k.d. lang is in love

New home, sweetheart, inspire sunny new album

July 6, 2000
Web posted at: 9:11 a.m. EDT (1311 GMT)

By Paul Clinton
For CNN Interactive

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Looking flushed and happy, songtress k.d. lang arrived (on her vintage 1970 Yamaha motorcycle, no less) to meet her fans and sign her latest CD at Tower Records in West Hollywood.

The flush stemmed from more than the California sun, too: lang has a new album, a new home and a new love.

"Invincible Summer" is her first recording in three years and the first new original work she's written since "All You Can Eat" in 1995.

"I've been on the road and making records since I was 23, so I was getting a little tired and uninspired, which was the worst part of it," lang, 38, said recently. "So I took some time out, and the next thing you know, this record starting seeping out of my pores. It's a good one. I'm real proud of it."

	CD REVIEW
lang ropes love songs k.d. lang's 'Invincible Summer'

The album is a product of change. Deciding to shake up her life, lang left her native Canada, moved to sunny southern California -- a place of "movie stars, swimming pools," as the old TV sitcom song goes -- and fell in love.

"I've had a love/hate relationship with California over the years," admitted lang. "But now, I have to say, it's completely swallowed me. It's got me."

A new love

She didn't limit her affections to California, either. lang also met, and fell in love with, Leisha Hailey, half of the alternative pop duo the Murmurs.

"Love has a wonderful way of kind of healing things and making you have a fresh outlook," said lang, who is gay.

Some critics say her new CD is lang's most accessible material since "Ingenue," her 1992 Grammy-winning album. In fact, the singer has called "Invincible Summer" the ying of that successful album's yang: "Ingenue," she's said, is about being young and yearning; "Summer" focuses on being mature and happy.

"I tried to make an 'old school' pop record, where every song was a straight-ahead, a considered arrangement -- really clean form, no filler," she said.

In the past, lang admitted, she wrote for herself only; the public could like it or not. Her music was also more melancholy and dark, proof that she remains one of the best torch singers working today.

Now, lang -- warmer, fuzzier and in love -- is making an effort to be increasingly open to her public and make records that reach (in her exuberant assessment) "everybody!"

As for critics who say she's selling out to commercialism? "You know what? I have absolutely no qualms," lang said. "I don't feel compromised by this at all. I know this record was written from my heart, from honesty, and so what can I say? I have no fear."

lang will tour the United States to support her new CD from August through September. She's then scheduled to head for Europe in October, with trips to Australia and Asia in November.

Warner Bros. Records, which produced the record, is owned by Time Warner, which is the parent company of CNN.

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