3. “Crossroads” – Tracy Chapman: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

3. “Crossroads” – Tracy Chapman

(From the album Crossroads)

1989

Tracy Chapman followed up the success of her debut album by being one of the artists on 1988’s Amnesty International Human Rights Now! Tour. The tour featured Chapman along with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Youssour N’Dour, and was meant to promote the cause of Amnesty International and to raise awareness to the lack of basic human rights many around the world faced. Shortly after the tour Chapman began work on her second album and in October of 1989 she released Crossroads. The lead single from the album was the title track “Crossroads”. “Crossroads” is similar in tone and timbre to her earlier hits, it is a melancholy song that deals with the ills and pains of the world, but it also isn’t a rewrite. “Crossroads” has subtle percussion in it that lends the song both an exotic quality and a slow burning feel, while there is a light influence from Caribbean music in the bridge that adds just a perfect touch of lightness and hope. “Crossroads” however was not the hit that “Fast Car” or even “Talkin’ About A Revolution” had been, peaking at #90 in the US. That lack of commercial success has nothing to do with the quality of the song though as it is a beautiful and emotional song on another very good album from Chapman. And Crossroads is a very good album, expanding on the sound of her excellent with a more professional production, wider instrumentation, and another batch of excellent folk songs from Chapman. 

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2. “Talkin’ About A Revolution” – Tracy Chapman: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

2. “Talkin’ About A Revolution” – Tracy Chapman

(From the album Tracy Chapman)

1988

Tracy Chapman had scored a massive hit with her debut single “Fast Car”. “Fast Car” had been politically adjacent as it had powerfully shown the effects of poverty and its cyclical and generational nature. However, to follow it up Chapman released the much more politically direct “Talkin’ About A Revolution”, a song that pulled no punches about the need for change and that time for it is now. The song had been one of Chapman’s earliest songs. She had sung it while street busking in Boston while attending university and recording an early version of it for the college radio station at Tufts University where she was a student. In fact, it was this early recording of the song that was taken by fellow student Brian Koppelman and given to his father, who was a record executive at SBK Records, that scored Chapman her first record contract. While “Talkin’ About A Revolution” did not earn the widespread mainstream appeal of “Fast Car”, peaking at #75 in the US, it do somewhat better in several other markets and has become one of Chapman’s signature songs. The message of the song has not gone unnoticed though and “Talkin’ About A Revolution” has been embraced by many groups who have wanted change over the years. In 2011 “Talkin’ About A Revolution” was given major airplay in the North African nation of Tunisia during the period of the Tunisian Revolution. The song has also been used by several political candidates over the years. Following “Talkin’ About A Revolution” Chapman would release “Baby, Can I Hold You?” as a third single from her debut album and it peaked just inside the US Top 50, continuing the momentum of Tracy Chapman which would go multi-platinum and lead Chapman to win three Grammy Awards.

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1. “Fast Car” – Tracy Chapman: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

1. “Fast Car” – Tracy Chapman

(From the album Tracy Chapman)

1988

Born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised by a single mother after her parents divorced when she was four, Tracy Chapman was raised poor and frequently bullied as a child. Music became an outlet for her and with the help of a program that got her into a college preparatory high school in Connecticut she was able to attend Tufts University. Chapman had continued to write songs over the years and would frequently busk on the streets and rail stations near Tufts while she was going to school. Chapman was also able to record a few demo tracks while at Tufts so that they could be played on the local college radio station. A fellow Tufts student named Brian Koppelman heard these songs and then saw Chapman perform as the opening act at a local show and was impressed. Koppelman was able to smuggle out one of the demo tapes from the local radio station and get it to his father Charles Koppelman, who ran SBK Records, and he too was impressed and offered Chapman a recording contract. Chapman soon recorded and released her debut album Tracy Chapman which saw solid sales as part of the college radio scene and the neo-folk revivial that was taking place at the time. However, Chapman was invited to perform at Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Celebration in London and this proved to be her big break. Chapman had performed a set earlier in the day but when Stevie Wonder was forced to delay his primetime televised performance due to technical difficulties Chapman was sent back out to perform “Fast Car” again to buy some time. Chapman’s primetime performance showed the world what an impactful song “Fast Car” was and what an amazing songwriter and performer Chapman could be. “Fast Car” flew up the charts all over the world and became a bona fide mainstream hit and in the process boosted sales of Chapman’s debut album as well, making her one of the key voices and (reluctant) leaders of the growing neo folk scene.

