FEATURE:
A Buyer’s Guide
Part Forty-Seven: Rufus Wainwright
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IN this A Buyer’s Guide…
PHOTO CREDIT: V. Tony Hauser
I am recommending the finest work from Rufus Wainwright. His tenth studio album, Unfollow the Rules, came out last year. I think that it is one of his very best. If you are not familiar with Wainwright then here is some more information:
“Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright (born July 22, 1973) is an American-Canadian[6] singer, songwriter, and composer. He has recorded nine albums of original music and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written two classical operas and set Shakespeare's sonnets to music for a theater piece by Robert Wilson.
Wainwright's self-titled debut album was released through DreamWorks Records in May 1998. His second album, Poses, was released in June 2001. Wainwright's third and fourth studio albums, Want One (2003) and Want Two (2004), were repackaged as the double album Want in 2005. In 2007, Wainwright released his fifth studio album Release the Stars and his first live album Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. His second live album Milwaukee at Last!!! was released in 2009, followed by the studio albums All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu (2010) and Out of the Game (2012). The double album Prima Donna (2015), was a recording of his opera of the same name. His ninth studio album Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets (2016), featured nine adaptions of Shakespeare's sonnets.
Wainwright is the son of musicians Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, and the older brother of singer Martha Wainwright”.
To celebrate a fantastic singer and songwriter, this A Buyer’s Guide highlights the best four Rufus Wainwright albums, one that is underrated and deserves more focus, his latest album, plus a book that is a useful read. Have a look and listen to the essential work of…
THE incredible Rufus Wainwright.
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The Four Essential Albums
Rufus Wainwright
Release Date: 19th May, 1998
Label: DreamWorks
Producers: Jon Brion/Pierre Marchand
Standout Tracks: Foolish Love/In My Arms/Barcelona
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=102408&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/38BDbkp5RJII1ixnynG1ti?si=z-9GZclISw26uxZBRUi2og
Review:
“What separates Rufus Wainwright and the other second-generation singers who sprang up at the same time (Sean Lennon, Emma Townshend, and Chris Stills the most notable among them) is that Wainwright deserves to be heard regardless of his family tree; in fact, the issue of his parentage is ultimately as immaterial as that of his sexuality -- this self-titled debut cares little for the rock clichés of an earlier generation, instead heralding the arrival of a unique and compelling voice steeped most solidly in the traditions of cabaret. Like his folks, Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, he's a superb songwriter, with a knack for elegantly rolling piano melodies and poignantly romantic lyrics; while the appearance of Van Dyke Parks and his trademark orchestral arrangements hints at an affinity for the pop classicism of Brian Wilson or Randy Newman, the vocals come straight out of opera, and although Wainwright is unlikely to be starring in La Boheme anytime soon, he conveys the kind of honest emotion sorely lacking in the ironic posing of many of his contemporaries. Maybe the kids are alright after all” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: April Fools
Poses
Release Date: 5th June, 2001
Label: DreamWorks
Producers: Pierre Marchand/Greg Wells/Alex Gifford/Ethan Johns/Damian LeGassick
Standout Tracks: Poses/The Tower of Learning/Rebel Prince
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/rufus-wainwright/poses-72544e9b-51f6-49a3-ad6d-78af39cd89e8
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3RemoZn6fcabqoN5zmgEXx?si=V0VOXYYHQjqWhsycT_cbcQ
Review:
“Let's not overstate: Wainwright is not the second coming of Cole Porter. The consistency isn't there, and he's good enough to make you wish he wouldn't mangle grammar. ("There's never been such grave a matter/As comparing our new brand-name black sunglasses" is a great couplet, except that such is crying out to be so.) But the best of Poses transmits the impatient, careening, manic life of a pleasure-seeking New Yorker and still keeps a carefully calibrated lightweight focus, the way those old, literate pop songs did.
