Rufus Wainwright - Classic or Dud?

Right now I'm visiting Baltimore. Several years ago and the only other time I visited Baltimore, I bought Poses based on what I heard being played at the CD store I went to by the marina. It was well worth the money. I keep finding a couple goodies on each album since then but none of them have been as solid. $250 box set seems like a ridiculous idea (even though I know The Grateful Dead were able to rake in mega$$$ with their recent humongous box set).

hey Lorax, i didn't know you were in town, we should hang! which store was it, the Sound Garden?

New album. Anyone care? It may be my first Rufus purchase since 2003.

Read a good review and reserved it at the library for a trial run. If great, will end up picking it up. Haven't heard anything since "April Fools", tbh.

i too am a lapsed fan who's only heard one of the albums since Poses. so far this suonds pretty good, though. am going to try to listen to his dad's new one too since they released albums a week apart.

Want One is still one of my fave ever albums by anyone but he's not done much i've liked since weirdly. i still love him tho.
looking forward to him in upbeat mode again, the last one was teh bleakness (understandably given the subject matter).

I've listened to this once, it was better than I was expecting. He's really gone for that 70's pop sound and mostly pulled it off. The single is by far the worst thing on there.

I was a massive fan around Want One but I've just lost interest since then. Want Two was half brilliant (Art Teacher, Gay Messiah, Memphis Skyline) half rubbish (Old Whore's Diet, Little Sister) Release The Stars had one great song (Going to a Town) and a lot of songs that sounded like tired retreads of his earlier work. I can't remember a single thing about the last album. It's nice that he finally seems to have woken up.

it's interesting to me that he seems to have picked up a lot of fans mid-career since for me the first album was a front-to-back classic and it's just been a lot of hit and miss since then. this album sounds really good, though, yeah.

i'd pretty much agree with every word re his post Want One stuff there Kitchen Person. i'd like to forget Release The Stars ever happened and the less said about his embarrasing Glastonbury appearance the summer it came out the better. the last album had So Sad on it which is amazing i think but little else.

I bought the first album a few months after its release, and while it meant a great deal – I was just coming out - quite a few songs are loaded with arrangements that Wainwright's voice wasn't up to singing. Poses was a huge improvement, and the MIami date on that tour was one of the best shows I've seen in ten years. Since only 60 people came we were shouting requests and he was shooting the shit with us.

Little since 2003 has moved me.

the debut was audacious and heartfelt and overreaching just as a good debut should be. Poses has some great songs but i think maybe the pop stardom he was still somewhat plausibly aiming for that point take it in a slightly blander direction.

This radio session is good:
http://www.kcrw.com/music/programs/mb/mb041201rufus_wainwright

i just don't like his voice unfortunately. i'm working his concert next wk, wish i was excited.

xxxp yeah i've seen him maybe half a dozen times and live at his peak (just post-Want One IMO) he was one of the best things i've ever seen. the Liverpool '04 gig was like a carnival, i've never seen a seated crowd go so crazy. i didn't know you *could* go that crazy sitting down, even he was shocked.

the debut was audacious and heartfelt and overreaching just as a good debut should be.

oh yeah I agree - it's a classic B+ type debut.

i saw him in the 9:30 Club opening for lol Sean Lennon right after the debut dropped, he was a pretty solid performer right off the bat. was a bit more drunk and full of himself when i saw him again circa Poses.

he was pretty hammered and god knows what else when I saw him. Oh! He also dedicated a song to "Neil and Chris." When we looked at the balcony there were Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, in town a few days early rehearsing for their concert the next week.

he's a great live performer - holds my attention in a way he doesn't always on record.

almost every one of his albums has been just good enough, just interesting enough, containing just enough killer songs to keep my overall feelings about him positive, but all of them have suffered from stretches of...blahhhh, really. he always sounds like he wants to only dip his toe into songwriting. i do think want one is as close as he's come to a coherent statement album, though "cigarettes & chocolate milk" is my favourite song he's done.

