All-Time Albums: #88

k.d. lang Ingenue
(1992)

Save Me 4:33
The Mind Of Love 3:48 (UK single, #72)
Miss Chatelaine 3:48 (UK single, #68)
Wash Me Clean 3:17
So Shall It Be 4:29
Still Thrives This Love 3:33
Season Of Hollow Soul 4:56
Outside Myself 4:57
Tears Of Love’s Recall 3:48
Constant Craving 4:38 (UK single, #15 on re-release, 1993)

 

The early 1990s were a good time for intelligent, articulate, evocative acoustic pop and k.d. lang’s breakthrough album was one of the finest examples. She had been gaining an audience for her “torch and twang” alternative take on Country music since the mid-’80s, but on Ingenue both the sound and the image became sublimely smooth and restrained, somewhere between a Daniel Lanois production and Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks soundscapes. I was bound to adore it. And I did.

My listening habits were falling into distinct categories around 1993; if it wasn’t post-Achtung Baby U2, Guns N Roses’ two Illusions, Pearl Jam or the likes of Curve and Belly, I’d be soothing my poor head with REM, The Blue Nile, Crowded House or this album.

Ingenue is such a mood piece, with no jarring moments or obvious filler, that choosing favourite tracks became redundant. Constant Craving, the UK chart hit at the second time of asking, does stand out as one of the decade’s best.