Lately I’ve been on a run through Sarah McLachlan’s catalog, and I’ve come to enjoy a lot of her early (pre-Surfacing) material. Touch may not be perfect or even hint at the greatness of her follow up, but what a beautiful piece in its own right. I can feel hints of Joni Mitchell and world like influence... perhaps “new age” applied as a generous term. Solace takes the cake as the true masterpiece and my favorite of hers. I love the rhythms, the vibes and the songs are not overly adult contemporary. I feel like this is the most honest and down to earth she has been. Anywho, I love bits and pieces of her other albums. She seems like a great artist and there is a lot to appreciate in “Possession”, “Angel” and even “Fallen”. Her voice may rank up there with my all time favorites... soothing. Wondering on your thoughts of her as an artist and some of the tracks that stand out to you. Welcomed to hear opinions!
If you only allowed one vote, it would have gone to Mirrorball. That's one of my favorite live albums of the '90s. It really ups the intensity and power from the studio recordings. I've been listening to it religiously for two decades. While I do think her studio recordings could be a bit too mannered, her best work is beautiful, well-written and emotionally compelling. Her three best albums are Solace, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Surfacing. Great stuff on all of them. There are also some gems on Afterglow, but that record was the beginning of Sarah heading straight into adult contemporary and everything she's recorded since has been a snooze for me. Her '90s work holds up though. Strong songwriting and singing are timeless.
This was hard, as I by all rights should have made the more obvious choice of Fumbling. But, I've always taken her albums within context of how she's touring them, further developments, and in some cases, the video compliments, extra material and other baggage. To me now, Fumbling and The Freedom Sessions belong as one. I saw her touring in Minneapolis first leg of that seminal album's tour, as my wife had gotten free tickets because she volunteered at The Guthrie; it was at the time, the best concert experience of my life, without even knowing the material. When she capped it with "Into The Fire", it started with 8 bars of George Benson's cover of "On Broadway", and a sample of Chic's "Ahhhh, FREAK OUT!" going into the song proper, which she had never repeated as far as I know. At that point I became ravenous. Boots; singles; remixes; a newfound infatuation with internet fandom, trying to catch up; a TV special video, and her previous videos. And finally a boot of that first concert I attended, recorded by a guy dead center, with a pair of piezo mics on either side of his blind-guy dark glasses! Somehow, the only thing that dimmed my delight for Sarah, was...the bolo. That thing she wore in the Mirrorball concerts. I know, shallow; but, she was really a duly-elected "diva" at that point, and there was baggage with that. I didn't catch that fire again until the Afterglow Live video, the 2004 companion to the Afterglow project. No more bolo...outstanding video, audio and production. So, that's where my vote goes...even though I wouldn't give up any of my 30+ CD's, videos, DVD-A's, cassettes or CD-R's for anything. (2nd-best best concert experience of my life: Sarah, opening with The Chieftains, at Red Rocks in Boulder. Never saw an artist and an audience so blissfully getting drenched together as that magical night)
Sarah is one of our great songwriters as far as I see, so.....Surfacing it's got one of my all time favourite pop songs by ANYBODY! and it's a perfect pop song to boot...."sweet surrender"
Solace, 1991 A complete blind buy back in probably 92 as this one is a later silver manufacture. Remains a favorite today. I was picking up pretty much everything from the Canadian label Nettwerk at around the time. Was no surprise hearing Possession on local radio a year later, she has talent I wouldn't run into her debut till a few years later.
Fumbling was the first album I bought, and even though I've listened to it more than any other and at times have burned out on it a bit, it's still my favorite. Freedom Sessions would be 2nd - like the looseness of it, and many of the sames songs as on Fumbling, so high quality songs. I was actually let down by Surfacing after waiting 3yrs or so after Fumbling. I really liked Fallen, but the other hits (Angel, Sweet Surrender, Adia) were not at the same level IMO as the Fumbling or Solace material. A little too conventional/slick for my tastes. 3rd would be Afterglow, 4th Solace.
I was only a casual fan in the 90s but recently I picked up Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, Surfacing, and Mirrorball at a flea market for a good price. I must say I enjoy all three albums a lot more than I expected. But of the three, I think I like Fumbling the best but the other 2 are also very very good.
Always enjoyed that John Fryer remix. I still need to track down the old promo, thanks for the reminder Paul
And it's thousands of remixes over the years Karma, what an excellent album. Some of Bill and Rhys's best In 2010 they put out a great acoustic album 'Voice' including Silence.
So far I am the lone vote for Shine On. I like it because (a) it was the current album when I went with Ruth (my better half and the true Sarah fan) to see Sarah and (b) the single "In Your Shoes" is an A-list single.
I find Hold On to be a really powerful song. But it's all subjective, so not saying Hold On is objectively more powerful/tuneful than Adia.
Fumbling without a doubt, but I haven't heard anything past Surfacing. A fan since Touch came out, but I lost interest after the Lilith years. Those first 3 albums are gold, but FTE is a killer album. I still have massive respect for Sarah, but her music took a direction I wasn't interested in.
Made all the more powerful in the "ballad" version, IMHO. One of the real cases for Freedom Sessions (not for that track, which was already out there anyway...); just the statement that, any of Fumbling's tracks could have gone either way in the gestation stages, and still yield powerful results. These two combined, including all the multi-media extras, as well as a high-res surround mix, would make for one helluva box project; they've come so close a couple of times, but this is a collection and an album sound that would benefit soooo much in a 360-degree soundstage, it screams for a Steven-Wilson-type to take a look at it.
