It's been a few weeks since I've highlighted a CD of the Week. Why? Because nothing rocked my world. I only bring music to your attention when I'm crazy about it and believe it could be one of the best albums of the year. So believe me when I say this new album is terrific.
CD OF THE WEEK #7: KD LANG & THE SISS BOOM BANG -- SING IT LOUD
You probably already know that kd lang is one of the greatest singers alive. It's not just me -- Tony Bennett has said so, too. Maybe you drifted away after her world-beating classic Ingenue. Maybe you were blown away by her performance of Leondard Cohen's "Hallelujah" at the Canadian Winter Olympics a few years ago and said to yourself, "Wow, she's got great pipes." (Here's another performance of that song on which she sounds incandescent.)
Of course, lang's time in the white-hot spotlight has passed and the era of blockbuster albums is mostly gone. Me, I've been a fan ever since I saw her slay an old classic on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson and she blew him away.
Somehow, despite buying every album of hers and seeing her repeatedly in concert, it got stuck into my head that lang had become a bit lost creatively since Ingenue conquered the world.
For whatever reason -- the lure of fame, the crush of attention, the wrong collaborators or the simple fact that most artists (even great ones) have ups and downs creatively in their career -- it's true that a few albums after that smash hit floundered a bit. Two pop albums (All You Can Eat and Invincible Summer) and one album of covers (Drag, an album about smoking) came out from 1995 to 2000 and weren't up to her high standards. But I can't call Sing It Loud a comeback. Why? Because I realized this is the fourth terrific album in a row from lang.
First came her marvelous album of jazz standards What A Wonderful World in 2002, a duets project with the great Tony Bennett. Then came the lovely, delicate Hymns Of The 49th Parallel, an album dedicated to great Canadian songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Ron Sexsmith. By refreshing herself with those classics and taking a breather from songwriting, lang regained her mojo. Maybe it's just a coincidence that she's not being bombarded anymore with media requests from people not really interested in her music or feeling mostly alone in the category of out celebrities. Whatever the reason, in 2008 lang made her Nonesuch debut with the criminally overlooked Watershed, a work of quiet beauty that was her first album of originals in eight years and her best since since Ingenue some 16 years earlier.
But look before Ingenue and you're reminded of her fertile country period. A Truly Western Experience and Angel With A Lariat are fun and raw pieces with lang finding her way. Shadowland is a landmark work of vocal performance, capturing lang as she flowers as an artist. Overseen by the great producer Owen Bradley, Shadowland is bursting with classic country tunes lang makes her own while bowing before the greats like Elvis Presley and Kitty Wells. It was followed by Absolute Torch and Twang, a marvelous modern country album that ranks with the best of the '80s rebels like Lyle Lovett and Steve Earle.
Now to that list you can add Sing It Loud. It's a great follow-up to Watershed and features lang's first proper band since the Reclines supported her country-era work. lang does clearly blossom with the right collaborators. Ben Mink was her musical foil during the early years. And now lang is reveling in the back and forth with Joe Pisapia, a man she met backstage at the Grand Ole Opry and who co-wrote many of the album's songs. Seeing her in concert at a recent showcase (a great performance that was devastatingly short since I was about five feet from the stage and wanted it to last three hours, at least), you saw lang happy and centered and interacting fully with Pisapia and the others with pure pleasure.
The music on Sing It Loud is pure dreamy pop, with a warm acoustic feel. If all you've ever heard is Ingenue, dive right in. If you're a fan of her country period, don't hesitate either. Here's the engaging, opening track "I Confess."
The ten tracks flow smoothly and confidently, from the sexy "Sugar Buzz" to the unexpected cover of the Talking Heads gem "Heaven" to the familiar terrain of troubled romantic love of "A Sleep With No Dreaming." ("A hundred thousand reasons why I should walk away," she sings, though you know she won't.)
Two particular highlights are the title track and "Inglewood." "Sing It Loud" is an inspirational tune about being true to yourself, the sort of bathetic theme that can sink an artist into cliches and obvious moves like a rousing chorus. Instead, lang is quiet and assured here. "Sing it loud...so everyone knows who you are," she counsels confidently, even though she also admits how hard it is to stand by and let someone you care about make their own mistakes so they can learn. "Sing it loud," she sings at the end of the tune, "so YOU can remember who you are." Clearly lang has taken her own advice to heart.
And "Inglewood" is a gorgeous tune about a wistful desire to both feel at home and be ready to face the future. It sounds like a long-lost track from Joni Mitchell's Blue, which is about the highest compliment one can pay a tune like this, in my opinion.
So this isn't a comeback, it's a terrific album of original music, the fourth in a row worthy of being named one of the best of the year and yet another gem in a discography filled with them. For 27 years, kd lang has grown consistently as an artist and -- except for a brief five year period -- delivered the goods again and again. It's time you caught up with her.
Her studio albums (not including film soundtracks and live albums)
A Truly Western Experience (1984) ** 1/2
Angel With A Lariat (1987) ***
Shadowland (1988) ****
Absolute Torch and Twang (1989) *** 1/2
Ingenue (1992) ****
All You Can Eat (1995) ** 1/2
Drag (1997) ** 1/2
Invincible Summer (2000) ** 1/2
A Wonderful World (w Tony Bennett) (2002) *** 1/2
Hymns Of The 49th Parallel (2004) *** 1/2
Watershed (2008) ****
Sing It Loud (2011) *** 1/2
CDS OF THE WEEK:
CD #1 Ladysmith Black Mambazo -- Songs From A Zulu Farm
CD#2 David Wax Museum -- Everything Is Saved
CD#3 Adele -- 21
CD #4 The Low Anthem -- Smart Flesh
CD #5 Ron Sexsmith -- Long Player Late Bloomer
CD # 6 Simon and Garfunkel -- Bridge Over Troubled Water
CD #7 Teddy Thompson -- Bella
CD #8 kd lang -- Sing It Loud
SOME BEST CDS OF THE YEAR/DECADE LISTS:
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It's available free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and reviews.
NOTE: Michael Giltz is provided with free copies of CDs or digital downloads by numerous labels to consider for review and feature coverage. He typically does not guarantee any coverage in exchange for these CDs and indeed receives far more albums than he ever comes close to covering in his various outlets.