Every so often while perusing my music collection, I\u2019ll cross-check it against the Vault\u2019s database of (circa February 2008) over 5,200 reviews of over 2,500 artists, thinking to myself \u201cSurely we\u2019ve reviewed _______ before.\u201d<\/p>\n
First of all, no, and second of all, don\u2019t call me Shirley. (Sorry, too easy\u2026)<\/p>\n
Whaaaat?\u00a0 We\u2019ve never reviewed k.d.-freakin\u2019-lang?\u00a0 Are you kidding me? But it\u2019s true, this will in fact be the first review of the amazing Ms. lang\u2019s work to grace the virtual pages of the Vault.\u00a0 Not that the DV has ever really specialized in the lesbian cowgirl torch-singer genre — it\u2019s not exactly lowest-common-denominator stuff, and we have more than our share of classic rockers and metalheads on the staff — but k.d. lang is one of the top vocal talents of her generation.<\/p>\n I was first introduced to lang — and yes she really means it about the no-caps thing with her name, so what the hell — by the same friend who convinced me to give What shone through at every turn, though, was the voice — that is to say, The Voice. \u00a0Lang is blessed with an instrument for the ages, one of the purest, richest, strongest sets of pipes I\u2019ve ever heard.\u00a0 And — here comes her biggest pro and biggest con — she knows it.<\/p>\n Ingenue<\/i> was lang\u2019s breakout album in multiple senses of the word.\u00a0 After starting out as a virtual tribute act to her idol Patsy Cline, with Ingenue<\/i> she abandoned the country genre that had \u2013 at least in America \u2013 been reluctant to accept her as one of their own, given her unconventional melding of styles (50s rockabilly, traditional country and torchy ballads) and androgynous appearance.\u00a0 Moving to a heavily torch and jazz-influenced contemporary pop sound, lang also, just before this album\u2019s release, came out as a lesbian.\u00a0 Which might seem like a non-issue in 2008, but in 1992 it was actually a bit of a risk, even if it wasn\u2019t much of a surprise.<\/p>\n The third breakout came when the album soared on the wings of dynamite single \u201cConstant Craving,\u201d a Top 40 hit that manages to meld the spiritual with the physical while conveying a feverish desire for both kinds of fulfillment. The song went on to win one of the most well-deserved Grammy awards ever, for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, catapulting the album further up the charts.<\/p>\n As is often the case, though, the single only tells a paragraph of this album\u2019s story.\u00a0 Where \u201cCraving\u201d is upbeat and expansive and full of simmering appeal, as a whole Ingenue<\/i> is more introspective, a drawing inward as opposed to — paradoxically enough — a coming-out party.\u00a0 Cuts like the slinky opener \u201cSave Me\u201d and the brooding \u201cSo Shall It Be\u201d shimmer with a jazzy elegance that forms the perfect bed for lang\u2019s soaring vocals.\u00a0 She can get playful, as in the rather campy \u201cMiss Chatelaine,\u201d but more characteristic of this disc are the contemplative intensity of \u201cThe Mind Of Love,\u201d \u201cOutside Myself\u201d and \u201cSeason Of Hollow Soul.\u201d<\/p>\n This is one of those albums I don\u2019t listen to that often, and yet regard almost worshipfully.\u00a0 It captures a specific mood — an introspective mood — that you have to be aligned with to fully appreciate in the moment.\u00a0 What is easy to appreciate at any time, though, is the raw talent of the woman behind the microphone on these tracks. The purity of lang\u2019s tone, and the way she controls the build to capitalize on just the right emotional moment to unleash her stunningly powerful voice, is simply phenomenal. <\/p>\n You could argue that this album — other than \u201cConstant Craving\u201d — isn\u2019t terrifically accessible to the average listener.\u00a0 But you could never argue that it\u2019s anything less than a terrific showcase for one of the great vocal talents of our time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8142],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-40741","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-k-d-lang","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40741"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40741"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}