Constant Craving: k.d. lang’s Breakthrough Album to Be Expanded
This summer, k.d. lang will celebrate the 25th anniversary of her breakthrough album Ingénue with a newly-expanded deluxe edition pairing the album with previously unreleased performances from her MTV Unplugged special.
Ingénue found lang moving away from the country style she had earned acclaim with in the late ’80s to a more cabaret-pop sensibility–less Patsy Cline and more Edith Piaf, The Los Angeles Times suggested. Reuniting with producers Greg Perry and Ben Mink from her fourth album, Absolute Torch and Twang, the album’s small-group arrangements, with esoteric albums like accordions and cellos, made for a fun listen. And audiences delighted: the album’s closing track, the harmony-laden “Constant Craving,” became her signature chart hit, becoming her first Top 10 single in her native Canada and hitting Billboard‘s Top 40 in America. An accompanying video directed by Mark Romanek was a surprise winner at the MTV Video Music Awards, where it took home Best Female Video. (The reach of this song across genres was fully realized when the writing credits of The Rolling Stones’ 1997 single “Anybody Seen My Baby?” was amended to include lang and Mink, the chord structure for “Craving” having been unwittingly borrowed by Jagger and Richards.)
This 2CD or 2LP set (its first release on vinyl in decades) will feature, as a bonus, eight performances of songs from Ingénue as heard on MTV Unplugged in 1993. (lang’s set was part of a banner year that included acclaimed unplugged sessions from Rod Stewart, Duran Duran and Nirvana, and she returned to the program a year later to guest-star on Tony Bennett’s Grammy Award-winning special.)
The Ingénue reissue is available July 7, and you can pre-order it now, either from Amazon or Nonesuch (where CD and vinyl pre-orders feature a limited edition print signed by lang).
Ingénue: 25th Anniversary Edition (Nonesuch, 2017)
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada (TBD) / Amazon U.K. (TBD)
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada (TBD) / Amazon U.K. (TBD)
Disc 1: Remastered album (originally released as Sire/Warner Bros. Records 26840, 1992)
- Save Me
- The Mind of Love
- Miss Chaletaine
- Wash Me Clean
- So It Shall Be
- Still Thrives This Love
- Season of Hollow Soul
- Outside Myself
- Tears of Love’s Recall
- Constant Craving
Disc 2: MTV Unplugged (recorded live at The Ed Sullivan Theater, New York City – broadcast 3/28/1993. previously unreleased)
- Save Me
- The Mind of Love
- So It Shall Be
- Miss Chaletaine
- Season of Hollow Soul
- Wash Me Clean
- Constant Craving
- Still Thrives This Love
You Might Also Like
5 thoughts on “Constant Craving: k.d. lang’s Breakthrough Album to Be Expanded”
Leave a Comment
I have been waiting for this on LP for ages! I am THRILLED at the news. Thanks for passing it along.
This is good news. However, my favorite will always be her first for Sire, the Angel With A Lariat album. A country, rock, rockabilly and punk classic. I would love for them to expand that album.
Last night I listened to “Ingenue” followed by Frank Sinatra’s “Wee Small Hours”album. Hauntingly similar on so many levels….
Incredible album. It’s amazing that with that magnificent voice, only one Top 40 hit EVER… really? I’d hoped there might have been demo versions or unreleased tracks from the sessions. But now that this is being released, it raises hope for a “Shadowland” at 30.
After having it on my wish list for a while, I got this set for Christmas. What was released of the MTV performance just leaves me wanting to hear the rest of it. Two more of the tracks (“Big Boned Gal” and “Outside Myself”) were released on a European Sire/Warner CD single in 1993. (W0157CDX)