Sarah McLachlan – Surfacing

Surfacing, Sarah McLachlan's fourth album, released to coincide with her Lilith Fair touring festival of female performers, sold over a million copies in Canada and eight million in the U.S.

Surfacing was named the Best Album at the 1998 Juno Awards, McLachlan won as Best Female Vocalist and Songwriter of the Year (with Pierre Marchand) for "Building a Mystery," which was also named Single of the Year, and Marchand was named Best Producer. However, the international critical reception was not quite as overwhelming:

• AllMusic gave it only 3 stars out of 5, saying it "didn't offer anything new" and "wasn't a particularly strong consolidation of her talents"
• Robert Christgau graded it a C-, calling her "a singer-songwriter of monumental banality"
• Pitchfork, however, ranked it as the 14th best Canadian album of all time (back in 2000 or so)

Surfacing ranked 33rd in Bob Mersereau's 2007 book, The Top 100 Canadian Albums, and 72nd in CBC Radio's 2013 list of the 100 Greatest Canadian Albums Ever, and spawned four top-ten hit singles, "Building a Mystery" (#1), "Sweet Surrender" (#2), "Adia" (#3) and "Angel" (#9).

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Track Listing

1. "Building a Mystery" (Sarah McLachlan, Pierre Marchand) – 4:07
2. "I Love You" (Sarah McLachlan) – 4:44
3. "Sweet Surrender" (Sarah McLachlan) – 4:00
4. "Adia" (Sarah McLachlan, Pierre Marchand) – 4:05
5. "Do What You Have to Do"(Sarah McLachlan, Colleen Wolstenholme) – 3:47
6. "Witness" (Sarah McLachlan, Pierre Marchand) – 4:45
7. "Angel" (Sarah McLachlan) – 4:30
8. "Black & White" (Sarah McLachlan) – 5:02
9. "Full of Grace" (Sarah McLachlan) – 3:41
10. "Last Dance" (Sarah McLachlan) – 2:33

Personnel

• Sarah McLachlan – vocals (1-9), electric guitar (1,3), acoustic guitar (1,2,4), piano (3,4,5,7,8,9,10)
• Pierre Marchand – background vocals (1), keyboards (2,4,6,8,9,10), drum machine (2,3,7), bass (3,4,8)
• Ash Sood – drums (1,3,4,6,8), percussion (3,4,5,6,9), background vocals (4,6), piano (10)
• Jim Creeggan – upright bass (5,6,7,10)
• Brian Minato – bass (1,4), electric guitars (3)
• Yves Desrosiers – guitars (6), lap steel (6), slide bass (6), saw (10)
• Michel Pepin – electric guitars (1,3)

• Sarah McLachlan – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (album)
• Sarah McLachlan – Building a Mystery (song)
• Sarah McLachlan – Ice Cream (song)