Women's Biography, Country Music, Women's Biography, Music Biography

K. D. Lang: All You Get Is Me

Name: K. D. Lang: All You Get Is Me
Author: Victoria Starr
ISBN: 9780394224428

by Victoria Starr

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Overview

All You Get is Me uncovers k.d.'s deepest emotions, from a commitment to animal rights that threatened to ruin her career, to her coming to terms with a sexuality that made her an unwitting poster girl for the lesbian and gay community. Full f rare photographs, this is the definitive biography of k.d. lang.

This first full-length biography on the international pop diva is filled with intimate and fascinating revelations from the star's closest friends and family, as well as movers and shakers of the music world. It is a detailed portrait of both the public and private k.d.--a woman of talent, unwavering vision, and the courage to challenge conventions. Martin's Press.

About the Author, Victoria Starr

Victoria Starr is a New York-based radio produce and freelance writer. She has her own weekly radio show, "Ghosts in the Machine: Women in Pop," and has also written for The Village Voice, Outweek, Essence, Billboard, San Francisco Weekly, The Advocate, and other publications.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This first full-length bio of country/pop chanteuse k. d. lang suggests that its subject is noteworthy both for her courage as a self-proclaimed lesbian and for her refusal to submit to industry control of her image or her music. The first claim is undoubtedly true; Starr, a freeelance journalist and radio-program producer, convincingly asserts that lang's status as the ``first openly lesbian pop icon'' paved the way for other celebrities to ``out'' themselves without stigma. But the latter assertion is arguable. If lang has successfully resisted record-label attempts to market her music according to notions of commercial viability, Starr's portrait reveals that lang has always carefully packaged herself. Attracted to the spotlight, she would appear to have embarked on her career less because of a true passion for music than out of a desire for fame. She does emerge, however, as an inspiring example of a performer who has retained control of her career despite pressures to conform. Starr's detailed bio is frustratingly impersonal, providing little sense of lang as an individual. But her account of the politics of sexual orientation, especially in the spotlight, is absorbing. Photos not seen by PW . (June)

Library Journal

Journalist Starr presents a laudatory, in-depth biography of Grammy Award-winning country/pop singer k.d. lang. With material culled from numerous interviews, the author begins with lang's childhood in Canada, which was punctuated by the sudden disappearance of her father. Starr continues with the singer's affection for Patsy Cline-style country music, her rise to prominence as a progressive country artist, and her subsequent redirection to pop balladry. Throughout, the journalist analyzes the impact of lang's gender, lesbianism, and animal rights activism on her career. Though sometimes exaggerating the stature of her subject, Starr offers a well-written, thoroughly researched look at lang and the social climate in which she has become popular. Recommended for enthusiasts of music and popular culture.-David Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle