k. d. Lang
Drag

THE REVIEW

"Drag" is an album of covers by the Canadian singer-songwriter and performer Katherine Dawn Lang, better known as K d Lang, released in 1997. The theme of the CD is cigarettes and smoking, a habit widely ostracized in America, and associated with transgressive behavior, which in Lang’s case pairs with her declared homosexuality.
It is an album of torch songs and high-level standards, just as are the arrangements and vocal interpretation of the multi-award-winning singer. The initial "Don't Smoke in Bed" immediately sets the tone for the quality and sophistication that indeed permeates the entire work. "The Air that I Breathe," "Smoke Dreams," and "My Last Cigarette" are three beautiful smooth jazz tracks that anticipate the album's single "The Joker," a solid and effective cover of Steve Miller, then after the languid "Theme from the Valley of the Dolls" comes the evocative and reverberating "Your Smoke Screen," truly touching, as is the poignant "My Old Addiction" dedicated to Chet Baker, and then we find ourselves at the album's crowning jewel, "Till the Heart Caves In," by Roy Orbison and T-Bone Burnette, in which Lang's voice reaches its highest levels of power and breadth. To temper the now effervescent atmosphere, the sly and ironic "Smoke Rings" arrives, followed by a composition by Jane Siberry, one of Lang’s favorite artists, the dramatic "Hain't It Funny," and the album closes with the unsettling "Love Is Like a Cigarette," almost a summary of the sometimes sweet and dreamy, and other times melancholic and introspective atmospheres that pervade this superb album by the never too praised K d Lang.