With its Broadway-ready melody, "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" enlarges little problems of indulgence, stanza by stanza, into a much sadder picture of a young striver whose unanswerable needs become the focus of the whole work. As this figure goes to California and to Europe (Wainwright is the kind of guy who'll sing snatches of French and reference Thomas Mann's Death in Venice), he confronts his own loneliness in all his lovers' faces and throws off some memorable lines: "I'm drunk and wearing flip-flops on Fifth Avenue"; "Ain't it a shame that at the top/Still those soft-skin boys can bruise you/Yes, I fell for a streaker"; "Life is the longest death in California." As well a lot of lines that aren't really meant to be understood, like "All the pearls in China/Fade astride a Volta."
Wainwright uses a greater singing range now; his maundering voice has become infinitely easier to listen to. Despite Poses' multiple producers, there are more clean, clever ideas of arrangement here than on Wainwright's cluttered debut. "Shadows," co-written with Alex Gifford of Propellerheads, keeps a dry funk drumbeat, a dab of piano chords, some low clarinet lines and, finally, a swarm of seraphic multitracked voices; it's one of the many songs on the album that build up to moments of cinematic perfection, in which your goose bumps are exactly the ones Wainwright intended” – Rolling Stone
Choice Cut: Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
Want Two
Release Date: 16th November, 2004
Label: Geffen
Producers: Marius de Vries/Rufus Wainwright
Standout Tracks: The One You Love/The Art Teacher/Memphis Skyline
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=102413&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4UWAaheQUmW6JD784j4gHz?si=g3-q52oySZqw2fZbXoqCsQ
Review:
“You can only hope it does. Another broadsheet rock critic waxing rhapsodic may be the last thing Wainwright needs, but here goes: Want Two is a stunning album. As it switches skilfully from Elliot Smith-influenced alt-rock to mock Baroque pop to faux French chanson, its something-for-everyone variety cancels out its excesses.
If the prospect of a six-minute, violin-laden setting of Agnus Dei worries readers of a nervous disposition (it does go on a bit), then they should be lured and lulled by The Art Teacher, a lovely piano ballad about a middle-aged woman remembering an unrequited schoolgirl crush. It's recorded live and unadorned - you can hear Wainwright gasping for breath between each line - which makes his eye for affecting lyrical detail all the more obvious: "Here I am, in this uniformish pantsuit sort of thing, thinking of the art teacher."
Whether remembering how the late Jeff Buckley's vocal histrionics sounded "like mad Ophelia" or depicting his relationship with his sister as a string of Dangerous Liaisons-style intrigues, Wainwright is never short of something to say. This makes him an anomaly amid current big singer-songwriters. They delight in a sort of wilful mundaneness best expressed by Toes, a Norah Jones song in which she spends five gripping verses debating whether to go paddling, before deciding against it. Meanwhile, Wainwright comes up with songs like Gay Messiah, which, with its images of a homosexual God reborn in the body of a 1970s pornstar and baptising believers in semen, is about the most imaginative and provocative riposte to US conservatism that rock music has produced.
Whether Want Two can find an audience for such heady, strong stuff beyond critics, other musicians and that sinister, homosexualism-promoting Hollywood cabal is a moot point. Whether it deserves to is anything but” – The Guardian
Choice Cut: Gay Messiah
Out of the Game
Release Date: 20th April, 2012
Labels: Decca/Polydor
Producer: Mark Ronson
Standout Tracks: Out of the Game/Jericho/Perfect Man
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=432115&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1ASBTJsGYgxfPZiTgWTXqp?si=5MqmY2wKRkeV2uXm-NSQNw
Review:
“Still, it’s the austerity where Wainwright bewitches. The glistening “Montauk” features a piano figure with strings swirling, voice haunted and tone infused with the notion that what is in the distance will also be gone. Temporality informs everything.
“Sometimes You Need” embraces the same solitary truths, this time an acoustic guitar figure interlaced with a tremolo guitar that quivers with unspoken pining. The small things that get you by, the anonymous kindness, the isolated walk—and Wainwright’s fragility suggests these slight moments can provide the necessary buttressing.
If “Song for You” takes on an almost mantra-like take on a request from someone to write a song about them, the ‘50s stride rhythms that break the quiet tease a sense of dignity in the survival: head held high, tears not shed in public.