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7. “Monsters” – Sarah McLachlan: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

7. “Monsters” – Sarah McLachlan

(From the album Shine On)

2014

Sarah McLachlan went on an extended hiatus following the release of 2003’s Afterglow to be a mother and live a more normal life. She did release the Grammy nominated seasonal album Wintersong in 2006. Wintersong consisted of holiday and seasonal songs but was of a higher quality than the average cash grab seasonal release. Indeed, Wintersong saw McLachlan release her version of Joni Mitchell’s “River” as a single and it went to #71 in the US. Wintersong mixed traditional hymns and carols with McLachlan’s covers of modern classics like her superb version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Song For A Winter’s Night” and John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”, along with one original new song in the title track. 2010 saw McLachlan release her first batch of new songs since 2003 when Laws Of Illusion came out. In part inspired by the dissolution of McLachlan’s marriage, much of Laws Of Illusion was melancholy in its tone. For her next album, 2014’s Shine On McLachlan made a conscious effort to create music that was more organic and earthy than some of her earlier work had been. McLachlan also chose to push herself to write with various co-writers across the album, including the Eagles’ Don Felder. However, the album’s best song and second single is a co-write with her longtime collaborator Pierre Marchand, on “Monsters”. “Monsters” is still definitely the work of McLachlan but it has a touch more bite to it than anything she had released in some time. It’s not that McLachlan’s work over the years didn’t delve into the darkness and explore painful things, because much of her work has explored those feelings and themes, but “Monster” has just a touch of aggression and defiance to it and these are moods that have often been missing from McLachlan’s work for a long time. “Monster” wasn’t a hit but it is one of the best songs she has written in years and should satisfy her devoted fan base. Shine On to date is McLachlan’s last album of new material although she did release a second holiday album titled Wonderland in 2016.

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6. “Fallen” – Sarah McLachlan: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

6. “Fallen” – Sarah McLachlan

(From the album Afterglow)

2003

Sarah McLachlan waited a full six years to properly follow-up her massively successful album Surfacing. Of course, that doesn’t mean it really ever felt that she went away since Surfacing spun off hit after hit for two full years, with “Angel” then given a second life when it was used in the film City of Angels. Then the live version of “I Will Remember You” from her concert album Mirrorball became a hit as well. Not to mention all the press and interviews McLachlan did first to promote her Lilith Fair tour and then because of all the praise it received when it proved successful. McLachlan even sang “When She Loved Me” in the massively successful movie Toy Story 2. So one can be forgiven if the time between Surfacing and her fifth album Afterglow didn’t seem live six years. However, as the new millennium dawned McLachlan did take some time off. She had married her drummer in the late 90’s and now she spent some time off the road with her family and prepared for the birth of her child. In fact, for Afterglow McLachlan changed up her usual process for writing new songs. Whereas she usually would isolate herself in a cottage somewhere to be alone and write, this time Sarah stayed home and wrote most of the new songs in the months leading up to the birth of her child. She also wrote all of the new songs’ demos on piano rather than guitar for the first time. Truthfully though none of these changes make much difference to the sound of McLachlan’s music. Afterglow sounds and feels like a logical extension of her previous work and lead single “Fallen” is similar in tone and mood to earlier hits like “Possession” or “Building A Mystery”. That isn’t a slight on “Fallen”, which is a strong song and was a moderate hit in the US and several other territories, but it does mean that McLachlan has chosen to make an album that will appeal to her core fan base more than it pushes boundaries. Thus, it may not be surprising that McLachlan went on another extended break following the release of Afterglow and didn’t release another album of new, original material for seven more years.

