Good Grief

Since the release of her 2019 album, Amidst the Chaos, singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles has kept busy: She’s starred on Broadway and on TV, brought the musical adaptation of Waitress to theatres, and picked up Emmy and Tony nominations. But she also experienced the pain of loss: Her former manager Chad Joseph died in 2020, her friend Gavin Creel passed away in 2024, and she had a frustrating experience with IVF treatments. Good Grief is a clear-eyed look at how the heartbreak caused by loss can flip a person’s world upside down. Bareilles’ lyrics vividly depict grief and its aftershocks. The slow-blooming opening track, “Home,” which was inspired by a podcast conversation between late-night host Stephen Colbert and cable fixture Anderson Cooper, calls for honesty about sadness, while “Nervous Breakdown,” which Bareilles co-wrote with Ingrid Michaelson, matter-of-factly lays out the way anxiety can cause people to push loved ones away. Bareilles’ bell-clear voice, even when totally wracked with emotion, makes the album feel like a call for empathy wrapped in a personal statement.