When attempting to pinpoint the start of the alt-country insurgency, several artists and albums are commonly tossed around: Uncle Tupelo’s No Depression, The Jayhawks’s Blue Earth, or even the early work of Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle. Notice a theme? All guys. Rarely, if ever, is k.d. lang’s full-length debut album, 1984’s A Truly Western Experience, ever mentioned. Yet, in terms of completely changing the rules of the game, no other album of its time can match it.
In an even rarer occurrence for an independent Canadian release, A Truly Western Experience has just been given the deluxe reissue treatment by its original label, Bumstead Records. The package includes the prerequisite bonus tracks, and other added features, but what seems most significant is simply the fact that the importance of the album is finally being recognized.
It may seem a stretch to make such a comparison, but seeing k.d. lang perform Experience on Canadian stages in 1984 was as bewildering as seeing the Jimi Hendrix Experience in London clubs in 1966 must have been. No other performer before her had burst onto the scene with such confidence and charisma. Sure, she was fun to try to decode, with her boots cut off at the ankles, thrift-shop wardrobe, horn-rimmed glasses and butch haircut. She claimed, without hesitation, to be Patsy Cline reincarnated, but in essence she was more like Elvis Presley, taking sounds that always felt familiar to unimaginable extremes.
And also like Elvis, lang’s sense of humour made the brashness palatable to everyone. That, along with the undeniable fact that she was probably the best singer to ever come from Canada. Twenty-five years later, A Truly Western Experience still sounds like a door being kicked open. The original Reclines, whom lang would soon ditch when Nashville called, play exactly like what they were: part of the small cadre who got lang’s joke. To those early audiences, songs like “Bopalena” – on which lang clearly declares her sexuality – and “Hanky Panky” were a joke; that is, until it sunk in that this really was country music.
The effortlessness lang displayed in dragging country into the post-punk world of gender equality, without alienating traditionalists simply through her raw talent, is the genius of A Truly Western Experience. That balance shifted when real politics intervened (her support of animal rights groups), and lesbian chic eventually transformed her image. Still, a new way of performing, and listening to, country music had been set in motion. Rules and constraints no longer applied, and even though no other artist could match lang’s pure talent, A Truly Western Experience nevertheless welcomed everyone. There’s no better criteria with which to judge a classic album.
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