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5. “Angel” – Sarah McLachlan: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

5. “Angel” – Sarah McLachlan

(From the album Surfacing)

1997

Sarah McLachlan had scored three big hits off of Surfacing already when she released the fourth single “Angel”, a song that would become a signature moment. Written early in the writing sessions for Surfacing “Angel” was a tribute to the death of Smashing Pumpkins’ touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin, who had died of a heroin overdose. McLachlan was just coming off of a long tour and understood the loneliness and pressures that can come from being a touring musician and how those factors could lead someone to seek escape. “Angel” was already a big hit but was given a second burst of momentum when the song was used in a key scene in the Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan film City of Angels. McLachlan has said that the use of “Angel” in City of Angels is the best use of any of her songs in a film or television production. “Angel” was later given a third major exposure when McLachlan did a promo ad for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) that used the song behind images of animals suffering before McLachlan herself spoke in behalf of the organization and to request donations (and then later spoofed the intense ads in an Audi commercial – https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/video-super-bowl-sarah-mclachlan-676553/ ). Still, “Angel” has become a song that is almost universally associated with sadness and suffering and has become an unofficial anthem for moments of tragedy such as the death of Princess Diana in 1997, the Columbine High School killings in 1999, and September 11th in 2001. Following the release of “Angel” McLachlan toured with her Lilith Fair festival, which led to the release of the live album Mirrorball in 1999. However, McLachlan would not release another album of new material until 2003, a full six years after Surfacing.

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4. “Building A Mystery” – Sarah McLachlan: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

4. “Building A Mystery” – Sarah McLachlan

(From the album Surfacing)

1997

Sarah McLachlan released her fourth album Surfacing in 1997 and it became her biggest hit and first album to achieve notable sales and chart success outside of North America. The first single was the mysterious and sensual “Building A Mystery”, a song that went to #13 in the US (#3 on the US alt charts) and, unsurprisingly, to #1 in Canada, and helped to launch the album that would elevate McLachlan to the rank of a full-blown star. Indeed, “Building A Mystery” was only the first of four successful singles from the album as “Sweet Surrender”, “Adia”, and “Angel” all broke into the US Top 30, with the latter two songs going Top 5. McLachlan also won two Grammy Awards for songs from Surfacing. “Building A Mystery” won the award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, while the instrumental closer “Last Dance” won for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. In her native Canada Surfacing and its songs were nominated for four Juno Awards with Surfacing winning Album Of The Year and “Building A Mystery” winning Song Of The Year, among other awards. The momentum “Building A Mystery” built up as the lead single helped Surfacing become McLachlan’s most successful album yet and the later singles on the record became some of her first real hits in markets like the UK, Europe, and Australia. In spite of all of this success McLachlan became frustrated with radio stations who wouldn’t play female artists back to back or concert promoters who would not schedule two female artists in a row at the same venue. To disprove this anti-female bias McLachlan booked a co-headlining tour with herself and Paula Cole in 1996. The show in McLachlan’s hometown featured not only her and Cole but also Lisa Loeb and Crash Vegas’ Michelle McAdorey and was billed as “Lilith Fair”. The 1996 tour with Cole was a success and McLachlan decided to bring back her “Lilith Fair” (named for the Jewish legend that Lilith was Adam’s first wife who refused to be subservient to him) in 1997, expanding it to be an all-female traveling concert festival. Lilith Fair proved to be the most successful traveling festival of the year and featured among others, Sarah McLachlan, Suzanne Vega, Jewel, Indigo Girls, Tracy Chapman, Fiona Apple, Paula Cole, Sheryl Crow, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Lisa Loeb, Joan Osborne, and many others. With the success of Surfacing and her point made with Lilith Fair, McLachlan had become one of the most successful and important people in the 90’s alternative music scene.

