Rufus Wainwright - Release The Stars (May 2007)

 

So I have recently started rebuilding my CD collection by wandering around charity shops in West London and hoping to find the best bargains. This is an artist I discovered by doing just that, managing to buy his s/t, Want One, Want Two and Poses very cheaply. Having listened to Want Two a few times and finding I like Rufus' experimentation with classical pop, I looked at the reviews of his other albums. Release The Stars, it became clear, was possibly his weakest album. Hmm. When I saw it in a charity shop I avoided buying it but something about this artist, made me eventually go back determined to give it a spin. 

I'm glad I did. One reviewer had said that this came out at a time when there was too much money in the music industry and that being overproduced and stilted using badly written lyrics, one should avoid this album. Well, I quite like it. It's poppy with lots of different styles and uses pretty extensive classical composition too, like the Want albums. I can't compare to other albums but Mr. Wainwright has a good voice and an interesting take on crafting a song. The variation of speeds makes this album able to keep playing on in the background, coming at you with surprise after surprise. 

Well, the lyrics, might not be too deep but I find that music need not always be heavy on the soul. Rufus Wainwright's voice is, granted, an acquired taste and does bear some resemblance to Thom Yorke in some kind of cabaret, because the numbers do sound different, perhaps as only a known and talented homosexual can sound. Camp mixed with sadness, for me at least, creates an engrossing soundscape. 

You can put this record on and do something else, it doesn't jar and doesn't stick a wretched hook into your belly. Songs like Sideshow where the question is asked "Do I love you?"and a track titled "Do I Disappoint You?" shows you the subject matter is light but it's the music which makes impresses. I like the little different parts individual to each track, even if some of them could be said to drag on, but if you're going to play an album, let it do it's thing, right? Repetition is a part of music and perhaps the accusation leveled at Wainwright is that he is quite samey, but he can and clearly does love singing in that quite bar-ballad-bard/musical way. I was surprised to see that Track 2, Going To This Town, a quite political song about America, from where he hails, was the second most played song on Spotify, which is strange because it's not even that good. 

Clearly Rufus'  influences are varied. This record doesn't hit you but has its moments, and it's one you can leave playing until the end because it's quirks make it grab you, never quite letting go - however that depends how much you can stand Rufus' idealistic, romantic and sentimental character. There is no denying though that he has that star quality and he does create his own unique sound on this record which, I for one, do enjoy.