Lena Hall received a Tony Award for her powerful performance as Titzhak in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and the singer and actress is revisiting that musical and several of her influences in the forthcoming year-long Obsessed project. She kicks off Obsessed with an EP of Hedwig covers, released today, and a new video of her covering pivotal power ballad “Origin of Love.”
According to the Grammy-nominated Hall, the project began last year and was inspired by a show she did with her Hedwig co-star Michael C. Hall at New York’s Café Carlyle where they covered Radiohead songs. Simultaneously, she had released 19 YouTube videos of her covering various songs. Kurt Deutsch of Sh-K-Boom Records soon became involved, and the video series and an already in-motion album of acoustic Hedwig covers merged into an expansive tour of Hall’s musical oeuvre.
“I went for the artists I have always loved and admired,” Hall tells Rolling Stone. The 11 other EPs, to be released monthly, will have her channeling everyone from P!nk to Beck to David Bowie. “Of course, Hedwig changed my life so there was no doubt that I would feature that, but many of the artists have affected my life ina positive way. Some from my childhood and others more recently.”
Hall’s debut EP of Obsessed weighs the most on her professional and personal life. She originated Yitzkah in show’s first Broadway incarnation and would later portray Hedwig both on Broadway and in San Francisco and Los Angeles productions of the show.
