A Long-Winded Mash Note to Rufus!

A little, white-haired birdy with borderline paranoia pointed me to a source for the bootleg of Rufus Wainwright's upcoming album, Release the Stars.

Back when Rufus Wainwright was just starting out, some wise person at Dreamworks records teamed him up with composer/producer Van Dyke Parks. Parks – of Beach Boys orchestral fame - provided the rich chamber flourishes that made Rufus’ drunk, gay cabaret into excessive art. We all could have decided right then and there that Wainwright was only providing the quant, schmoozy torch songs equally touched with his parents’ skill at folk songs and his own love of opera, Garland, and schmaltz.

However, every producer that has worked with Rufus since his emergence seems to understand that Mr. Wainwright works best a little lovingly overdone. Rufus is truly the rococo art version of rock cabaret; adding a little more only seems to make it better! French dance mixer Pierre Marchand, Madonna-tronica producer Marius deVries, and now even Pet Shop Boy Neil Tenant all have met Rufus on his own ground for five albums. Because these producers all seem to understand that he has already created a world worth exploring; their productions are never great departures from the strings and horns of his first album.

Rufus may not be for everyone, but if you are even slightly amenable to his woozy, scooping baritone and his melodramatic work, he is quite simply the best there is.

That being said – wow! To test the rococo theory of “more is never enough”, producer Neil Tenant opens Release the Stars with “Do I Disappoint You.” The pleasant acoustic guitars and sitar hums at the start open up to a High Holy chorus replete with banshee-yelling backups (provided by Rufus’ sister, Martha). Tom-toms and bongos give way to kettle drums. Trilling flutes pave the way for a full Wagnerian orchestra with battle-cry French Horns. And Rufus is singing at the top of his lungs, “Why does it always have to be chaos!?!”

The rest of the album is pure Rufus. If his songs don’t completely reach gay Nirvana, it’s in the mood he employs. He works well tongue-in-cheek, he can be devilishly charming, his joyful songs are lovingly tinged with sadness; but his tired, ennui-filled songs somewhat create that mood. When he sings, “I’m so tired of you, America,” (In “Going to a Town”) I can tell, because he sounds ready to pass out into an alcohol-induced stupor. A little, righteous rage would’ve lifted this song a bit.

But then there’s “Tulsa,” a little two-and-a-half minute love song of sickly sweet excess that the Sooner State doesn’t really deserve! There’s the charming tome to the unrequited love of a straight boy called “Nobody’s off the Hook,” with its simple piano and swaying strings; it’s hard not to smile hearing it. The glorious Spanish trumpets make “Slideshow” soar. There are lyrics, “Do I love you because you treat me so indifferently? Or is it the medication?” Other lyrics get medical, “I shed a tear between my legs.”

The album consistently deals with love and all its ups and downs: unrequited love of straight boys, love of Parisian dance halls, lust, co-dependence, one-night stands, loving nods to Elton John, and finally a glorious mash note to old Hollywood in the title track, “Release the Stars.”

This final song is a reference to the antiquated procedure of having the great actors under binding contract to Paramount and MGM; Rufus begs that the studios throw open their gates and release these legendary performers to their adoring fans:

“Why do you keep all your stars in
From your studio on Melrose Avenue?
You, who have lost all your assets, all
In lifelong contracts to you.
Didn’t you know that old Hollywood is over?
Oh, can’t you see all the good that
Celebrity can do for those in the dark?
Yes, of course, I am speaking in
Metaphors for something more in your heart.
Didn’t you know that old Hollywood is over?
So why don’t you just
Release the gates and let them all come out?!?
Remember that, without them, there would be no Paramount!!
Let to hold on to what isn’t yours!!!
Release the stars!!!!!”

(The exclamation points are mine, because this is what it sounds like to me.)

The point is, none of this works without a little – or a lot – of over-baked chutzpah and hankie-clutching. We can skip the one or two dullish tracks for the eight or ten pieces of opulent, flashy, claustrophobic brilliance. Thank God someone has the bravery, not to mention the monumental talent, to do this!

Here! This will be on Yousendit for about a week: http://download.yousendit.com/D85F38F713AC8D25

Stay tuned for a review of a bootleg of the new Tori Amos...