Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	55/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Blender
E! Online	B−
Entertainment Weekly	B−
Mojo
Q Magazine
Rolling Stone
Slant Magazine
Stylus Magazine	(F)

Afterglow is the fifth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan. Released on 4 November 2003 on Nettwerk in Canada and 4 November 2003 on Arista Records in the United States, it was her first album of new material in six years, after the success of Surfacing and the Lilith Fair festival. Following those successes, McLachlan took a few years furlough to start a family with her then-husband and drummer, Ashwin Sood. Their daughter, India Ann Sushill Sood, was born in 2002.

She also did a lot of work with the Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach program, funding music lessons for disadvantaged children.

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 which she wrote on guitar. Longtime collaborator Pierre Marchand produced the album. McLachlan wrote eight of the 10 songs herself and co-wrote the other two with Marchand.

The song "Answer" was featured in the 2007 movie The Brave One, starring Jodie Foster. It has also been used in television commercials for the ASPCA, with McLachlan herself appearing in person.

Afterglow was released on 4 November 2003 and was a success in North America, reaching number two on the Billboard 200, selling 361,000 copies in its first week of release and number one on the Canadian charts. It reached #33 in the UK (McLachlan's biggest success there thus far) and 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 2004.

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 4 April 2004. The album was also nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Pop Vocal Album field in 2005.

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Wikipedia