NEW ON CD
Music and lyrics contrast
to create ornate work
Originally released back in late September, I had just separated this CD up from out of the stacks of un-listened-to albums on my living room floor for two reasons: The subsequent reviews on Wainwright's third album were good, and I was starting to compile my best-of lists for publication in this section Thursday.
"Want One"
Rufus Wainwright
DreamWorks
Well, thanks to the musical and production strengths of this album, it certainly deserves a mention as one of the finer albums of the year. Wainwright has this forlorn "choirboy in the big city" voice that is an effective counterpoint to the classical- and folk-styled music on "Want One," filled with wonderfully ornate production work by Marius de Vries.
The lush romanticism of the music contrasts with Wainwright's openhearted lyrical pleas for love -- you could listen to this album as an opera of his desires (at the end of the credits printed in the booklet, he wryly states, "This record is dedicated to me"). The opening "Oh What a World" even quotes a bit of Ravel's "Bolero" as both the music and emotion swells.
Wainwright's writing is filled with the observations of a man of the world, in constant motion, looking for, as he sings in "Movies of Myself," "a love that is longer than a day." The glorious promise and more-often failings of love are fully realized on the album's best song, "Go or Go Ahead." It contrasts nicely with the following song, "Vibrate," where even the promise of easy and instant human contact via the cell phone goes unrealized.
"Want One" shows the continued growth of Wainwright as one of the better singer-songwriters around.
The enhanced CD allows special access to a secret Web site with exclusive content -- Wainwright performing solo with piano the album's "B-sides," "Es Mus Sein" and "Velvet Curtain Rag," plus video from a Montreal gig of the songs "Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk" and "Harvester of Hearts." The site also includes album track-by-track comments by Wainwright himself that can be opened with Windows Media.
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