Canadian performer k.d. lang broke new ground in the 1980s by blending the genres of punk and country, dubbed “cowpunk,” with her band, the Reclines. Despite Grammy-award-winning recordings and frequent North American TV spots, mainstream country radio excluded lang from airplay due to her unconventional gender presentation and perceived sexuality. Not until lang's 1992 pop album Ingénue, the release of the single “Constant Craving,” and her subsequent coming out in The Advocate did lang earn critical acclaim worldwide.
The book addresses lang's rise to fame after switching genres, the successful reinvention of her sound and persona, and how she found herself immersed in the whirlwind of MTV and the "lesbian chic" aesthetic of 1990s pop culture. As an LGBTQ author, Joanna McNaney Stein discusses her adolescence and sexual development by weaving in short narrative prose pieces with her analysis of lang and Ingénue. Also included are interviews with lang's musical collaborators: Ingénue co-writer Ben Mink, drummer Fred Eltringham, pianist Daniel Clarke, and singer-songwriter Laura Veirs.
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Joanna McNaney Stein (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of English at the City University of New York, Kingsborough, and author of the forthcoming 33 1/3 Series’ book “k.d. lang’s Ingénue” for Bloomsbury.
Joanna’s writing has appeared in Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction (Norton, 2005), BUST, The Brooklyn Rail, PopMatters, LGBTQ Nation, and the satirical Hard Times.
Joanna holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University and an M.A. in English from the State University of New York, College at Brockport. She has completed satire writing coursework with The Second City.