k.d. lang - Invincible Summer

Learning love is love through summer pop bliss

May 31, 2023

I remember quite distinctly the moment. I was listening to songs from k.d. lang’s beautiful album Invincible Summer, about a summer of falling in love, and it hit me: In my head, I was picturing lang and another woman.

This is no secret. The Canadian songstress and singer has long been out of the closet and a fervent supporter of PETA, much to the chagrin of country music. But, if was an interesting switch that flipped for me personally.

I grew up not knowing many people from the LGBTQ+ community. In fact, I didn’t know anyone really. It was the ‘70s and ‘80s and most queer people were relegated to awful stereotypes that I, myself, admittedly trafficked in — young, scared and ignorant.

By 2000, when this album was released, I had made plenty of friends in the community. I worked for a number of years in the Montrose area of Houston, one of the largest and oldest LGBTQ+ communities in the country and I worked with plenty of gays and lesbians as bandmates and coworkers. I feel proud to say that many of them from that time are still my friends.

But, there was something about recognizing, without judgement or even conscious recognition, that I was experiencing a love story just through listening and the visualization of just was. It was completely normal, which, for me, was kind of a big deal.

The Voice

It is worth recognizing before going any further that lang employs a voice like no other. I remember reading an interview with a recording engineer talking about how they could literally mic her with anything and she sounded absolutely incredible.

By the time Invincible Summer came out, lang had long established herself as something other than her cowpunk roots. Her biggest selling record was Ingénue (eight years prior) with its radio hit “Constant Craving.” She had clearly transcended country and moved into the territory of torch songs and singer/songwriter pop perfection.

It was that smoky, satin set of pipes she possessed that propelled her beyond the novelty of a gay cowgirl gone mainstream (ish). And because of her voice and bravado during a time when people were just barely recognizing the LGBTQ+ existed (hi, Ellen) and acknowledging some people didn’t like or want to eat animal flesh, she forged a path that was her own and laid the foundation for breakout stars like Brandi Carlisle.

A Simple Love Story

Invincible Summer carried on her tradition of beautifully layered pop music but in the story arc of a summer love story. It was pretty simply girl-meets-girl, girl falls in love, summer happens, and they maybe live happily ever after? They did things like “run on the beach with Kennedy flair” after all.

lang’s languid voice drips all over songs like “Suddenly” and “Love’s Great Ocean.” Her slow, bending vocals feel like yearning, like the first waves of feelings washing over every song. It’s really remarkable.

She also has some fun with the bouncy, disco-inspired “It’s Happening With You” and the ‘60s California wall-of-sound tribute “Summerfling.”

The standouts are the wistful “When We Collide” and what should have been a radio hit in “Extraordinary Thing.”

What’s really special about Invincible Summer is how lush and perfectly produced it is without being the slightest bit slick or overdone. It manages to lay out an entire story in song, perfectly complemented by the instrumentation, as beautiful and dense as ever.

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Only Love

In the end, this is a love story told from a unique perspective by one of the greatest singers of her generation. It’s insane to me that someone as gifted as lang could be underrated, even overlooked. It could be that her songs land somewhere between mainstream pop (Adele would kill for some of these tunes) and cabaret. It might be the fact that some still think of her as a country artist.

The reality is she is a genre-bending diva of the highest order who should be spoken about in hushed tones and mentioned with the other great singers of this or any generation. On Invincible Summer, she pens a love letter to summer romance. Ultimately, it’s simply another showcase for her awe-inspiring talent.