] "I'm Alive" was also featured in the soundtrack for the movie Stuart Little 2 and the CD single was released in early August 2002 in Europe, Australia and Canada.

Chuck Taylor from Billboard gave it a favorable review, saying that Dion explores a "broader, more adventurous" range of pop music.

According to Taylor, Dion does not disappoint with ballads like the "rafter-shaking" "I Surrender" where she sings of "forbidden love amid a firestorm of utterly volcanic instrumentation" and "The Greatest Reward", and two standards – the "diamond-dipped" "Nature Boy" and gospel "At Last".

[46][1] Larry Flick, also from Billboard wrote about another song, "Have You Ever Been in Love" that "at a time when music is frightfully aggressive and the world at large is fraught with turmoil, a classic Dion power ballad is a warm source of comfort".

The Ric Wake Radio Remix of "A New Day Has Come" opens with an "Enya-inspired whisper before a shuffle skips in and lifts the song upward like a dove gracefully taking flight".

According to him, on both versions Dion "embraces a particularly restrained performance – dramatic enough to steer the track's emotion, but still delicate to offer comfort".

[52] Taylor criticized the choice of the third single, "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)", a ballad relegated solely to adult contemporary radio stations.

He noticed that the song is "devastatingly beautiful", offering a loving tribute to one's mother at death's door and that Dion "delivers it with a heaving helping of passion, emotionally drawing one's attention to the devotional message".

It doesn't "deviate" from Dion's mainstream audience, yet it "dips its toe" into modern music, particularly dance, while "keeping hip" ("Nature Boy").

Although Erlewine described "Rain, Tax (It's Inevitable)" as "bizarre", he wrote that "there's really nothing to fault it on, actually," the album is "more ambitious than it needs to be, covers more stylistic territory than any other Dion record, while never abandoning the middle-of-the-road; it's a balancing act that nobody since Barbra Streisand has been able to pull off".

Cinquemani disliked "Rain, Tax (It's Inevitable)" but praised "Sorry for Love" on which Dion "gets the Cher treatment", an unexpected "change of pace that actually works".

He also noticed that the album is "packed" with the usual adult contemporary songs: "I Surrender", a power ballad "only a singer with Dion's voice could pull off," "Ten Days", the guitar-driven "catchy pop-rocker with a surprisingly edgy vocal," "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)", a track featuring Shania Twain on backing vocals that "will leave you nauseous or in tears", "I'm Alive", the "uplifting" midtempo number and "A New Day Has Come", the "stirring" title track.

Ross noticed that ballads are the strongest tracks on the album and praised "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)", with "two soaring key changes" in the same song, which is then launched into a "high Earth orbit of melodrama by an orchestra that would make John Williams blush with envy".

The 558,000 tally became Dion's third largest one-week total, following 640,000 units of All the Way ... A Decade of Song and 624,000 copies of Let's Talk About Love, both during Christmas periods.

[64][65] In Canada, A New Day Has Come debuted at number-one, selling 151,600 copies — more than ten times her nearest competition, Shakira's Laundry Service (12,200).

After selling three million copies in Europe and spending seven weeks at number-one on the European Top 100 Albums, it was certified three-times Platinum by the IFPI.

[69][70] Billboard ranked A New Day Has Come as the 3rd Top Album of 2002 in Europe (behind Shakira's Laundry Service & Anastacia's Freak of Nature).