kd lang's Watershed moment part 1
By John Earls - "I could sing the most out-there Radiohead song and make it sound like Perry Como."
Back with her first album of new songs for seven years, the sublime Watershed, kd lang admits it's a struggle to write music suitable for her voice.
"I like alternative music quite a bit," says kd. "But my voice just sounds ridiculous singing it. When you're a good singer, it's hard to please."
Has kd ever resented that her voice is unsuitable for certain genres?
"Definitely," she admits. "But then, when I sing a classic song and it comes out OK, it squelches the unrest.
"There's a certain allotment of fans who'd love me to just sing 12 versions of Crying. It's always been a struggle, and why my voice floats on top of genres, as my artistry is more on the left, yet my voice is so classic."
The voice takes a lot of looking after.
"My whole life is dedicated to looking after it," says kd. "I go to bed early, I don't smoke, don't drink that much, I watch what I eat. I don't worship it... well, I do worship it, but I'm not a martyr to it.
"I don't see myself as a songwriter or an interpreter of others' songs, I'm both. I don't feel like I absolutely have to come up with my own songs."
Hymns Of The 49th Parallel, kd's last album, covered her favourite fellow Canadian singers. Did it help inspire Watershed, which comes out in January?
"It set the bar so high, it was ominous at first," she confesses. "But then I thought that there's no way anyone will expect me to match songs that good.
"Once I got over that, it was fine. I'm not out to be the greatest songwriter in the world, I just do what I can."
Watershed is the first wholly self-produced album of kd's 25-year career.
"The only thing I know for sure is that I'm a singer," she says. "I really like going with wherever being a singer takes me. It took me into producing it this time, sometimes it takes me to singing with others, like Tony Bennett.
"I'm happy that producing allowed me to go from the craft on certain songs to raw, first take versions on others."
Although Watershed is kd's most classic commercial album in some time, she doesn't expect it to sell anything like the multi-platinum Ingenue from 1992.
"I'm 46 and I don't make videos," kd explains. "My live shows are the biggest success, the fact I can still move people and get a diverse audience.
"There's people 25-80 there, straight, gay, jazz, country. That's success."
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What kd lang did next part 2 (thanks jools)
By John Earls - Her first album of new songs since 2000, Watershed sees kd lang sing with honesty about failed relationships and heartbreak.
"Anything I say, pretty much anyone has gone through," says kd. "I don't get shy of being personal.
"I no longer wreak havoc on my personal life just to get better songs. I used to live like that, though I wasn't conscious of it."
Coming out as gay shortly before her breakthrough album Ingenue in 1992, kd says her honesty helped her sales.
"It's because it was a dark record," says kd. "Me being open for the reasons for that romantic aspect ultimately helped Ingenue.
"It was a culmination of events. I'd won a Grammy the previous year, then I came out. It was a perfect storm, in essence, the perfect time for me."
Despite signs Ingenue would succeed, the scale of it took kd by surprise.
"It was eight years into my career, and I was switching genres," she recalls.
"And Ingenue is a pretty dark record; romantic, but by no means uplifting. The success was so invigorating and so destructive at the same time. It was an epiphany in every way - spiritually, mentally, physically. It was a mess, basically. A good mess, but a mess."
Watershed was written over six years.
"I gave myself the luxury of time," kd explains. "It's one of the reasons I produced Watershed myself, as an expression of how I feel or hear music.
"Close Your Eyes was recorded in my living room, Shadow was in my dining room. When you capture that creativity of a song in its early process, rather than the translation and craft later, it's a completely different process."
kd's classic voice has remained remarkably unchanged since her early days as a Nashville country singer.
"My range is maybe a little deeper, but I haven't lost any of the high stuff yet," she smiles.
"But I'm 46, and I know it will start changing. How I've evolved is from experience. Before, I'd go full out at every show, and I pull back on the volume now. I use my tools better."
A fan of The New Pornographers and The Shins, kd says her iPod has reawakened her love of music.
"I listen almost entirely on shuffle," she says. "If you hear Radiohead next to Sigur Ros, then Foo Fighters, it makes sense. But when it's juxtaposed with totally different music, like Shirley Horn, I get more invigoriated by the possiblities of songs.
"Not that it's a product endorsement!"
sources.
msn langisms kd lang/arts group http://groups.msn.com/langisms
http://www.teletext.co.uk/Entertainment/Planet-Sound/Interviews-Features/default.aspx
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