| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
| Contents | ||
Afterglow was the first album in six years after the success of Surfacing and the success of the Lilith Fair festival featuring all female artists. Sarah McLachlan took a few years furlough to have a baby India Ann Sushill Sood in 2002 with her husband and the drummer in the band Ashwin Sood. She also did a lot of work with the Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach program funding music lessons for disadvantaged children.
McLachlan told Women.com in an interview that the songs in the album weren't based on events in the recent past:
Unlike past albums where she went to an isolated cottage to write the songs, she wrote the songs for Afterglow in her family home mainly before the birth of her child. She wrote the songs entirely on piano which is also a departure from her previous albums that she wrote on guitar. Longtime collaborator Pierre Marchand produced the album. McLachlan wrote all of the songs on the album, including two she wrote with Marchand.
Afterglow was released on November 4, 2003 and was a big success in North America, reaching number two on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Canadian charts. It also has reached the top 50 in Australia in 2004. The first single Fallen reached the top ten on the Adult Top 40 Billboard charts and a remix reached top ten in the United States dance charts. A second single, Stupid was released in March of 2004.
Sarah McLachlan was nominated in five Juno Award categories in Canada, including Album of the Year and Pop Album of the Year for Afterglow, and Songwriter of the Year for the songs on the album. The awards were announced on April 4, 2004.