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3. “I Will Remember You” – Sarah McLachlan: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

3. “I Will Remember You” – Sarah McLachlan

(From the movie soundtrack The Brothers McMullen)

1995

Sarah McLachlan followed up the slow building success of Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and bought herself some more time to work on its follow-up by contributing the song “I Will Remember You” to the soundtrack for the Edward Burns’ film The Brothers McMullen. The film was scored by Séamus Egan and McLachlan and her co-writer Dave Merenda took Egan’s instrumental track “Weep Not For The Memories”, which he had released on his 1990 album A Week In January, and added lyrics and adjusted the melody to create the elegant and wistful “I Will Remember You”. The song went to #10 in Canada and #65 in the US. It would then be included on McLachlan’s 1996 compilation album Rarities, B-Sides, and Other Stuff. A live version would be released in 1999 as a single pulled from McLachlan’s live album Mirrorball, released after the massive success of her 1997 album Surfacing and that version would once again hit #10 in Canada, but the live version would peak at #14 in the USA and become one of McLachlan’s signature songs.

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2. “Possession” – Sarah McLachlan: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

2. “Possession” – Sarah McLachlan

(From the album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy)

1993

Sarah McLachlan released her third album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy in 1993 and it was an immediate success in her native Canada where she was already a star. The lead single and biggest hit was the song “Possession”, a song from the point-of-view of a man obsessed with a woman and inspired by disturbing letters McLachlan had received from several different obsessed fans who were stalking her and believed they were in a relationship with her. The most concerning of these was a man named Uwe Vandrei who sued McLachlan, claiming that she had used the wording of his letters in the lyrics to “Possession” and that he should get co-writing credits. The upcoming trial became a focal point for the Canadian media and an issue for the Canadian justice system since Vandrei openly admitted that part of the reason he had sued was to get close to McLachlan. Indeed, there was genuine concern for McLachlan’s safety. However, the issue never had to be addressed in court as Vandrei committed suicide before the trial began. “Possession” was a legitimate Canadian hit, peaking at #26, while also earning McLachlan real airplay in the US as well, where the song peaked at #4 on the US alt charts and went to #73 on the pop charts, the first time McLachlan had scored an American Top 100 hit. While Fumbling Towards Ecstasy was an immediate Canadian hit the album slowly gained momentum over the course of the next two years in the USA and in some other countries, becoming a slow burning moderate hit that had successful singles with “Possession”, “Hold On”, and “Good Enough”. The song “Ice Cream” also earned some attention as it was used in the Christian Slater and Mary Stuart Masterson film Bed of Roses. Fumbling Towards Ecstasy proved to be a hit and set the stage for McLachlan to become a superstar.

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1. “Into The Fire” – Sarah McLachlan: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

1. “Into The Fire” – Sarah McLachlan

(From the album Solace)

1991

Born in the eastern Canadian province of Nova Scotia, Sarah McLachlan was something of a musical prodigy as a child and studied music throughout her childhood. By the time McLachlan was in high school she was fronting a rock band named The October Game. However, after an early October Game show McLachlan was offered a solo recording contract with the Vancouver, Canada based record label Nettwerk. McLachlan was interested and excited but her parents insisted she finish high school and one year of college before she could move west to Vancouver and work as a recording artist. Two years later though McLachlan signed with Nettwerk and moved to Vancouver. When McLachlan signed her recording contract she had never written a song but she still wrote or co-wrote the entirety of her first album Touch and even scored a minor Canadian hit with the song “Vox”. She also gained increased exposure in Canada by serving as the opening act for Canadian alt rockers The Grapes Of Wrath. McLachlan released her second album Solace in 1991 and it became her Canadian breakthrough, spinning off a series of Canadian hits and starting her career-long partnership with producer Pierre Marchand, who would become her primary collaborator. Solace earned McLachlan Canadian hits with “The Path Of Thorns (Terms)”, “Drawn To The Rhythm”, and “Into The Fire”, the last one being the biggest hit and earning McLachlan her first American success when the song went to #4 on the US alternative rock charts. The moderate success of “Into The Fire” also helped to build some momentum for McLachlan outside of Canada and built up some expectations for her next record; expectations that she would capitalize on.

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