Rufus Wainwright - Classic or Dud?

I saw the documentary tonight, and I really liked his whole self deprecating sense of humour.

And why are there so many (well two) attractive gay musicians?

And his sister. Rwor.

I'm prepared to give him another chance, as that's the only track I've heard (and instinctively recoiled from) thus far.

"Vibrate" is so many leagues above anything Thom Yorke has put his name to! Even apart from that I don't see that they share any similarities at all, either lyrically or sonically.

What will happen instead
Someone will demand my head
And then I will kneel down
And give it to them

And I like his voice LOADS more than Thom Yorke, who I honestly have no time for. While I can understand someone saying they have similar timbre and texture, Rufus thankfully never sounds like a lamb bleating out of tune

I kind of dread the next album: I think by now it's clear that Rufus thrives on attention, and this gives him more confidence to really indulge himself, so now his PR people are doing such stellar work fuck only knows what ideas he'll carry through next.

Melody: start on the 5th and descend predictably/diatonically..
E DD CC BB A.

Switch Chord to (predictable) Dm.

Melody : F EE DD AA B

Lyrics (from beat 1 of A minor chord) :

"All the times I tried to hide from,
everything I was denied..."

Remember to hold your breath, plug your nose
for the nasal whine and sing out of the corner
of your mouth.

Repulsively pathetic, boring, depressing, monotonous,
unoriginal and disgusting is Rufus.

-- Musicfan101 (mz...), March 1st, 2006.

the nasal bleating thing is annoying, someone so gaga over opera should pay attention to vocal technique

spot on. it's all one long, mumbled note. I have no idea why his vocals are so admired.

he makes me want to forcibly expunge his sinus bees.

Hott.

new record, still annoying

Classic on songs written by other people (like "What Can I Do" off the Antony and the Johnsons record or "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise"), but I'm not a huge fan of his own songs (I haven't heard that much, though)...it might just be the production, though.

He's still a genius.

(Haven't picked up Release the Stars yet, plan on doing so soon)

I liked his first two records; now he's a certifiable menace. Has Neil Tennant exercised quality control on this one?

Want One was great though! and Want Two was worth hearing despite the massive overreach. It's the debut I'm not into but I've only given it half a listen. He was great on Letterman last week. I don't know what he was going on about but he belted it out, whatever it was. In lederhosen.

I think, when he's on form, he's a fucking amazing melodicist (and a very good singer, obv.) and he's got just enough control alongside his camp to keep his arrangements just the right side of audacious (i.e. impressive rather than pompous).

I also think he hit an unarguable melodic peak circa Want One, and that Want Two was a serious step backwards, totally over-reaching. The new one gains some control back, definitely, and some of the arrangements are amazing, but there's nothing quite as melodically spectacular as the first four tracks on Want One. This is only off a couple of listens, though.

Expect to see choice phrases from this post in a Stylus review near you later this week...

Perversely (of course) I think Want Two is his best work, certainly the record of his that I play most.

Not quite sure about the new one yet; veering perilously close to writing about His Privileged Life at times and while some of the bitching about previous/failed lovers is quite entertaining he cuts deepest on the America-as-lover-extended-metaphor ballads, e.g. "Leaving For Paris" and especially "Not Ready To Love" which is a quite stunning marriage of Fairport Convention and Art of Noise (both R Thompson and N Tennant making their influence felt). The one with Sian Phillips going mad at the end is also pretty fab.

enjoyed but wasn't blown away by Judy at Carnegie Hall last year, though I'm certainly thrilled I got to go. haven't found my way into the new one yet; first half-listen sounds good.

Richard Thompson vs the horn section on "Slideshow" = stunning. Things start tailing off for me after that, though. I think he overdoes the trick of starting relatively downbeat/unadorned/vulnerable, piling on the orchestral layers, and ending on a note of triumphal resolution, having turned so many musical corners that the end of each track bears scant relationship to its beginning. Don't get me wrong, it's a *great* trick - but it's also somewhat overplayed. I like the dissatified-nomad-in-exile qualities which "Going To A Town" sets up and "Tiergarten" develops, and I don't miss the more overtly campy playfulness which punctuated previous albums.

It's as if he's trying to convince himself that he's happy.

Musically, though, Richard T is man of the match - I noticed those little Derek Bailey scribbles in "Slideshow"...

Oh, I didn't feel bad for Rufus, it was just such a corny attitude (and assumption that they were in competition, or she needed boosting).

I was lucky to see him in a very small setting - basically someone's fancy back yard. His young daughter was in the front row and was basically heckling him the whole time. It was hilarious / adorable.

Seen him twice: once at a free show at a bar in London, Ontario in advance of the debut's release (before the show, I asked him if it was OK if I took pictures, and he asked that I only do so during the guitar songs), and then again on that Poses tour with Tegan and Sara, at the Toronto bar where Queer as Folk was filmed.

welp

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING OF RUFUS WAINWRIGHT’S DREAM REQUIEM TO BE RELEASED JANUARY 17TH 2025 WITH MERYL STREEP AS NARRATOR

Anna Prohaska, soprano

Choeur et Maîtrise de Radio France

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France Mikko Franck, conductor

International Release date: January 17 2025

CD digipack: 5021732500601

LP (2 LP black viny 180g): 5021732500618

SHRM: 5021732501264 - Dolby Atmos: 5021732507648

“My whole life suddenly changed while listening to Verdi’s Requiem Mass for the first time at the tender age of 13…The experience both represented the death of my childhood innocence AND the birth and awakening of my artistic self, thus beginning my personal lifelong spiritual quest to seek out beauty no matter what the cost.”

Rufus Wainwright

...His latest work, Dream Requiem, is an epic work for orchestra, chorus, soprano and narrator. It received its world premiere in June this year in Paris with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the chorus and children’s choir of Radio France conducted by Mikko Franck with Meryl Streep as the narrator and soprano Anna Prohaska. On January 17th 2025, Warner Classics will release the live recording from the premiere.

A co-commission from major cultural institutions in the US, UK and Europe, Dream Requiem was written during the pandemic and in Wainwright’s own words it’s a requiem "for the people we have lost in this crisis, for the past from which we are cut off and for the future to which we do not yet know how to connect, a Requiem for human contact, solidarity and the human voice that have all become dangerous and contagious."

Dream Requiem is also a reflection on environmental collapse with its text combining words from the Latin Mass for the Dead – as used by Verdi, Britten, Mozart and many others – with Lord Byron's apocalyptic poem Darkness, an imagined dream about total planetary ecological collapse written after the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1915 that darkened the skies worldwide and led to the “year without a summer.”

Both texts are interwoven in the composition but treated in a distinctly different manner musically. Byron’s text is mostly narrated by an actor and is underscored by dark orchestral arrangements demonstrating the brutality and sheer force of the apocalyptic images that the poem conjures. The Latin Requiem text is sung by a large mixed choir, children’s choir and soprano. Massive choral moments are interrupted by quieter soprano solo passages to underline the fragility of life and nature. Wainwright’s Dream Requiem ultimately overcomes this desolation and tragedy, giving rise to hope and beauty through the music

...Dream Requiem Tour

Dream Requiem will be performed at major international venues across 2025 to 2027. Forthcoming dates in 2025 include:

January 25, Barcelona/Palau de la Musica

May 4, LA Master Chorale Walt Disney Concert Hall, with Jane Fonda

June 20, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, with Carice van Houten

Other dates to be announced in 2025 including major venues in Finland, Germany, Greece and Ireland.

Jim Merlis at BigHassledotcom



the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1915

Wonder how the Kurt Weill record is