September 20, 2003

Publication title: CanWest News, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Vancouver
Writer: Unknown

Sarah McLachlan re-emerges with new album Afterglow

VANCOUVER – After 2 1/2 years in retirement, Sarah McLachlan is ready for her return to the mainstream.

“I feel like it’s a good time for me,” she says.

It’s an optimism shared by her manager, Terry McBride.

“It’s not going to be that difficult,” he figures. “We’ll put the focus where the focus should be.”

That, he believes, is on strong songs and McLachlan’s reputation as a songwriter.

“Music changes. We need good songs.”

“Fallen,” the first single from the forthcoming CD, has been embraced heartily by radio. With a Nov. 4 release date, that album, Afterglow, still is being mixed by producer Pierre Marchand even as McLachlan prepares to go public again.

“We’re going down to the wire,” she laughs.

Much has changed, though, since McLachlan declared a hiatus on her career in 2001.

On a sociological level, the pallid pop of Britney Spears and ‘N Sync has peaked, which is one reason for McLachlan’s optimism. She sat out this period and benignly saw their rise and fall.

Afterglow, a collection of songs she characterizes as being about transition, will be released in an atmosphere that stresses better recorded material.

However, the record industry also is reeling from a drop in record sales from the increase in file sharing and its emphasis on hits rather than careers. Here, too, McLachlan is insulated. She will benefit from an announced cut in the suggested retail price for her record _ and as far as her career is concerned, it was established when she opted to have a private life.

On a personal level, McLachlan’s life has changed. Her mother died of cancer, which drove her to spearhead last year’s Vancouver stadium concert to raise awareness and funds for cancer research with Jann Arden, Chantal Kreviazuk, Barenaked Ladies and Bryan Adams. She became a first-time mother, and daughter India, while becoming the focus of her mother’s life, also inspired McLachlan to start a music school: the Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach Program.

So it is a different Sarah McLachlan who will tour in 2004, and a different environment that Afterglow will be released in. The singer, though, talks as though she’s simply picking up where she left off.

“I honestly haven’t thought a lot about it,” she says. “One of the things we tried to counteract is the loss of record sales to downloading by dropping the price of our CD. In that respect, I have thought a little about it.”

When McLachlan voluntarily put herself on the sidelines, she’d just married her drummer, Ash Sood. A live album, mostly recorded during her tour as headliner of Lilith Fair, confirmed that she had built a body of sterling work that had made her a star. And the four-year success of Lilith Fair itself proved that women performers could be major draws.

McLachlan was pulling the plug at the most fruitful time in a career that had grown in intensity.

She’d sold 22 million albums since 1989’s Touch and had three Grammys.

“I wanted to have a normal life,” she insists. “It was great. Not having my picture in the paper. Being able to walk down the street.”

Then, her mother died. Not long after, Shane Bourbonnais of Clear Channel Entertainment, who’d lost his wife Michele to cancer, asked her to participate in a benefit concert. “That was a very personal choice for me. The minute Shane called, I said I would do it. Why not? Music is a good medium. It gets people together. It’s a great connector. And we raised more money (nearly $2 million) than any benefit concert in history.”
Five months later, she gave birth to India. As she says, she lost a mother but became one.

“It’s been 21/2 years (in retirement) but for 11/2 years I was useless because my mother was sick and then I became pregnant and, after the baby was born, (she) was colicky. It took a while to come out of the fog.
“I had a hard time focusing. Being a mom took up a lot of my time. I had maybe 11/2 hours in the day to make music.”

Motherhood didn’t greatly influence her writing.

“Yes and no,” McLachlan says. “I don’t have any objectivity about that. Give me five years and I might know.
“I never do. I don’t have a focus on what I want to do, as far as a big picture goes.

“I’m very instinctive. As a songwriter, what I’ve chosen to reveal is what I’ve chosen to reveal.

“The kind of music I make, I make for myself. I always have.”

Yet becoming a new parent is a responsibility that has to be taken into account when McLachlan goes on the road. A new parent himself, whose first child was born three days after McLachlan’s, Terry McBride is aware.

“Rather than ping-ponging her all over the country, we have to be careful with the routing. We must give her time to be a mother. It’s all she ever talks about.”

Three years ago, McLachlan started her music program. This year, her school opened. It is intended for inner-city children who otherwise couldn’t learn music.

“We just kept reading about music programs being closed down in North America,” she says. “I always wanted to do something for the arts. Music saved me. It’s been really fulfilling.”

McLachlan is back, but the future is by no means assured. She returns with more women visible in the pop mainstream, which might be thanks to Lilith Fair.

Her assessment: “Yeah, I think it did have an impact on the industry.”

McBride isn’t so sure.

“It worked well when it was happening, but it went away as soon as it stopped,” he says. “As soon as it went away, radio returned to the way it’s always been.”

There would be irony if McLachlan struggled to find her place on the radio among the many women for whom Lilith Fair opened doors. In that light, she would be a victim of her own success. Once again, though, she isn’t worried.

“I think good music will prevail,” she concludes. “That’s my naive hope, anyway.”