Surfacing (album)

Surfacing is the fourth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan. Released in 1997, it was produced by McLachlan's frequent collaborator, Pierre Marchand. McLachlan set about writing Surfacing in 1996, after two and a half years touring for her previous album, 1993's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. Mentally exhausted, she found it difficult to concentrate on her new album and took six months off in Vancouver. After that she completed the ten songs for the album and went to Marchand's Quebec studio to record.

Surfacing
Studio album by
Sarah McLachlan
Released15 July 1997
RecordedJuly 1996–1997
StudioWild Sky Studios
Genre
Length41:14
Label
ProducerPierre Marchand
Sarah McLachlan chronology
Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff
(1996)		 Surfacing
(1997)		 Mirrorball
(1999)
Singles from Surfacing
  1. "Building a Mystery"
    Released: June 1997
  2. "Sweet Surrender"
    Released: September 1997
  3. "Adia"
    Released: March 1998
  4. "Angel"
    Released: November 1998
  5. "I Love You"
    Released: 2000

Surfacing was released in July 1997, coinciding with the start of McLachlan's Lilith Fair tour. The album was a commercial success worldwide, reached the top position on the Canadian RPM 100 Albums chart and number two on the US Billboard 200. Critical reviews were mixed; some of the more positive reviews praised the songwriting, while the album's detractors criticized it as banal and slow. The album spawned two Billboard Hot 100 top-five hits, "Adia" and "Angel", the top-15 hit "Building a Mystery", and the top-30 hit "Sweet Surrender". A radio-only song, "I Love You", was released in 2000.

The album won four Juno Awards including for Album of the Year. "Building a Mystery" was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, while the instrumental-only song "Last Dance" won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.

Background

Following the 1993 release of her third album, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, McLachlan spent two and a half years touring.[1] This long period on the road finished in January 1996; she was due to begin work on her fourth album in April of that year, but was mentally exhausted. She later said "When I got off the road, I thought Fumbling was my swan song, [and] I'd never make another record ever again. I couldn't imagine writing another song in my life. I had a huge psychological block for a long time."[1] She spent time working in the studio in Quebec but struggled to produce anything for her new album. At her manager's suggestion, she returned home to Vancouver and took six months off.[1] She said that after this break—and some time spent in therapy—she began to feel more in control of her creativity and started writing material for the album.[1]

One of the first songs written for the album was "Angel". McLachlan said that writing the song was easy, "a real joyous occasion."[1] It was inspired by articles that she read in Rolling Stone about musicians who turned to heroin to cope with the pressures of the music industry and subsequently overdosed.[1][2] She said that she identified with the feelings that might lead someone to use heroin: "I've been in that place where you're so fucked up and you're so lost that you don't know who you are anymore, and you're miserable—and here's this escape route. I've never done heroin, but I've done plenty of other things to escape."[1] She said that the song is about "trying not to take responsibility for other people's shit and trying to love yourself at the same time."[2] Another song that she found easy to write was "Building a Mystery", co-written with her regular collaborator, Canadian musician and producer Pierre Marchand. Marchand heard her playing a guitar riff and suggested adding some lyrics that he had already written. They came up with the rest of the lyrics together, according to McLachlan, "pretty darn quickly."[1] When the album was finished, McLachlan commented, "I was so happy when I could let it go. I didn't give it another thought when it was done."[3]

Recording and release

Like most of McLachlan's albums, Surfacing was recorded at Marchand's Wild Sky Studios in Morin-Heights, Quebec.[4] Marchand, who produced, engineered and mixed the album, recorded it on an Otari RADAR recorder and a Neumann 149 microphone.[4] McLachlan played piano, acoustic guitar and electric guitar and Marchand played keyboards, bass and a drum machine as well as providing background vocals. The other musicians on the album were Jim Creeggan on upright bass, Yves Desrosiers on guitar, musical saw, lap steel guitar and slide bass, Brian Minato on bass and electric guitar, Michel Pepin on electric guitar and Ashwin Sood (whom McLachlan married in 1997) on percussion and drums.[5]

The album was released on 15 July 1997, on Nettwerk and Arista Records, reaching No. 1 on the Canadian RPM 100 Albums chart and No. 2 on the US Billboard 200.[6][7] The release of the album coincided with the inaugural tour of McLachlan's Lilith Fair in mid-1997.[8] The first single from the album was "Building a Mystery", released in June; it reached No. 1 on the Canadian singles chart and No. 13 on the US Billboard Hot 100. "Sweet Surrender" was released in September, and reached No. 2 on the Canadian chart and No. 28 on the Hot 100. The third single released from the album was "Adia" in March 1998. It peaked at No. 3 on both the Canadian singles chart and the Billboard Hot 100. "Angel" followed in November, reaching No. 9 in Canada, and No. 4 on the Hot 100.[9][10] "I Love You" charted at No. 23 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs in April 2000.[11]

Critical reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[12]
Chicago Tribune[13]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[14]
Entertainment WeeklyB[15]
Los Angeles Times[16]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[17]
The Village VoiceC−[18]

Writing for The New York Times, Sia Michel called the album "lushly atmospheric" but also ambivalent. She said that while the album paints a "vivid emotional landscape", it is at odds with McLachlan's statement that the album was about "'facing ugly things' about herself"; not revealing anything particularly dark. Michel also noted certain old-fashioned ideas in the album, particularly in "Sweet Surrender", that contrast with the work of contemporaries such as Ani DiFranco and PJ Harvey. She cited "Witness" as the highlight and said of the album, "[p]erhaps she hasn't found what she's looking for, but at least she's trying."[8] Elysa Gardner of Los Angeles Times said it "Showcases her considerable strengths—a shimmering soprano voice and a knack for intelligent, emotionally forthright lyrics but also suffers from a lack of compelling craftsmanship and textural daring."[16]