new one sounds decent as they all do initially

My theory is he was pushed or pushed himself into recording an album before his songwriting chops had gelled. The boy had the connections (Waronker, Dreamworks, semi-famous dad).

pshhh musicians should learn on the job imo. the idea of woodshedding in private for some magical moment when you're "ready" is foreign to me.

that'd explain the first album being not quite there but not the 7 or 8 or however many it's been since!

i just don't think he's got a great sense of melody, and/or it's not something he particularly prioritises, and when he lands on one it's kind of almost as a joke

pshhh musicians should learn on the job imo. the idea of woodshedding in private for some magical moment when you're "ready" is foreign to me.

Never said this!

"not ready to record" /= "shouldn't have recorded it"

eh when you say premature "pushing" was involved it sounds negative. in any event imo his aesthetic and his sensibility as a lyricist and melodist were pretty well formed by '98 and there's not really that much of a difference between his stuff then and his stuff now, so i have no idea where you're even coming from.

Aesthetic – formed, craftsmanship – still had a way to go.

song for song Poses is the stronger record, maybe the one least afflicted with what lex called stretches of...blahhhh

Sings with his mouth shut DUD

I like his voice. He has songs in the key of me

I've noticed the stretches of blah. I liked "Little Sister" because it was stark contrast from a lot of blah, not that it's a favorite of mine. Poses is my favorite album by him

after three full listens I agree with the enthusiasm for the album. Keepers: ""Montauk," "Out of the Game," "Bitter Tears," "Jericho."

Making of:

http://www.nowness.com/day/2012/5/5/2130/rufus-wainwright-bitter-tears

I love this thing -- one of the year's best. Never thought I'd say it again about a Wainwright record.

I love this as well, and playing it continuously.

I can't quite pin down what it reminds me of exactly, but it has a nostalgic feel that takes me back to the 70s.

On first listen I was entirely underwhelmed. Much more soft rock than pop. And it's not the sort of soft rock that I find moving ('Art Teacher' was moving).

I really like this new one and I haven't even been remotely excited for him since the Want One/Two days. I love the 70s AM rock touches, I think they work pretty well. Kinda wish he'd lay off the gospel backing choirs on some of these though.

huh, had no idea that Nels Cline plays on this album, i wonder what tracks.

to have been a fly on the studio wall when rufus recorded william shatner reading sonnet 129

Enjoying the new album, maybe more than I was expecting to.

So.. this album and Release The Stars are really good, despite critical consensus that they are really not good

Are people saying the new album isn’t good? That’s a damned lie. It’s not his best but it’s an absolute pleasure to listen to.

I've always had to adjust to his voice like a car adjusting to new air tire pressure

When I was in my early 20s I had a fantasy that I would one day meet him and say "your songs start and immediately you start singing and then you continue singing right up until the moment the song ends and it doesn't always have to be this way" but I learned pretty quickly that even close friends don't listen to criticism

In my head I am scripting a short film around the above exchange

lol fgti I'm never gonna unhear that now

His first album is absolutely glorious. Haven’t really dug anything else for some reason.

Poses is its superior but I've got emotional attachments to the debut.

I never liked the debut but think Poses onward is pretty untouchable

He’s not especially “for me”— I adore Martha tho— but certain moments (“The Art Teacher”) knock me flat

I always feel a bit guilty that his version of "One Man Guy" is maybe the recording of his I return to most regularly (even though LWIII's own stuff leaves me totally cold from what I've heard)

Debut, Poses, and Want One are all classics to me. Subsequent proper albums are all good or great. And his tangents—Judy covers, opera, sonnets—are so wild that I respect the guy for going for what he’s passionate about even if I don’t love it.

