Tag Archives: Sarah McLachlan

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Song of the Day #1,368: ‘Circle’ – Sarah McLachlan

Best Albums of the 90s – #8
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – Sarah McLachlan (1994)

I’m contemplating a theory that excellent albums within a genre I don’t normally like receive an extra boost due to the odds they’ve overcome.

Last week’s example was Garbage’s Version 2.0. That album, and the band in general, features a heavy, borderline electronica sound that generally turns me off. But their particular execution of it works like gangbusters. I believe if I were a techno fan, that album might strike me as very good but not worlds better than my other favorite albums in the genre.

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Song of the Day #1,287: ‘Time’ – Sarah McLachlan

I’ve gone through seven different weekend series over the past two and a half years. Starting in May of 2009, I’ve featured (in order) Motown, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Ron Sexsmith, Brad Paisley and Paul Simon.

Faced with the need for a new weekend theme, my first thought was that I’d have to go with a woman. With the exception of about half of the Motown tracks, I’ve gone through 250+ weekend songs by men.

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Song of the Day #1,089: ‘When She Loved Me’ – Sarah McLachlan

For 1999’s Toy Story 2, Randy Newman teamed up with Sarah McLachlan to deliver one of the most emotional moments in animated film history. Hell, film history, period.

Sitting on a windowsill, cowgirl doll Jessie confides in Woody that she is wary of child owners because of a bad experience she had with her owner, Emily. As Woody tries to explain what’s so great about Andy, she interrupts.

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Song of the Day #977: ‘Good Enough’ – Sarah McLachlan

1993’s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy was Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan’s third album. Sitting on the line between the more ethereal, goth, vampire-novel sound of her first two releases and the radio-friendly Lilith Fair pop of its smash follow-up Surfacing, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy is gorgeous and sad and the best example of its genre I’ve ever heard.

This is an album-album. Scanning some of the titles — ‘Wait,’ ‘Plenty,’ ‘Mary,’ ‘Elsewhere,’ ‘Circle’ — I’m hard pressed to call any of them to mind. But when I play the opening seconds of any of them, they flood into my headphones with total familiarity. I’m just not used to hearing them individually, or referring to them by title, because they’re all a part of the greater suite.

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Sarah McLachlan – Laws of Illusion

“Here I go again,” Sarah McLachlan sings in the opening lines of ‘Illusions of Bliss,’ the second track on her latest album, Laws of Illusion.

And even that early in the album, those words ring unfortunately true. She’s singing about returning to an ill-fated romance, but she may as well be referring to her increasingly tired brand of ethereal pop rock.

McLachlan seemed unstoppable after the back-to-back mid-90s smashes Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Surfacing. Songs such as ‘Possession,’ ‘Good Enough,’ ‘Sweet Surrender’ and ‘Building a Mystery’ tapped into a seductive mid-tempo vibe that was complemented perfectly by her sweetly yearning vocals. Those albums are classics not just because of their rich sound but the solid songwriting of McLachlan and Pierre Marchand.

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