Music critic Robert Christgau wrote that although he had stayed away from McLachlan's music in the past, "between her Lilith Fair counterpalooza and 'Building a Mystery' bonanza, [he] had to dive in, and got less than [he'd] bargained for." He criticized McLachlan's "monumental banality" and summed the album up as "renormalized pop at its most unnecessary."[18] A reviewer for Rolling Stone criticized the album's slow tempo, commenting that "if you want a piece of her nirvana, you have to go along at her protracted, glacial pace." They said that McLachlan is too "rigid in her introspection" and that they would like to hear her "work up a good head of steam".[19]

AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine compared it unfavorably to McLachlan's previous album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. He said that some of the songs were good, and praised "Building a Mystery" in particular, but said that the album offered nothing new. He also noted that the timing of the release, coinciding with the launch of Lilith Fair and the publicity that McLachlan received from that, helped sales of the album.[12] Jom, a staff reviewer for Sputnikmusic, gave the album a positive review, calling it "one of [McLachlan's] best albums" and praising her "tremendous growth as a songwriter and a musician".[20] In interviews, American hip hop artist Darryl McDaniels of Run-D.M.C. has said that hearing "Angel" on the radio, and subsequently listening to more of McLachlan's music, helped him though a period of depression.[21]

Starr report

The album was mentioned in the Starr Report, the late 1990s account of Independent Counsel Ken Starr's investigation of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.[22][23][24] After a visit to the White House in November 1997, Lewinsky wrote that she "noticed you (President Clinton) had the new Sarah McLachlan CD" and that "whenever I listen to song No. 5 (Do What You Have to Do), I think of you."[23][25] McLachlan's representatives had no comment on the matter.[22]

Awards

At the Juno Awards of 1998, McLachlan won four awards: Best Female Vocalist, Songwriter of the Year (with Pierre Marchand, for "Building a Mystery"), Best Album (for Surfacing) and Single of the Year (for "Building a Mystery").[26] The following year, she did not win any awards, but was nominated for Single of the Year (for "Adia") and Best Video (for "Sweet Surrender").

At the 40th Grammy Awards in 1998, McLachlan was nominated for three awards; she won the awards for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (for "Building a Mystery") and Best Pop Instrumental Performance (for "Last Dance").[27] In 1999, she received one more nomination for the album, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (for "Adia"); she lost to Celine Dion.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Sarah McLachlan, except where noted. All songs produced by Pierre Marchand.

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Building a Mystery"
  • McLachlan
  • Marchand
4:07
2."I Love You" 4:44
3."Sweet Surrender" 4:00
4."Adia"
  • McLachlan
  • Marchand
4:05
5."Do What You Have to Do"
  • McLachlan
  • Colleen Wolstenholme
3:47
6."Witness"
  • McLachlan
  • Marchand
4:47
7."Angel" 4:30
8."Black & White" 5:02
9."Full of Grace" 3:41
10."Last Dance" 2:33
  • Early editions sold in the U.S. and Canada included a two-song bonus disc containing an alternate mix of "Sweet Surrender" and a rendition of "The Prayer of St. Francis". Both of these tracks appeared on the Japanese edition of the album as well.
  • "Full of Grace" previously appeared on the collection Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff. The song was also featured in the final moments of the second-season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Personnel

Charts

Certifications and sales
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[42] Gold 35,000^
Canada (Music Canada)[43] Diamond 1,078,000[44]
New Zealand (RMNZ)[45] Gold 7,500^
United Kingdom (BPI)[46] Gold 100,000^
United States (RIAA)[47] 8× Platinum 8,000,000^
Summaries
Worldwide — 16,000,000[48]

^shipments figures based on certification alone

gollark: Uniformly is wrong. Neither.
gollark: I think it has limited clause separation but that might be the other one.
gollark: Admittedly, its NLP is imperfect.
gollark: <@319753218592866315> If you're so right, implement Macron.
gollark: More often.

References
  1. Reighley, Kurt B. (August 1997), "Sarah McLachlan In The Garden", CMJ New Music Monthly, College Media Inc., pp. 21–25, retrieved 12 May 2010
  2. McDonnell, Evelyn (September 1997), "Lilith Fair", Spin, Spin Media LLC, p. 64, retrieved 12 May 2010
  3. Taylor, Chuck (6 September 1997), "Sarah McLachlan's Recent Emergence On Radio Is Anything But A 'Mystery'", Billboard, Nielsen Company, retrieved 20 July 2010
  4. Tingen, Paul (March 2000), "Pierre Marchand — Producing Sarah McLachlan", Sound on Sound, SOS Publications Group, retrieved 15 May 2010
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  9. "RPM100 Hit Tracks – Top Singles", RPM, 65 (24), 18 August 1997, retrieved 17 July 2010
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  23. Strauss, Neil (24 September 1998). "Musical Damage In Starr Report". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 October 2012. Buried in the report is a deleted computer file written by Monica S. Lewinsky about the Canadian singer and Lilith Fair founder Sarah McLachlan. ''When I was hiding out in your office for a half-hour, I noticed you had the new Sarah McLachlan CD,'' she wrote. ''I have it, too, and it's wonderful. Whenever I listen to song No. 5, I think of you.''
  24. Catlin, Roger (17 September 1998). "Starr Report Unearths New Bedfellows". Hartford Courant. Retrieved 11 October 2012. Sarah McLachlan: ''Do What You Have To Do,'' a mournful track on her 1997 ''Surfacing,'' was cited by Lewinsky as a song that made her think of Clinton.
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