Prefer Martha usually (Lucy's most recent solo alb was pretty amazing, though solo live sets I've heard seem oddly self-effacing, esp considering those of her relatives who have NO PROB coming out shells)*. Was thinking there was a more gathering of the tribes/family tree thread, but didn't find it, so here's this:
Siblings Rufus, Martha and Lucy Wainwright bring their beloved Christmas show ‘A Not So Silent Night – Virtually Together’ to a global audience for the first time streaming live on veeps.com on December 20th at 12PM PST, 3PM EST, 8PM GMT from Los Angeles, Montreal and New York. They will be joined by aunts, mothers, fathers, nieces, cousins, sons and daughters of the acclaimed musical clans of the Wainwrights, McGarrigles and Roches.

First performed in 2005, this holiday celebration is equal parts concert and family reunion. Due to COVID-19, this year the family reunion will be a virtual one with different strands of the family and musicians coming together in Rufus’ living room in his home in Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles, Martha’s arts and community center “Ursa” on Montreal’s Parc Avenue, and City Winery in New York for Lucy Wainwright Roche and her mother Suzzy Roche and their dad Loudon Wainwright III. The live stream will switch between these three locations and take this family tradition to its roots back to Rufus’ and Martha’s childhood where they would perform Christmas carols and songs with their grandmother, mother, aunts and cousins in the living room of their St. Sauveur weekend cottage and give it a 21st century digital twist. Everyone’s living room, audience and performers alike, is now the internet. Unlike in previous years, where the family gathered special guests to perform alongside them, this year all songs will be interpreted by family to minimize social interaction but maximize intimacy.

“Eleven years ago, our mother Kate McGarrigle played what was to be her last performance ever at the Royal Albert Hall which was one of the most beautiful and emotional nights of my life,” Rufus Wainwright recalls. “Last year, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of this show for which she wrote the song “Proserpina” with three sold out shows at the Royal Festival Hall in London and the National Concert Hall in Dublin. We have brought the Christmas show to Montreal, to Carnegie Hall and Town Hall in New York, to the Ryman in Nashville, to Royce Hall in Los Angeles. Each year I hear from fans why we are not doing the show in Germany, Paris, Spain or other places. During these times where people are craving more and more the comforts of things that have become impossible, we decided we could not skip this year and decided to bring the Christmas show to potentially every fan around the globe virtually from our homes in LA, NY and Montreal.”

Tickets start at USD$20 and USD$25 for day-of-show on VEEPS or go to https://rufuswainwright.com. Special experience packages are also available. This live streamed event is presented in collaboration with previous McGarrigle/Wainwright Holiday Concert presenters UCLA Center for the Art of Performance, Town Hall in NYC, City Winery, and the Southbank Centre.

Featuring
Rufus, Martha and Loudon Wainwright
Lucy Wainwright Roche, Suzzy Roche
Sloan Wainwright, Jane and Anna McGarrigle
Lily Lanken, Sylvan Lanken, Chaim Tannenbaum
Jorn Weisbrodt, Gigi and Islay McMillan
Arcangelo and Francis Albetta
Brian Green, Jacob Mann

The show will be accessible for purchase and stream until January 6th 2021. On January 8th 2021 at 2PM PST, 5PM EST Rufus Wainwright will continue his Rufus-Retro-Wainwright-Spective with the first part of his album “Release the Stars”.

Special Christmas merch items are also for sale at Rufus Wainwright’s UK merch store:
https://rufus-wainwright.backstreetmerch.com

The new signed vinyl edition of Northern Stars is available at the US merch store:
https://rufuswainwright.merchtable.com/

The concert will benefit the Kate McGarrigle Fund, a collaborative program from Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) and the Kate McGarrigle Foundation that aims to provide music therapy resources to cancer patients with a passion for music, as well as much-needed funds for sarcoma research.
For more information about the Kate McGarrigle Fund, please visit https://standuptocancer.org/kate-mcgarrigle-fund/
PRESS CONTACT:
Jim Merlis
jim at bighassle.com
*posted about virtual live Suzzy and Lucy last week, show may still be available:
The Roches
Their recent album is here---stream, download etc.:
https://lucywainwrightrochesuzzyroche.bandcamp.com/releases
(sry didn't feel like fw all those links in press release)