Emotive and heartfelt

All You Can Eat
kd lang
Warner Music
Reviewed by Jen Crothers I approached the latest offering from kd lang with a great deal of scepticism. The hype about the kd phenomenon was just a bit too much. By the time I heard the album twice, I was getting into it. After hearing it more than four times, I was a bit blasé. kd began her career as a rollicking country singer. She was a misfit who shook the establishment. However, she impressed legends such as Roy Orbison, with whom she did an amazing version of "Crying". In 1989 she came out publicly as a lesbian, which she later said was the "best thing she could have done". It certainly was a good career move, on top of being a personal highlight. The release of her Ingenue album in 1992 thrust lang to the status of pop star, where she has remained since. All You Can Eat is more up-beat than Ingenue, though there are strong similarities. As always, lang's powerful and beautiful voice dominates the album. The lyrics are emotive and heartfelt but are a long shot from poetry. The music on the album is quite diverse, indicative of the wide variety of artists that lang gets inspiration from. The single "If I Were You" is a cynical and amusing song about envy. Perhaps making a dig at her fans, kd sings, "If I could only be/ the queen of popularity/ things would just come to me/ so easily". Like Ingenue, All You Can Eat is a relaxing but somewhat wishy-washy album. It's nice to listen to, if only to let your mind float to higher places.

From GLW issue 217