My Amazon Reviews: Sarah McLachlin "Closer: The Best Of"

[blackleatherbookshelf]

Building a Discography,
4 Out of 5 Stars

While she is not what one would call a highly influential singer or songwriter, Sarah McLachlin's primary contribution to the extension of musical culture is being the founder of Lilith Fair, the groundbreaking all-female musical extravaganza during the Lollapalooza festival era. Her music, an earthy/spacial mixture of new age emotions and feminine pop smarts, dovetailed nicely with many of the Lilith gang, like Paula Cole, Sinéad O'Connor or Natalie Merchant.

Which makes Sarah's "Closer" a tidy wrap-up of the career she's built on that identity and her style of singing/songwriting. The singles are all here, like "Building A Mystery," "Sweet Surrender" and the moving "Angel." Most of the songs come from Sarah's middle period, comprising of Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Surfacing, when she moved more towards piano based pop that found her in a calmer, thoughtful place. (Compared to the younger track, "Vox" from Touch, which seems like it wanted to be a Eurythmics song.)

Once she found this groove, Sarah worked it like few others could. Her producer and working partner, Pierre Marchand, have taken these records into the earthy/atmospheric territory folks like Daniel Lanois or Brian Eno first pioneered. It makes the seven tracks from that period (eight if you count the live version of "I Will Remember You") the best on "Closer." The three from Afterglow begin showing signs of overproduction, while two new songs round out the CD. Of those two, the most telling is "U Want Me 2." It falls back to a stripped down pop base, yet keeps the earthy atmosphere of her best work. "Don't Give Up On Us" sounds like it could have come from any of her albums' outtakes and offers nothing new. For fans who haven't owned any of Sarah's other albums, "Closer" does a nice wrap-up.

Comments

[joebehrsandiego.livejournal.com]

Have and love this.

I saw Sarah live (October Project opened!) at the Huntridge Theater (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntridge_Theater, http://www.fivefoottwelve.com/HPATFiles/HHISTA.html) in the early '90s. She was great in concert.

[tbrough.livejournal.com]

That is super awesome. I've never seen her, but been a fan ever since Netwerk sent me "Touch" for a new age show I was doing at the time.

[blachubear.livejournal.com]

"Surfacing" is one of the greatest albums that came out of the nineties. After she went to semi-retirement(for personal reasons, which is understanding)& closing the Lilith Fair is one of the reason the music business went to a downward spiral. Noticed back in the nineties we're listening to Tori, Alanis & Fiona, (even Madonna's "Ray Of Light", Janet's "Velvet Rope" & Lauryn's "Miseducation" showed that female artist were on the peak of creativity)now we have female artists that full of shit like Taylor Swift, Miley & Lady Gaga.
Please Sarah come back with your beautiful voice & songs. We really need you.

Lauryn Hill?!?!?

[tbrough.livejournal.com]

"The Miseducation of L.Hill" = one of the all-time over-rated crappy records of all time. Of AL TIME. Blech.