Sean Mclachlan

Released at the front end of 1999's Lilith Fair, Mirrorball is a take-home sampler of the live performances that catapulted Sarah McLachlan into the modern rock stratosphere. Over half of the album's 14 songs are radio hits (including four of the first five), proving McLachlan's worth as a pop songstress bar none, but also hinting at an underlying stagnation in her recent musical output. Though fans of McLachlan and folks who missed her Lilith performances will likely enjoy Mirrorball, it's a little too by-the-book to win any converts or please critical listeners. There is little dialogue between songs, for example, and the sound quality is so pristine that if it weren't for the occasional hoot and holler from the audience, one would never know it's a live album.

During the mid-'90s, Sarah McLachlan was a near-ubiquitous presence in pop music, establishing adult alternative pop radio with 1994's Fumbling Toward Ecstasy and 1997's Surfacing and spearheading the popular Lilith Fair touring festival, but once the last Lilith wound up in 1999, she retreated from the spotlight, had a baby, and seemingly retired from music. Four years later, she made a typically subdued return with Afterglow, her first album in six years. Not much has changed in the time she was away. Afterglow is firmly within the McLachlan signature sound – a softly tuneful, mildly atmospheric blend of classic singer/songwriterism and a touch of vaguely dreamy alternative pop, all shined and immaculately produced by Pierre Marchand.