Sara Bareilles – Good Grief (2xLP)

Sara Bareilles' Good Grief is her seventh studio album and her first since 2019's Amidst the Chaos, returning to solo record-making after years in which Bareilles' work also stretched across Broadway, television, and film. Here she narrows the focus to a 14-song set shaped by loss, but not by despair alone: the album is explicitly framed around grief in many forms, with comfort, catharsis, and a thread of hope running through it.

What makes this record especially appealing is how personal themes are matched by a strongly communal sound. Bareilles produced the album herself, with Jonathan Low as co-producer, recording engineer, and mixer, and much of it was recorded in just six days at Dreamland Recording Studios in Woodstock. The music keeps her voice and piano at the center, while leaning into chamber-pop arrangements and an ensemble feel, with players including Charley Drayton, Butterfly Boucher, Misty Boyce, Solomon Dorsey, and Rob Moose.

The songs reportedly range from intimate reflections on friends who have died to more outward-looking material, including support for women's rights, which gives Good Grief a wider emotional reach than its title first suggests. Guests including Brandi Carlile, Ingrid Michaelson, Andrea Gibson, Joe Tippett, and Megan Falley underline that sense of shared experience, while "Home" serves as a fitting entry point into an album that sounds close-up, warm, and deliberately human.

Features

• 2xLP, Black Vinyl
• Gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves
• Includes 4.75" x 4.75" premium plantable seed paper insert