Sarah Mclachlan Wintersongs

Dedicated fans of Sarah McLachlan had a lot to buy in 2008, when the Canadian songwriter issued three retrospective albums. Rarities, B-Sides & Other Stuff, Vol. 2 led the pack in April, followed by a deluxe edition of Fumbling Toward Ecstasy several months later. Closer: The Best of Sarah McLachlan brought up the rear, arriving in October and compiling McLachlan's greatest hits along with two new songs…

After touring in 1999, Sarah McLachlan took a break, pretty much keeping to herself until she released her new album, Afterglow, earlier this year. McLachlan just completed her North American tour and will spend the rest of the year touring Europe, but, considering her taste for hiatus, who knows when she'll be back on the road. To tide fans over, McLachlan's people have prepped a new live CD/DVD package. On November 23 Afterglow Live will hit the shelves of your local music store. The set includes a 23-track DVD packaged with a 15-track CD.

Dedicated fans of Sarah McLachlan had a lot to buy in 2008, when the Canadian songwriter issued three retrospective albums. Rarities, B-Sides & Other Stuff, Vol. 2 led the pack in April, followed by a deluxe edition of Fumbling Toward Ecstasy several months later. Closer: The Best of Sarah McLachlan brought up the rear, arriving in October and compiling McLachlan's greatest hits along with two new songs. "Don't Give Up on Us" and "U Want Me 2" are standard McLachlan tunes, mixing adult contemporary songcraft with the soothing, evergreen vocals that helped her rise to prominence.

Bloom begins with Junkie XL's terrific remix of the Afterglow track "World on Fire." He trashes the hopeful chording of the original nearly completely, instead floating Sarah McLachlan's vocals over a taut guitar line for an addictive mixture of tension and atmosphere…

Since her debut in 1988, Sarah McLachlan's atmospheric folk-pop has gained a devoted following not only in her native Canada, where she established star status with her first album, but also in the U.S. and U.K. The following two decades saw her grow both as a musician and songwriter, continually redefining herself and emerging as a major voice in the growing adult alternative pop format. She also founded Lilith Fair, a concert tour that helped usher other female songwriters into the mainstream during the late '90s, while maintaining her own presence on the charts.

This video companion to the Canadian singer-songwriter's triumphant live album confirms in sight what that recording advanced in sound–Sarah McLachlan and her fine, flexible stage band have evolved into a superb live performing unit, breathing added fire and nuance into McLachlan songs that were already stunning in their original studio versions…

It’s been seven years since Sarah McLachlan released Afterglow, her last album of original material. That’s a lifetime in the pop world, perhaps, but McLachlan handles her absence well, filling Laws of Illusion with the same sort of adult contemporary fare that made her a star in the first place. The market has changed since McLachlan’s late-‘90s heyday; pop starlets like Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift are now among the industry’s most highly prized female songwriters, making McLachlan seem a bit staid and outdated by comparison. With the 2010 revival of Lilith Fair, though, she has somewhat reconstructed the world as it existed a decade ago, and Laws of Illusion furthers the fantasy by taking its cues from Clinton-era folk-pop.

Because no artist's career is truly complete without a holiday album, Sarah McLachlan took yet another step toward establishing her place in sentimental adult contemporary radio history with Wintersong…

Although 1991's Solace made Sarah McLachlan a star in Canada, her international breakthrough arrived two years later with Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, a softly assured album that combined the atmospheric production of Pierre Marchand (a former apprentice – and evident disciple – of Daniel Lanois) with some of McLachlan's strongest songwriting to date…