With a gentle accordion wheeze, Game concludes with the realization that churches run out of candles, banks won’t give you what you need and in the end, all there is is the echo of your own broken heart. World-weary, it makes failure holy and survival a refuge that sustains. In the end, if that’s all there is, he tenderly suggests that shall be plenty” – PASTE
Choice Cut: Montauk
The Underrated Gem
All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu
Release Date: 23rd March, 2010
Labels: Decca (U.S.)/Polydor (U.K.)
Producers: Rufus Wainwright/Pierre Marchand
Standout Tracks: Martha/Sonnet 43/What Would I Ever Do with a Rose?
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=265808&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1LlEyssXCpLTH1PAWfhknD?si=JRiPnB2bRpa28xqwjz-6iw
Review:
“All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu finds singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright stripping back the operatic flourishes of his 2007 album Release the Stars to deliver a stark and deeply personal collection of songs. Where Stars often featured large backing ensemble arrangements, here Wainwright simply accompanies himself on piano, allowing the lyrics of these poetic, introspective songs and his voice to take the spotlight. Never one to shirk away from cerebral and conceptual artistic endeavors, Wainwright has adapted three Shakespeare sonnets here that work quite well as ruminative, classically impressionistic-style pieces. Elsewhere, tracks like "Who Are You New York" and "Sad with What I Have" feature Wainwright's longstanding knack for clever and ironic turns of phrase. Obviously, the memory of Wainwright's mother, Kate McGarrigle, who died in 2010 after an extended illness, hangs heavy throughout the album. It is clear that Wainwright wrote and recorded much of All Days Are Nights during her illness, and themes of loss, depression, and sadness permeate these songs. Wainwright addresses this directly in "Martha," a yearning plea to his sister, singer/songwriter Martha Wainwright, to whom he also dedicates the album. Wainwright sings, "Martha it's your brother calling. Time to go up north and see mother. Things are harder for her now and neither of us is really that much older than each other anymore." The song, as with most of of All Days Are Nights, is a bold, absolutely emotionally naked statement that still retains Wainwright's devastating talent for artful, universally compelling songcraft” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Who Are You New York?
The Latest Album
Unfollow the Rules
Release Date: 10th July, 2020
Label: BMG
Producer: Mitchell Froom
Standout Tracks: Trouble in Paradise/Peaceful Afternoon/Only the People That Love
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/rufus-wainwright/unfollow-the-rules
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/07XUVGf2M6rXVsbdNqogTk?si=xUC8oHRfTpWvm73iD4b7DQ
Review:
“Producer Michael Froom (Randy Newman, Roy Orbison) understands when to let Wainwright indulge himself, and when to rein him in – this album is elaborate, but never cluttered. There are gorgeous, pared-back harmonies on opener “Trouble in Paradise” that nod to his fellow California residents, The Beach Boys, and a clarinet that wraps itself around a Sixties-sounding guitar line. On “Damsel in Distress”, inspired by Vogue editor Anna Wintour, Wainwright jumps forward a decade with hand-claps and shimmers of percussion that pay homage to Joni Mitchell.
There are times when Wainwright extends his gaze beyond life at home. The buzzy space opera “Hatred” provides an ominous soundtrack for the forthcoming 2020 election; elsewhere he makes stark reference to temperatures rising. It doesn’t take long, though, before he feels the need for some “Alone Time”. Age has not dimmed his rich tenor; if anything, it’s given it more texture. You feel wholly reassured as he croons: “Don’t worry, I’ll be back, baby”. This is one of Wainwright’s finest albums” – The Independent
Choice Cut: Damsel in Distress
The Rufus Wainwright Book
Rufus Wainwright
Author: Katherine Williams
Publication Date: 1st July, 2016
Publisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd
Synopsis:
“Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright (b. 1973) is famous around the world for his multi-faceted musical style, shown through both his recorded output and his engaging live performances. In this book, Katherine Williams combines aspects of his life story with scholarly readings drawn from several methodologies. Popular music studies, opera, queer studies, music and geography, the sound-box: all combine to give a rich biographical and interpretative overview of Wainwright's life and music. Williams brings together close musical analysis with such varied disciplinary perspectives with a tone that is both in-depth and scholarly, and accessible. The book is a must-read for fans, students and scholars alike” – Amazon.co.uk